Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, took aim at US President Barack Obama in a new video, accusing him of continuing to spill the blood of Muslims and saying Israel was a “crime” that must be wiped out, a US monitoring group said.
He also dismissed Obama’s Middle East peace push as a “deception” and accused Obama of seeking to create a “Palestinian state that works as a branch of the Israeli intelligence,” said a transcript of an interview published by the SITE Intelligence Group on Monday.
“Israel is a crime that must be eliminated,” declared the Egyptian-born surgeon considered the brains behind al-Qaeda, adding that Muslims have a duty to expel Israel from Palestine.
Zawahiri, whose whereabouts remain a mystery, also rejected Obama’s overtures to the Muslim world as an illusion, pointing to raids in Pakistan’s tribal regions and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Zawahiri, who dismissed Obama as a “house Negro” after his election in November, branded the US president a “criminal” and a “liar.”
“I say to him and to the Americans, plant hatred in the hearts of Muslims to reap [the harvest] from your blood,” Zawahiri said in his latest interview with al-Qaeda’s media arm As-Sahab.
Obama, who made a landmark speech in Cairo in June calling for improved ties between the West and Islam, “tries to sell an illusion to the wrong and oppressed,” said Zawahiri, who has a US$25 million bounty on his head.
He charged that Muslims were being “massacred” because of Obama’s policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan and insisted that Islamist fighters would continue to battle “infidel” troops until they withdraw from Muslim land.
In a video that SITE said was posted on jihadists Web forums last month, Zawahiri urged Pakistanis to support insurgents in their battle against a US-led “crusade,” which he said threatened the country’s existence,.
Zawahiri also blasted Obama’s Middle East policies, saying the US president was not sincere in his declared quest to reach a solution to decades of conflict and set up a Palestinian state.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
RSS