American Al-Qaeda Spokesman Threatens Bush In New Video

January 6, 2008 · Filed Under Terrorism, Terrorists, Video, War on Terror

American Al Qaeda leader Adam Gadahn told his followers in a new video message to welcome Bush “with bombs and traps” upon his upcoming visit to the Middle East this week.

“The occupied territories are awaiting their first visit by the crusader Bush and the mujahideen are also waiting for him,” said Gadahn, a California native and now an Al Qaeda spokesman.

U.S.-born Adam Gadahn also tore up his U.S. passport as part of a symbolic protest against the U.S. in the nearly hour-long rhetoric- dominated tape—al-Qaida’s first message of the new year.

“I don’t need it to travel anyway,” he said afterwards.

The release comes just three days before Bush is scheduled to arrive in Israel for a weeklong trip that will also bring him to the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as part of his push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

“Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers in Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula … to be ready to receive the Crusader slayer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula in the beginning of January and to receive him not with flowers or clapping but with bombs and booby-trapped vehicles,” Gadahn said in Arabic.

During the rest of the 50-minute video, titled “An Invitation to Reflection and Repentance,” Gadahn spoke mostly in English, appearing to specifically address the American people. He said al-Qaida felt the need to release the statement after Washington’s “defeat” in Iraq and Afghanistan and failed attempts by the Bush administration to bring peace to the Middle East.

“We felt it necessary to address the American people and explain to them some of the facts about these critical and fast-moving events,” said Gadahn, who wore a white-and-red headscarf and sat behind a desk with a laptop computer and coffee mug nearby.

This latest message is in stark contrast to a message released by Osama Bin Laden himself just a couple of weeks ago. In an audio tape Bin Laden acknowledges recent victories by U.S. forces in Iraq, and condemned the Sunni clerics that have aligned themselves with U.S. troops to fight Al-Qaeda.

The Hot Joints posted a 4-part video series a while back from Adam Ghadan in which he discusses at length the Al-Qaeda philosophy and why it targets America.