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Which presidential candidate the terrorists wanted to win became a campaign issue, but now that Barack Obama is set to become president, they seem to be a little… confused. And making matters worse, experts are just as divided over Al Qaeda's attitudes toward elections.
During the campaign, a Hamas leader endorsed Obama; then, the Washington Post reported that Al Qaeda seemed to favor John McCain. Over at the New York Daily News, ace terrorism reporter James Gordon Meek has dug into what they think now. The answer? They are “flummoxed.” Some want to call a truce with Obama. Others argue that the United States is the enemy no matter who is president, according to Meek. But after the story published, one former counterterrorism operative told Meek he got the story wrong altogether -- contradicting what another expert told Meek. Either way, Meek pointed out, Al Qaeda still has not made any official remarks about the election results.
Is it possible that they don’t care? Meek found that much of the Internet chatter among Al Qaeda types was focused on Wall Street’s collapse, not the U.S. elections. And at the Counterterrorism Blog, Roderick Jones notes that Al Qaeda seemingly made no attempt to influence the election, and said that perhaps previous attempts to influence elections were misread. |
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