US President expected to deliver speech to Muslim World in aftermath of killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that US President Barack Obama will deliver a speech reaching out to the Muslim world, in the aftermath of the killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and amid ongoing unrest in the Middle East and North Africa.

According to the daily, Obama is preparing a wide-ranging address to be delivered as early as next week in which he'll make the case that bin Laden's death, paired with popular uprisings sweeping the region, underscores the US view that the Al-Qaeda group is a spent force in the Muslim world.

Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser at the White House, told the newspaper that the speech was likely to be delivered before Obama departs on a five-day trip to Europe on May 23. "It's an interesting coincidence of timing - that he is killed at the same time that you have a model emerging in the region of change that is completely the opposite of bin Laden's model," Rhodes told the newspaper.

Officials said that the US president will make the case that bin Laden represented a failed approach of the past while populist movements brewing in the Middle East and North Africa represent the future.