AL QAEDA'S OBAMA BASHING

Left: Ayman al-Zawahiri,
Al Qaeda's second in command

Above right (l-r): US President-elect Barack Obama; Current US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell
Source: Flickr

by Felix Ngasama

Al Qaeda has finally let it be known how it feels about US president-elect Barack Obama. Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri has gone into psychological bashing of Barack Obama calling him, current US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor Colin Powell a 'house negro', a slavery term used by Malcom X to describe black slaves who were loyal and kowtowing to their white masters.

Zawahiri criticised Obama's support for Israel and his plans to send more troops to Afghanistan where he says they will perish. He also reminded Obama that he (Obama) was born to a Muslim father, but he chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims.

The question is why was Al Qaeda quiet throughout the US presidential elections. Since Al Qaeda's destruction of New York's World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001, it has concetrated more on a psychological warfare with the US at home and has not successfully carried out any more terrorist attacks on US soil. But Osama bin Laden has been highly successful on the psychological front in his war against the US and he has cleverly used this to influence the US public opinion and sway the outcome of things in that country to suit him. In the 2004 US presidential elections observers - including George Bush himself - believed that Osama bin Laden's last minute video released just days before American voters went to the polls may have helped Bush get reelected.

For example if Al Qaeda did not like Barack Obama from the beginning all it needed to do to prevent him from being elected president of the US was to choose the most opportune time during the election campaign and get Osama bin Laden to issue a bellicose statement promising more terrorist attacks on US soil and US interests abroad. This would have automatically influenced US citizens to vote for John McCain a so called maverick who promised to recycle Bush's policies and take the fight to Al Qaeda to protect US citizens at home and abroad.

So the fact that Al Qaeda was quiet during the entire election campaign when polls were indicating that Obama was likely to be elected president of the US shows that perhaps Al Qaeda was happy with Barack Obama and expected him to break with American tradition of supporting Israel on one hand and soften the US stance against its mainly Muslim adversaries on the other considering that Obama's father was once a Muslim before he became atheist.

However much to Al Qaeda's chagrin, Barack Obama has indicated that he is going to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight against Al Qaeda and its loyal ally, the Taliban.

It may also be that Al Qaeda now undesirably views Barack Obama's popularity in the Muslim world coupled with his likeable and disarming personality as a threat that may draw away the much needed but very few Al Qaeda sympathisers and supporters.