Al-Qaida sites show support for Obama
Monitor says terrorists wants Democrat to pull troops so they can ‘claim victory’
The call this week by an al-Qaida leader for Allah to “humiliate” President Bush and the Republican Party in Tuesday’s election was not the first tacit endorsement of Democrat Barack Obama by the terrorist network.
A contributor to a major al-Qaida website last week said the terrorist group will “let the Democrats win the presidential elections, and Obama will take it,” according to Joseph Shahda, an Arabic translator who monitors radical Islamic websites.
Obama’s “goal is to withdraw from Iraq” over a period of time, but “he will be forced to withdraw his forces from Iraq at a much earlier time,” said the Oct. 23 post, written under the name “Wissam” on the Al-Hesbah website. Shahda first posted his translation on the popular forum freerepublic.com.
Shahada told WND the Al-Hesbah website is one of four main al-Qaida-related forums.
“Overall there are many more posters on these forums who want McCain defeated, because they want Obama to withdraw the U.S. troops from Iraq so the terrorists will claim victory,” Shahda said.
The Oct. 23 post also called for launching a “crushing strike” after the election.
Shahda explained that all al-Qaida press releases, videos, audios and speeches are first posted on the terrorist forums.
He noted that a Q&A session in January with al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was based on questions posed by contributors to the four major websites.
In the video released Thursday, an al-Qaida leader believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Abu Yahya al-Libi, declared, “O Allah, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him.”
Libi also called for the wrath of Allah to be brought against Bush, equating him with past tyrants, according to Reuters.
The title of a Washington Post story Oct. 22 suggested the forums indicated significant al-Qaida support for John McCain.
But the story, “On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain,” cited on