"Obama is the worst nightmare of bin Laden"

The virulent exit number two of Al-Qaeda, Ayman Zawahiri, against Barack Obama shows fear, which the president-elect of the United States within the terrorist network, according to an expert in radical Islam. In an audio message broadcast yesterday on the Internet, the deputy of Osama bin Laden has addressed the first Black access to the White House of "slave" for the whites and denounced his promise to send American reinforcements in Afghanistan. "The election of Barack Obama Al-Qaeda terror," said Fawaz Gerges, chairman of the department of Middle East studies at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and author of two books on jihadism, including Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy. "Barack Obama represents the worst nightmare of bin Laden," said University of Lebanese origin in a telephone interview. "His rhetoric and symbolism change the rules of the game delegitimizes bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the eyes of Arabs and Muslims." It was the first public intervention Ayman Zawahiri since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency. The number two of Al-Qaeda has borrowed from Malcolm X, the black American Muslim activist murdered in 1965, the term "domestic slaves" to refer not only the president-elect but also the last two U.S. secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. "What Malcolm X said about black slaves domestic applies to you and people like you," said Zawahiri in a recording entitled "Bush's departure and the arrival of Obama." "You represent the opposite of black Americans as Malcolm X," he added. Registration is accompanied by photos of Zawahiri, Malcolm X and Barack Obama praying at the Wailing Wall during a visit to Israel this year. And the number two Al-Qaeda to comment: "You have chosen to join the ranks of the enemies of Muslims and say the prayers of Jews, although you said that your mother was Christian." According to Fawaz Gerges, the message from Zawahiri could turn against its author, although several Arabs and Muslims began to déchanter about Obama. "There is great enthusiasm among Arabs and Muslims about Barack Obama," said the researcher, who made frequent trips to the Middle East over the past 18 months. "But this enthusiasm has declined over the last six or seven months because Barack Obama is seen increasingly as a centrist politician, an ordinary American politician. "That said, many of the people I interviewed in the Middle East are critical Zawahiri. It accuses him of not achieving concrete with the exception of its videos. It is possible that people are saying: look before judging Barack Obama, it is not even in power. " The transition team of President-designate said yesterday that it does not respond publicly to the insulting of Zawahiri. On the eve of the release of its message, Obama had telephoned Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he promised to continue working to advance the peace process.