The Associated Press September 08, 2007
Bin Laden video studied for signs of health status
By Lee Keath
CAIRO, Egypt — Osama bin Laden's first appearance in three years in a new videotape has U.S. counterterrorism officials and experts poring over the details for clues to his health — is his newly dyed black beard significant? — and hints of new threats.
In the 26-minute video released Friday, bin Laden gives no easy answers. His voice is soft but firm. He has bags under his eyes, but his appearance dissolved rumors he had died from ill health. Instead of threatening attacks, he delivers a bitter lecture to the U.S. public.
He derides President Bush, tells Americans the Iraq war has failed and urges them to turn away from capitalism and democracy and convert to Islam.
Bush responded by calling the video a reminder of "the dangerous world in which we live."
"It's important that we show resolve and determination to protect ourselves, deny al-Qaida safe havens," Bush said while in Australia for a summit of Pacific Rim nations.
Bin Laden's emergence to mark the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. was calculated to make a splash, underlining the American failure to catch him at a time when experts say al-Qaida's top leadership is regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanisan border region.
"This was the perfect time for him to appear," said Mark Ensalaco, a terrorism expert at the University of Dayton. "He wants to demonstrate that he is alive and well and dispel any rumors that he may have died and is ill."
"His voice is the adrenalin of the mujahedeen (holy warriors), he wants a propaganda victory. He is trying to say: 'You have not defeated me, I am winning, you are losing in Iraq, and my appearance is proof of my victory,"' Ensalaco told The Associated Press.
Anniversary mentioned
The video appeared to have been recently made. At one point, bin Laden mentions that "several days ago" Japan marked the 62nd anniversary of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima.
And he seems up to date on current events, mentioning global warming and even Americans' mortgage woes. He also refers to the Democratic Party's congressional victory in last fall's election and to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was elected in May.
Washington was eager to get an advance look at the terror mastermind.
The United States intercepted the video before it was released on Islamic Web sites where al-Qaida usually posts its messages, a U.S. counterterrorism official said. Intelligence agencies had studied the video for hours before transcripts and videos were leaked, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Analysts were studying bin Laden's physical characteristics for clues about his health after unconfirmed rumors earlier this year that he had died of kidney disease, the official said.
The video was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages. Al-Jazeera TV broadcast a short excerpt of it to the Arab world.
In the video, the 50-year-old bin Laden speaks softly, as he usually does. He wears a white robe, a white circular cap and a beige cloak seated behind a table while reading his speech from papers in front of him.
His trimmed beard is shorter than in his last video, in 2004, and is fully black — apparently dyed, since in past videos it was mostly gray.
Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, said the dye-job might be an attempt to show a youthful appearance, much like Saudi kings and some Arab presidents do.
Even the technical qualities of the video raised questions. During the tape, bin Laden's image moves for only a total of about 3 1/2 minutes in two segments, staying frozen the rest of the time while his remarks continue.
Technical glitch?
A former senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it might have resulted from a technical glitch while al-Qaida passed the video through a variety of computer sites to mask its cyber trail.
Bin Laden is believed to have avoided appearing in videos for security reasons. He has not released new footage since October 2004, and he had not put out an audiotape in more than a year, his longest period without a message.
In the meantime, his deputy, Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri, issued numerous videos and audiotapes as al-Qaida increased the sophistication and speed of its media operations.
"There clearly has been a resurgence of core al-Qaida in the tribal areas of Pakistan," along the frontier with Afghanistan, said Seth Jones, a terrorism expert at the RAND think tank.
A sanctuary
He said sympathy in that region for the Taliban has made it more receptive to militant Sunni groups, including al-Qaida. "It's really created a sanctuary," Jones said.
But John Pike, director of the Washington-based think tank Globalsecurity.org, said bin Laden was trying to "remain relevant" at a time when his core leadership is less able to have direct control over militants across the world.
"Al-Qaida would like this to signal a resurgence, but there haven't been any of these big, spectacular, multi-continent attacks since 9-11," said Pike.
Bin Laden's attacks in the video on capitalism, multinational corporations and globalization led several current and former U.S. officials to believe an American propagandist for al-Qaida — 28-year-old Adam Gadahn — may have written at least part of the speech.
Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and supporting terrorism, has appeared in several al-Qaida-produced videos lecturing against capitalism and globalization and making insider references to American culture.
"It has Adam Gadahn written all over it," a former senior intelligence official said of the new bin Laden tape, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Threats to freedom
In the video, bin Laden calls capitalist leaders the real terrorists and threats to human freedom.
"This is why I tell you: as you liberated yourselves before from the slavery of monks, kings and feudalism, you should liberate yourselves from the deception, shackles and attrition of the capitalist system," he said.
The al-Qaida leader says there are "two solutions" to stopping the war in Iraq.
"One is from our side, and it is to escalate the fighting and killing against you. This is our duty, and our brothers are carrying it out," he said. "The second solution is from your side ... I invite you to embrace Islam."
One result of that, bin Laden said, would be an end to the Iraq war. He said "warmongering owners of the major corporations" would rush to appease voters who showed they are looking for an alternative, "and this alternative is Islam."
He derided President Bush, saying events in Iraq have gotten "out of control" and the American leader "is like the one who plows and sows the sea: He harvests nothing but failure."
And he praised author Noam Chomsky, an early critic of the Iraq war, as well as Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit, who has said poor U.S. leadership was losing the war against terrorist groups.
American politics
Bin Laden "knows Bush has low approval ratings, knows the significance of a growing awareness of global warming," said Thomas Sanderson, deputy director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "He's trying to capitalize on what he sees as a shift back to the middle in American politics."
Soon after word emerged that the U.S. had the video, Islamic militant Web sites that usually carry statements from al-Qaida went down and were inaccessible for several hours. By late Friday, the video still had not been posted on the sites. The reason for the shutdown was not immediately known.
When the sites reopened, many al-Qaida sympathizers posting messages accused the U.S. government of doing it.
Evan H. Kohlmann, a terrorism expert at globalterroralert.com, said he suspected it was the work of al-Qaida itself, trying to find how the video leaked to U.S. officials.
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Associated Press writers Lara Jakes Jordan, Pamela Hess and Matthew Lee in Washington and Sarah DiLorenzo in New York contributed to this report.
© Copyright 2007, The Associated Press
