CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's American spokesman urged fighters to meet President Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East, according to a new video posted on the Internet Sunday. U.S.-born Adam Gadahn also tore up his American passport as part of a symbolic protest in the nearly hour-long rhetoric-dominated tape—al- Qaida's first message of the new year.
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, 29, said in Arabic.
"This just shows once again, al-Qaida offers nothing but violence and death," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.
