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Jihadist sites debate traits of US candidates
Competing jihadist commentators measure Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama against a single yardstick: which presidential candidate would bring about America's downfall the fastest.
- Los Angeles Times- Washington Post
- Published: 22:58 November 1, 2008
- Jihadist commentators are measuring Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama against a single yardstick: which presidential candidate would bring about America's downfall the fastest.
- Image Credit: Gulf News Archive
Washington: With the US presidential election nearing, websites closely linked to Al Qaida have become a sparring ground, as competing jihadist commentators measure Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Barack Obama against a single yardstick: which presidential candidate would bring about America's downfall the fastest.
The one area of apparent agreement is the belief that both candidates are bad men. Recent web posts have mocked McCain as "impetuous" and "more stupid and more extreme than Bush," while others have prayed for Obama's death.
One prominent commentator whose views have tracked closely with Al Qaida's predicted that next president, whoever it is, would be forced to withdraw from the Muslim world.
"If the enemy continues to remain in our land, it will exhaust America, and this is one of Al Qaida's objectives," read an item posted last week by the writer known as Asad Al Jihad 2. "If [America] withdraws its forces, then Al Qaida will have control of the land and will turn to its other enemies to eliminate them. ... This, too, is one of Al Qaida's objectives."
The commentaries have mostly appeared on Al Ekhlaas and Al Hesbah, two password-protected websites closely tied to Al Qaida. Some of the more prominent postings were translated and analysed by the SITE Intelligence Group, a private company that monitors jihadist websites for government and industry clients.
"There is no particular consensus among jihadists on which particular candidate would most benefit Al Qaida and the group's goals," said SITE director Rita Katz, whose group released a compendium of recent postings this week. Katz also noted that none of the commentators was really endorsing either candidate.
"Al Qaida can no more advocate for a particular candidate than the US president can support a new leader for Al Qaida," Katz said in a statement.
Much of the recent debate about the US election was spurred by an Al Hesbah commentary early last week that expressed a strong preference for McCain, arguing that the Republican would draw the United States deeper into a costly guerrilla war with Al Qaida in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Al Qaida will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of predecessor, Bush," wrote Mohammad Haafid on October 20. Haafid's is one of the oldest and most influential voices within Al Qaida's Internet community, with more than 600 postings since 2003, SITE officials said.
Haafid's commentary drew dozens of responses, including some arguing that an Obama presidency would hasten the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.
The pullout would be "strongly in favour of the Islamic State of Iraq" and would allow Al Qaida to create a base from which to expand the conflict to other Middle Eastern countries, wrote one poster, "Al Qalam," on Monday.
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