WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, 15 November 2002 — The hoarse, breathless voice of Osama Bin Laden knocked the White House back on the defensive Wednesday at a time when it is trying to focus national attention on a looming confrontation with Iraq. The taped threat to Washington and its allies, which US officials confirmed was almost certain to be authentic, punctured growing hopes in the Bush administration that the Al-Qaeda leader had been killed during the war in Afghanistan.
A somber President Bush told journalists that American experts were still studying the tape, but he added: “We need to take these messages very seriously, and we will.” Conceding that the manhunt for Bin Laden was going “slowly” he promised Americans: “We’ll chase these people down one at a time. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, we’ll find them and bring them to justice.”
But with the Al-Qaeda leader still apparently at large, and amid heightened apprehension over the threat of a spectacular new attack on a Western target, the tape gave fresh momentum to criticism of the administration’s bellicose policy on Iraq. “It goes back to the unfinished business this country has in the fight against terrorism. The invasion of Iraq —- there is no evidence of links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda — is a distraction from the ongoing, unfinished fight with Al-Qaeda,” argued Katrina van den Heuvel, editor of the liberal weekly, The Nation.
The tape, broadcast by the Qatari satellite channel, Al-Jazeera, features the voice of an Arabic speaker who revels in a series of recent terrorist attacks across the world and promises more killing. The speaker identifies several Western countries starting with Britain, which he says are allied with “the criminal gang in the White House”. From its references to recent events including the Bali bombing and the Chechen hostage siege in Moscow, US analysts said the recording appeared to have been made in the past 17 days and showed no signs of having been manipulated.
An Al-Jazeera journalist in Pakistan, Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, said yesterday he had received a telephone call on Tuesday from an unidentified man who asked to meet him the same night at a prearranged spot in Islamabad. Zaidan said that the man’s face was half covered, but he recognized him as being the same man who had given him another tape purported to be of Bin Laden’s voice two months ago. That tape was also broadcast, but because it contained no recent time references, did not cause a political storm.
However, only days after it surfaced, the French freighter, Limburg, was attacked off the coast of Yemen. The bombing of an Indonesian tourist resort in Bali came less than ten days later. Most terrorism experts said that the new tape could augur new, even more devastating attacks, in the near future. “It is time that we get even,” the voice warns in the new recording. “You will be killed just as you kill and you will be bombed just as you bomb.”
Yasser El-Serri, an Islamist based in London who is wanted by Washington on suspicion of funding Al-Qaeda, said he was convinced the voice was genuine. “I am certain that it was the voice of Bin Laden, the same tone and style that are impossible to fabricate,” he said.
George Michael, a translator with the US diplomatic language services, who has worked on Bin Laden recordings in the past, said he believed the voice was genuine and that the shaky tone indicated Bin Laden was probably ill. His sentences appeared shorter than in previous speeches and were pronounced as if he was having difficulty speaking, he said. There have long been rumors that Bin Laden suffers kidney problems. The hoarse voice may indicate he is receiving medical treatment, which may explain why there have Tuesday’s statement came the day before the anniversary of the fall of Kabul. Last month a recording appeared the day before the anniversary of the start of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan and a similar recording emerged just before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
If Bin Laden is still alive most experts agree that he cannot have moved far from his bases in the remoter districts of Afghanistan. US intelligence agents say their last definitive information on his location was in December last year during the attack on the mountains of Tora Bora, in eastern Afghanistan. They believe Bin Laden was heard rallying his fighters over the radio. Some men who were holed up in the freezing, snow-covered mountains suggested he was slightly injured at Tora Bora, perhaps receiving wounds to his left arm.
From that point on, however, the trail went cold. Mountain passes from Tora Bora lead across into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a vast, lawless territory running along the Afghan border. The barren, mountainous terrain appears to offer a limitless supply of hideouts. Many among the Pashtun tribes on the border are strongly sympathetic to Bin Laden and bear a deep animosity toward the US.
One US defense official said yesterday the latest statement was merely an attempt to boost morale among rank and file Al-Qaeda figures. Others are more worried. Last week the secretary-general of Interpol, Richard Noble, said he believed Bin Laden was still alive. Intelligence assessments concluded that Al-Qaeda was preparing a new and major operation, “with attacks targeting not just the US but several countries at the same time”, he told the French Le Figaro newspaper.
In hindsight, analysts have noted that Bin Laden’s statements in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks signaled that a new terror operation was in preparation. Many now fear this latest message carries a similarly deadly threat. (The Guardian)
