Al-Qaeda’s No. 2 used a racial epithet to insult Barack Obama in a message posted on Wednesday, using a demeaning racial term implying that the President-elect is a Black American who does the bidding of Whites.

The message appeared chiefly aimed at persuading Muslims and Arabs that Obama does not represent a change in US policies. Ayman al-Zawahri said in the message, which appeared on militant websites, that Obama is “the direct opposite of honourable Black Americans” like Malcolm X, the 1960s African-American rights leader.

In al-Qaeda’s first response to Obama’s victory, al-Zawahri also called the President-elect — along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — “house negroes”.

Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term “abeed al-beit”, which literally translates as “house slaves.” But al-Qaeda supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as “house negroes.”

The message also includes old footage of speeches by Malcolm X in which he explains the term, saying black slaves who worked in their White masters’ house were more servile than those who worked in the fields. Malcolm X used the term to criticise Black leaders he accused of not standing up to Whites.

The 11-minute 23-second video features the audio message by al-Zawahri, who appears only in a still image, along with other images, including one of Obama wearing a Jewish skullcap as he meets with Jewish leaders. In his speech, al-Zawahri refers to a November 5 US airstrike attack in Afghanistan, meaning the video was made after that date.

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