Global Arab Network | Al-Zawahiri urges Muslims to ignore Obama

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Al-Zawahiri urges Muslims to ignore Obama

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaida's No. 2 man, urged Muslims to ignore Obama as the US president starts visit to the region, according to 10-minute recording posted on a Web site linked to Al-Qaida, the terrorist organization.

The BBC reported al-Zawahiri called Obama "that criminal who came seeking, with deception, to obtain what he failed to achieve on the ground after the mujaheddin ruined the project of the Crusader America in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia."

He also lashed out at Egyptian officials who will greet Obama, labeling them "slaves" who have turned Egypt into an "international station of torture in America's war on Islam."

Ayman al-Zawahiri told Muslims not to heed the "elegant words" of the US leader whose speech in Cairo on Thursday is aimed at repairing ties with the Islamic world damaged by his predecessor's "war on terror" policies.

"His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words," Zawahiri said.

The U.S. network CNN reported al-Zawahiri as saying the American leader showed himself to be an enemy of Muslims by his recent visit to Israel.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said Obama's speech "will outline his personal commitment to engagement, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect".

"He will discuss how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them."

Obama will first fly to Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, who has been trying to relaunch a 2002 Arab-backed regional peace initiative.

"No one speech is going to solve every problem," Obama said in an interview with the BBC. But he said his trip was "an opportunity for us to get both sides to listen to each other a little bit more and then hopefully learn something."

Obama said that in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Washington had sometimes not been "careful to distinguish our very real need to hunt down extremists ... and broader policy differences or cultural differences that exist."

"There are misapprehensions on the part of the West about the Muslim world, and obviously there's some big misapprehensions about the Muslim world when it comes to those of us in the West," he added.

Obama said earlier on Tuesday that his country's relationship with Israel means he has to be "honest" with the country over such controversial issues as settlements and their obstruction to peace.

Obama told NPR, a US radio network, in advance of his trip to the Middle East, that he wanted to see a "new dialogue" in the region in order to forge a solution to the Middle East conflict.

"I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also US interests," he said.

Since taking office, Obama has moved to reverse a number of controversial policies that have antagonized Muslims.

He has vowed to close the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo and banned the harsh interrogations techniques that the CIA had used on "high value" prisoners.

But there has been no let up on US missile attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in the Pakistani tribal areas that border Afghanistan.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that about half of top 20 US-designated Al-Qaeda or extremist targets have been eliminated in missile attacks launched by drones since last fall. (AFP, Aljazeera, UPI, CNN, BBC)

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