tinyurl.com/5bs9tp -> www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE4AI47X20081120
Osama bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al Zawahri attacked Obama as a "house Negro," a racially-charged term used by 1960s black American Muslim leader Malcolm X to describe black slaves loyal to white masters. "You represent the direct opposite of honorable black Americans like ... Malcolm X," Zawahri said in an 11-minute recording publicized on the Internet on Wednesday. It was al Qaeda's first high-level commentary on Obama's election on November 4 Bin Laden could also release a message on Obama within the next two weeks or so, one analyst said. Zawahri criticized Obama's support for Israel and plans to send more US troops to Afghanistan, where he said they were destined to fail. He urged Islamist fighters to keep striking a "criminal" United States until it withdraws from Muslim lands. The recording was distributed on a videotape that carried pictures of Obama at the Western Wall in Jerusalem and Malcom X, flanking Zawahri in the center. US officials and analysts, alert for signs of an attack in the period leading up to the transfer of presidential power on January 20, said there was no sign of an imminent threat. They cast Zawahri's message as an attempt to shift al Qaeda's focus from US President George W Bush and maintain an enmity against the United States among its supporters. "They're faced with what is by any accounting a change in this country," said one US counterterrorism official who asked not to be identified. OBAMA BRINGING CHANGE "The way they're dealing with the change represented by the election of an African American as president of the United States is to insist that nothing has changed," he said. His election was greeted with broad hope in the Middle East, where US relations with Arabic countries were deeply strained under Bush. Daniel Benjamin, a counterterrorism official under former President Bill Clinton, said Obama's election on a platform of breaking with Bush policies was a boost to American "soft power," or nonmilitary international influence. "I think they (al Qaeda) are deeply threatened by the fact there is a new American president and that he has come to office saying he wants to have a more constructive relationship with the one billion Muslims in the world." Zawahri, he said, "feels like he has a competitor for the hearts and minds."
Actress Katie Holmes walks with her husband Tom Cruise and their daughter Suri after Holmes finished the 2007 New York City Marathon in New York November 4, 2007.
A young Tibetan Buddhist monk holds a piece of his clothing after attending a prayer ceremony outside a Buddhist monastery in the northern Indian city of Shimla November 19, 2008. Tibetans could push for independence from China if exile groups meeting this week in India decide that is their only option, Samdhong Rinpoche, Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, said on Tuesday. Frustrated at the lack of progress in official talks with Beijing, hundreds of Tibetans are meeting in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala, the exiled Tibetans' headquarters, searching for a way forward. REUTERS/Anil Dayal Slideshow Slideshow A selection of our best photos from the past 24 hours.
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