Al-Qaeda Supporters: Sen. John McCain is the better choice for President

Al-Qaeda supporters posted statements on their website endorsing John McCain for the upcoming presidential election in the U.S. They support McCain because he will likely continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and continue Bush’s "failing policies."

The SITE Intelligence Group monitors various Al-Qaeda sites for radical messages. The group recently found the following message posted in al-Hesbah, a password-protected website:

"This requires presence of an impetuous American leader such as McCain, who pledged to continue the war till the last American soldier...Then, al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming elections so that he continues the failing march of his predecessor, Bush."

To encourage American citizens to vote for McCain as the next president, the man who posted this message welcomes a pre-election attack on U.S. soil to pave the way for the Republican senator to become president. The message added:

"If al-Qaeda carries out a big operation against American interests...this act will be support of McCain because it will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America till its last year in it."

By endorsing McCain, Al-Qaeda hopes the United States will exhaust its resources for the military and hurt the economy even more. The message is believed to have been posted by a frequent contributor named Muhammad Haafid. According to SITE, Haafid is not directly connected to Al-Qaeda. SITE said recently the Al-Qaeda forums are inundated with messages about the financial woes of the U.S. Senior analyst Adam Raisman said this particular message caught their attention because there has been little other chatter on the forums about the U.S. election. Mark Salter, a senior McCain adviser, said he heard about the website chatter but didn’t comment on this particular message.