Obama's threat to al-Qaeda

Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian doctor who is al-Qaeda's second in command, has released a tape in which he blasts President-elect Barack Obama as a "house slave" whose policies will be no different than George W.Bush's.



This may signal either an al-Qaeda call rallying dormant troops or a real worry that Obama's appeal may dry up al-Qaeda's source of recruitment among young, disenfranchised Muslims.

News analyst Pepe Escobar argues that Obama has a unique opportunity - in ideological terms - to render al-Qaeda irrelevant if he charts a new course from Bush's "war on terror."