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To Combat Obama, Al-Qaeda Hurls Insults
Effort Hints at Group's Consternation
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 25, 2009; A01
Soon after the November election, al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader took
stock of America's new president-elect and dismissed him with an
insulting epithet. "A house Negro," Ayman al-Zawahiri said.
That was just a warm-up. In the weeks since, the terrorist group
has unleashed a stream of verbal tirades against Barack Obama,
each more venomous than the last. Obama has been called a
"hypocrite," a "killer" of innocents, an "enemy of Muslims." He
was even blamed for the Israeli military assault on Gaza, which
began and ended before he took office.
"He kills your brothers and sisters in Gaza mercilessly and
without affection," an al-Qaeda spokesman declared in a grainy
Internet video this month.
The torrent of hateful words is part of what terrorism experts
now believe is a deliberate, even desperate, propaganda campaign
against a president who appears to have gotten under al-Qaeda's
skin. The departure of George W. Bush deprived al-Qaeda of a
polarizing American leader who reliably drove recruits and
donations to the terrorist group.
With Obama, al-Qaeda faces an entirely new challenge, experts
say: a U.S. president who campaigned to end the Iraq war and to
close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and who polls
show is well liked throughout the Muslim world.
Whether the pro-Obama sentiment will last remains to be seen. On
Friday, the new administration signaled that it intends to
continue at least one of Bush's controversial counterterrorism
policies: allowing CIA missile strikes on alleged terrorist
hideouts in Pakistan's autonomous tribal region.
But for now, the change in Washington appears to have rattled
al-Qaeda's leaders, some of whom are scrambling to convince the
faithful that Obama and Bush are essentially the same.
"They're highly uncertain about what they're getting in this new
adversary," said Paul Pillar, a former CIA counterterrorism
official who lectures on national security at Georgetown
University. "For al-Qaeda, as a matter of image and tone, George
W. Bush had been a near-perfect foil."
Al-Qaeda's rhetorical swipes at Obama date to the weeks before
the election, when commentators on Web sites associated with the
group debated which of the two major presidential candidates
would be better for the jihadist movement. While opinions
differed, a consensus view supported Republican Sen. John McCain
(Ariz.) as the man most likely to continue Bush administration
policies and, it was hoped, drive the United States more deeply
into a prolonged guerrilla war.
Soon after the vote, the attacks turned personal -- and
insulting. In his Nov. 16 video message, Zawahiri denounced
Obama as "the direct opposite of honorable black Americans" such
as Malcolm X. He then used the term "house Negro," implying that
Obama is merely a servant carrying out the orders of powerful
whites.
Since then, as Obama has begun moving to reverse controversial
Bush administration policies, the verbal attacks have become
sharper, more frequent and more clearly aimed at Muslim
audiences.
On Jan. 6, Zawahiri issued a message calling for a global jihad
by Muslims to counter Israel's military campaign in Gaza. He
then sought to frame the Israeli assault as a "link in the chain
of the crusade against Islam and Muslims," with
then-President-elect Obama at the head of the chain.
"These raids are Obama's gift to you before he takes office,"
the Egyptian-born Zawahiri said in the message, addressed to
"Muslim brothers and mujaheddin."
"This is Obama, whom the American machine of lies tried to
portray as the rescuer who will change the policy of America,"
Zawahiri said, according to a translation provided by Site
Intelligence Group, a private company that monitors jihadist
communications.
Days before Obama's inauguration, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden chimed in with a mocking prediction that the new president
would founder under the weight of the military and financial
burdens he would inherit. No matter what he tried to do, Obama
would ultimately lose, bin Laden said on Jan. 14.
"If he withdraws from the war, it is military defeat," he said
in an audiotaped message. "And if he continues it, he drowns in
economic crisis. How can it be that [Bush] passed over to him
two wars, not one war, and he is unable to continue them? We are
on our path to open other fronts, with permission from Allah."
Friday, a new al-Qaeda salvo attempted to embarrass Obama, a day
after the new president announced his plans for closing the
prison at Guantanamo Bay. Appearing on the videotaped message
were two men who enlisted in al-Qaeda after being freed from
that detention center.
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our
principles for which we went out, did jihad for and were
imprisoned for," said Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, who
described himself as a deputy commander for al-Qaeda in the
Arabian Peninsula. The translation was also provided by the Site
group.
Site founder Rita Katz said the messages show "just how much
al-Qaeda is intimidated by Obama."
"The leadership of al-Qaeda is very concerned about the wide
support that Obama has been receiving from Arab and Muslim
countries," Katz said. "To combat this threat, al-Qaeda has
embarked on a propaganda campaign against Obama, not only by
linking him to the policies of the Bush administration,
including the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also by
accusing him of actions in which he had no part."
Other jihadist groups appear less threatened, or perhaps more
accepting of an American commander who appears more open to
peaceful accommodation, Katz said. A publication known as Al-Samoud,
linked to the Taliban in Afghanistan, viewed Obama's election as
a welcome sign that Americans are "very much tired from the
bitter war" and do not wish to prolong a conflict "ignited by
Bush's insanity and his satanic policy."
Regardless of how Obama is viewed now by the Muslim world --
savior, menace or something in between -- the opinions will
almost certainly change in the coming months. For Muslim
countries, as for the United States, perceptions based on
rhetoric and image will soon collide with reality as the
policies of the new administration take form, said Pillar, the
former CIA official.
"Inevitably Obama will make certain decisions that will be
unpopular and which the propagandists will quickly castigate,"
Pillar said. "I expect that the honeymoon will be just as
fragile and short as with the American electorate."
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. |
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