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Summary
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, according to a US monitoring group. 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, according to a transcript of an interview published by the SITE Intelligence Group. 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 2008, 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. 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. 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 an independent Palestinian state.
