Bush should be welcomed "not by flowers and applause, but with bombs and car bombs," said Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam who has been indicted for treason by a US jury.
The audio message is the first Al-Qaeda warning of 2008, and follows a message from the network's chief Osama bin Laden on December 30 in which he warned Muslims against supporting Iraq's US-backed government and promised the "liberation of Palestine." The bulk of the 50-minute tape attributed to Gadahn is in English, although the call to bomb the US president is made in Arabic.
"I send this urgent call to our brothers the Mujahedin, mainly in Palestine and the Arabian Peninsula, and in the region in general, to be ready to welcome the Crusader, the butcher Bush... not by flowers and applause, but with bombs and car bombs," he said, according to a translation. The message was posted on a website usually used by Islamists.