President Barack Obama on Tuesday said the United States had al Qaeda on the run and vowed a relentless fight against the militants, from Afghanistan to the Arabian Peninsula. Nearly a decade since the attacks of September 11, 2001, Obama portrayed al Qaeda as the top security threat facing the country in his State of the Union address, touting progress in efforts to counter the network.
But in a speech devoted mainly to reviving the economy, Obama only briefly touched on terror threats and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where more than 140,000 troops are deployed. He said al Qaeda's leadership was under more pressure in Pakistan now than at any time since the 9/11 attacks and that the US-led war in neighbouring Afghanistan would deny the network sanctuary there.
"Their leaders and operatives are being removed from the battlefield. Their safe-havens are shrinking," Obama said of al Qaeda in Pakistan. A revitalised President Barack Obama bluntly told America to reinvent itself and unite to survive in a fast-changing global economy powered by rising giants like India and China.
"The rules have changed. In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work and do business," Obama said, noting that rising powers like India and China were now highly competitive. But he added Americans should not give up the fight.
"Yes, the world has changed. The competition for jobs is real. But this shouldn't discourage us. It should challenge us," the president said, citing US pathfinders from the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison to Google and Facebook. "We need to out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world. "We do big things. Our destiny remains our choice," Obama added in a speech punctuated by multiple ovations that sought to consign two years of economic gloom to the past, as his 2012 re-election race stirs.
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