New AQ video sign of attack? YES, umm NO

AQ video of 7.8.07

Experts warn of attack clues in Bin Laden video
08/09/2007 21h10
Osama bin Laden
©AFP/Site

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Intelligence experts scouring the latest video of Osama bin Laden for clues warned on Saturday that his message offers hints that Al-Qaeda is planning another attack on US interests.

In his first video appearance in three years, the elusive Al-Qaeda chief mocks the United States as "weak" and vows to escalate fighting in Iraq, all the while using language similar to the kind used ahead of other past attacks.

At times, bin Laden speaks directly to Americans, using plain language that "appears to be crafted in a way as to be understood by the average person on the street in Europe or in the US," said intelligence analyst Ben Venzke.

The latest video "contains phrases ... which serve as indicators that OBL's message is part of Al-Qaeda's efforts to fulfill its requirements to provide warning and a chance for the enemy to change its ways before executing an attack," Venzke said.

However, the message, delivered days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States in which 3,000 people were killed, gives no clues "to indicate when an attack ... would be attempted," he said.

The language, saying peace will befall "he who follows the guidance," mirrors that used in bin Laden's "European truce offer" of April 2004 in which he said: "Peace upon those who followed the right path."

The similarity in terms is important because the 2004 message appealing to Europeans to change their ways was the final message aimed specifically at Europeans before the July 2005 bombings in London which killed 52 people, said Venzke of the Virginia-based Intel Center......

According to Azzam Tamimi, head of the London-based Institute of Islamic Political Thought, the beard dye is a "sign of war." The rigorous Salafi Islamic school to which bin Laden belongs "condones this dye only in preparation for war," he said.

CIA Director Michael Hayden on Friday also warned that Al-Qaeda was planning new, large-scale attacks on US targets.

"Our analysts assess with high confidence that Al-Qaeda's central leadership is planning high impact plots against the American homeland," Hayden said.

http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/070908211009.q69zpqrt.html

http://tinyurl.com/28qugs

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White House: Bin Laden Tape Not A Signal For New Attack
U.S. -- Frances Townsend, Assistant to the US President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, 03May2006
Homeland Security Adviser Frances Townsend
(AFP)
September 9, 2007 -- U.S. President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, said today that a new video by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appears to be genuine.

Townsend also said the video contains nothing to suggest that an attack on the United States is imminent.

Parts of the video were broadcast just days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States that Al-Qaeda says it carried out.

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/09/7e658181-e1f0-4343-a992-7a2451f38579.html

http://tinyurl.com/29ud3l