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.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
One of Japan’s biggest pop stars and best-known TV hosts, Masahiro Nakai, yesterday announced his retirement over sexual misconduct allegations, reports said, in the latest scandal to rock Japan’s entertainment industry. Nakai’s announcement came after now-defunct boy band empire Johnny & Associates admitted in 2023 that its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, for decades sexually assaulted teenage boys and young men. Nakai was a member of the now-disbanded SMAP — part of Johnny & Associates’s lucrative stable — that swept the charts in Japan and across Asia during the band’s nearly 30 years of fame. Reports emerged last month that Nakai, 52, who since
EYEING A SOLUTION: In unusually critical remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin, US President Donald Trump said he was ‘destroying Russia by not making a deal’ US President Donald Trump on Wednesday stepped up the pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine, threatening tougher economic measures if Moscow does not agree to end the war. Trump’s warning in a social media post came as the Republican seeks a quick solution to a grinding conflict that he had promised to end before even starting his second term. “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
RSS