Cairo ? A day before President Barack Obama is to deliver a speech seeking goodwill with the Islamic world, al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden tried in a new message Wednesday to convince Muslims they should hate him.

The message was the second from al-Qaida in as many days criticizing Obama. Analysts said the PR offensive shows the terrorist organization worries the new president will succeed in improving America’s image in the Muslim world and undermine the group’s anti-American jihad, or holy war.

“Obama’s election is just about the worst thing that could have happened to these guys,” said Tom Sanderson, a terrorism expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They knew right away that his election undermined a key part of their argument that the U.S. was anti-Islamic, that the U.S. was racist.”

Obama met Wednesday with Saudi King Abdullah during the first leg of his Mideast tour. His speech at Cairo University today is part of a campaign to prove he differs from former President George W. Bush, whose invasion of Iraq and aggressive counterterrorism tactics stoked Muslim ire and helped al-Qaida rally support.

Al-Qaida has tried to counter that message by painting Obama as no different from Bush, highlighting U.S. involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.