Al-Qaida's Zawahri: Israel should be wiped off the map

Al-Qaida's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri said Israel should be wiped off the map and described the Jewish state as a crime against Muslims.

Zawahri also accused U.S. President Barack Obama of conducting a policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues that was bound to end in failure for the Palestinians, and said Obama wanted a Palestinian state that would serve as "an extension of the CIA."

"Israel is a crime that should be removed," Zawahri said in an interview with al Qaeda's media arm As-sahab, posted on an Islamist website on Monday.

Al-Qaida leaders have often said that they would focus their holy war on Israel after the creation of an Islamic state in Iraq.

Al-Qaida has no recognisable presence in Israel, or in the Palestinian Territories which are dominated by the Islamist group Hamas and the secular Fatah movement led by U.S.-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.