Greet Bush with 'bombs not flowers': Qaeda tape
Bush is due on an 8-day Mideast trip next week
An American member of al-Qaeda urged militants, in an internet video aired Sunday, to welcome U.S. President George W. Bush "with bombs and traps" during his trip to the Middle East next week and then proceeded to tear up his U.S. passport on camera.
"Welcome him not with flowers and applause but with bombs and traps," said Adam Gadahn, a convert to Islam who has been indicted for treason by a U.S. jury.
"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... with bombs and car bombs," he said, according to a translation.
Gadahn, also known as Azzam the American, said jihad against the United States would continue until it released Muslims from its jails. He complained about the treatment of jailed U.S. Islamist militant John Walker Lindh, and others.
In a theatrical move, he then took his U.S. passport from his breast pocket and showed its pages on camera before ripping it up in protest at the treatment of Muslim detainees.
The internet video, entitled "An Invitation to Reflection and Repentance",
is the first al-Qaeda warning of 2008, with the bulk of the 50-minute tape attributed to Gadahn spoken in English, except for the call to bomb the U.S. president which is in Arabic.
Arab leaders
Bush is due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday, the first U.S. president to visit the Jewish state in nine years, in a bid to hasten the search for peace with the Palestinians. He is also due to visit the West Bank as well as five Arab states.
The message strongly criticizes Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders for welcoming Bush to their countries as part of his eight-day tour of allies in the region.
It also contains a renewed attack on Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf over his support for the United States.
Gadahn recites verses from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and reviews the "victories" of the Mujahedin in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Maghreb.
He ends the message with prayers "for the victory of Muslims over the Jews, the Americans and their allies."
Adam Pearlman vs 'Azzam the American'
Gadahn -- also known Azzam al-Amriki or Azzam the American -- is a key Al-Qaeda propagandist and is originally from California.
Gadahn was born in 1978 in southern California, the son of a 1960s Jewish rock musician who later converted to Christianity and became a rural goat farmer. He was previously known as Adam Pearlman.
His conversion to Islam came after he attended the Islamic Centre of Orange County, California, where he is believed to have come under the influence of two foreign-born Islamist radicals.
Gadahn is believed to have left California for Karachi in 1998 and gradually lost contact with relatives in the United States.
He has appeared in several videotapes for Al-Qaeda since 2004, praising the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and threatening new terror onslaughts.
In October 2006, he became the first person to be charged in the United States with treason since the World War II era. The charge carries a minimum of five years in prison on conviction and a maximum penalty of death.
Gadahn, long believed to be in Pakistan, has a one million dollar reward posted for his capture, and he appears along with bin Laden on a U.S. "Wanted" poster featuring 26 "faces of global terrorism."