Armed group leader compares Obama to Napoleon

TIKurdistan RegionIT / IraqiNews.com: A leader of an armed group in the province of Salah al-Din likened U.S. President Barack Obama, when he addressed the Muslim world from Cairo , to Napoleon Bonaparte, when he delivered a speech at al-Azhar Mosque feigning respect to Islam after occupying Egypt at the end of the 18th century. “When I watched and heard Obama in Egypt reciting his speech, I thought of an image by historians about Napoleon Bonaparte addressing the Muslim world from al-Azhar Mosque while wearing a turban and carrying a version of the Holy Quran,” Abu al-Baraa, a leader of the so-called Jaysh al-Mujahideen (Mujahideen Army), an armed group, told IraqiNews.com news agency. “As a jihadist group, we deal with facts on the ground. We believe that the Americans’ words are lacking action. If a change in the direction of U.S. withdrawal from Iraq was in place, we would authorize figures known for their struggle stances to negotiate a post-withdrawal period. We support all honorable Iraqis and their unity for the sake of liberating the country from the occupiers and their lackeys,” he said. A number of armed organizations, including Jaysh al-Mujahideen , had recently announced that they have authorized Sheikh Harith al-Dari, the chief of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), to negotiate on their behalf if the U.S. administration asked for negotiations over their partial withdrawal from Iraqi cities, scheduled for June 30, or their overall withdrawal, scheduled for 2011. U.S. President Obama, during his speech addressed to the Muslim world from Cairo on Thursday (June 4), has pledged to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by this month’s end and pull out all forces from Iraq by the year 2011, reiterating that the United States does not seek any military bases in Iraq. “I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no basis and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq ‘s sovereignty is its own. And that’s why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq ‘s democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July and to remove all of our troops from Iraq by 2012,” Obama said in the speech before 3,000 people inside a Cairo University hall as carried by satellite channels. On December 13, 2008 , the Iraqi government has signed a long-term security agreement with the United States to organize the presence of foreign troops in Iraq with gradual pullout of U.S. troops to end by 2012. Nijm al-Juburi, a commander of the former Iraqi army, said the U.S. president was in “harmony” with Iran . “The objective of that speech was to win Arabs and Muslims for certain well-known goals. The harmony with Iran is yet another indication that work is underway to attain these goals that envisage above all the security of Israel and then the division of Iraq ,” Juburi told IraqiNews.com. “Obama’s address was a new strategy to keep humiliating the Arab and Muslim rulers. I don’t see a change in U.S. policies,” he added. AmR (I)/SR 1