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Barack Obama has set off for the Middle East where he is expected to reach out to the Muslim world in a speech in Cairo.
The US president left Washington DC on Tuesday and will visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday before continuing on to Egypt on Thursday, where he is expected to address Muslims directly.
Before he began his four-day trip to the Middle East, al-Qaeda's deputy leader urged Muslims not to listen to the US leader.
Calling Obama a "criminal", Ayman al-Zawahiri told Muslims not to heed the "elegant words" of the US president whose speech in Cairo is aimed at repairing ties with the Islamic world damaged by his predecessor's "war on terror" policies.
"His bloody messages were received and are still being received by Muslims, and they will not be concealed by public relations campaigns or by farcical visits or elegant words," said an audio recording purportedly by al-Zawahiri posted on an al-Qaeda-linked website on Tuesday.
The recording could not be verified.
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said Obama's speech "will outline his personal commitment to engagement, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect".
"He will discuss how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them."
Obama policies
Obama will first fly to Saudi Arabia for talks with King Abdullah, who has been trying to relaunch a 2002 Arab-backed regional "peace initiative".
Since he took office in January, Obama has made changes to many of George Bush's policies that proved unpopular among Muslims.
He has ordered the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and set a date for the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq.
The US president has also called on Israel to halt the building of settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
But there has been no let up on US missile attacks on targets in Pakistani tribal areas and hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in US strikes in Afghanistan.
Palestinian issue
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said Obama needed to untie himself from the idea that the Muslim world was the arena for the battle against "terror".
Underneath the rhetoric, it appeared that Obama was seeking to make significant changes to the US relationship with Israel, he said.
Obama said earlier on Tuesday that his country's relationship with Israel means he has to be "honest" with the country over such controversial issues as settlements and their obstruction to peace.
Obama told NPR, a US radio network, in advance of his trip to the Middle East, that he wanted to see a "new dialogue" in the region in order to forge a solution to the Middle East conflict.
"I think there have been times where we are not as honest as we should be about the fact that the current direction, the current trajectory, in the region is profoundly negative, not only for Israeli interests but also US interests," he said.
Obama also said the current situation in the region was "unsustainable" when it came to Israel's security.
PHOTO CAPTION
US President Barack Obama makes his way to board Air Force One at Dulles International Airport.
Al-Jazeera
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