Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda leader, has accused Barack Obama, the US president, of following the policy of his predecessor George Bush in "antagonising Muslims".
"He has followed the steps of his predecessor in antagonising Muslims ... and laying the foundation for long wars," bin Laden said in a tape released shortly after Obama arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
"Obama and his administration have sowed new seeds of hatred against America," bin Laden said referring to what he claimed to be a US support to Pakistan in its fight against Taliban in the Swat region, which has displaced 2.4 million people.
Bin Laden warned the American people against the risk of extended wars because of the policies of the different US administrations. "Let the American people prepare for to harvest the crops of what the leaders of the White House plant in the next years and decades," he said.
Saudi reaction
Saudi Arabia described the new tape a sign of the al-Qaeda chief's desperation. "It's an act of desperation," Nial al-Jubeir, a Saudi information ministry official, told AFP news agency.
"They are still making their statements while hiding in a cave," he said. Earlier, bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, urged Egyptians to shun Obama, saying his Middle East trip was at the invitation of the "torturers of Egypt" and the "slaves of America".
In a taped message released overnight, al-Zawahiri dubbed Obama a "criminal" who "is not welcome in Egypt". In March, bin Laden accused some Arab leaders of being "complicit" with Israel and the West against Muslims and urged holy war to liberate the Palestinian territories.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said that Bin Laden will be able to exploit the escalating conflicts in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where an increased number of US troops have been deployed under Obama in the latter case.
"As long as Afghanistan is that kind-of swamp of corruption, chaos, landlords, drugs and war it will be a place where extremism can be groomed against the United States and also Afghanistan, Pakistan and the rest of the Islamic world," Bishara said.
Source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963123251920623.html
No comments:
Post a Comment