In a video message aired Friday, just ahead of the presidential election, a healthy-looking Osama bin Laden warned that the U.S. can avoid “another Manhattan” if it changes its policies toward the Middle East and the Muslim world.
Although bin Laden mocked President Bush’s response to the Sept. 11 attacks and compared the White House to corrupt Arab regimes, Al Qaeda’s chief did not issue any explicit threats against American civilians or troops at home or abroad.
Nor did bin Laden lace his message, which was broadcast by the Qatar-based satellite network Al Jazeera, with the kind of religious imagery that has dominated previous addresses.
Instead, appearing in a white shirt draped in a gold robe and sitting or standing erect behind what appeared to be a tabletop set against a plain brown curtain, the militant leader issued a familiar condemnation of U.S. policy, speaking of what he called the “American-Israeli alliance against our people in Palestine and Lebanon.”
U.S. intelligence officials said they had a “high degree of confidence” that the tape, which they received in advance of Friday’s broadcast, was authentic. Its apparent lack of any explicit threats also meant the nation’s color-coded, terrorism alert-level would probably remain unchanged, U.S. officials said.
Without the accoutrements of battle that he has surrounded himself with in previous messages–daggers, camouflage jackets, assault rifles–bin Laden seemed to be trying to convey the image of a world leader rather than of a terrorist hiding in a cave.
At a minimum the tape dispels notions that bin Laden was killed or seriously injured during U.S. and Pakistani military campaigns along the vast and desolate border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he may be hiding.
Sometimes pointing or wagging an index finger as he spoke, bin Laden’s appearance and tone in the first images of him publicly aired for nearly 14 months surprised some U.S. officials.
One, speaking on the condition of anonymity and echoing the comments of others, noted that bin Laden was well-groomed and looked fairly vibrant for someone “who has been living in the middle of nowhere for three years.”
U.S. intelligence officials said they believed Al Qaeda’s media production arm made the tape, which they also said included a video camera date stamp that read “10 Ramadan” in Arabic, a date that coincides with last Sunday. Although that might indicate when the message was filmed, intelligence officials said they remained uncertain Friday.
They did say that there were other apparent indications the message was recorded fairly recently, including a reference bin Laden made to 1,000 U.S. casualties in Iraq, a death toll reached in early September.
President Bush, speaking in Toledo during a campaign swing through Ohio, responded to the tape by saying, “Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country.”
He also said, “We are at war with these terrorists, and I am confident we will prevail.”
His Democratic opponent in Tuesday’s election, Sen. John Kerry, said Americans were united against Al Qaeda.
“As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.”
Speaking to `American people’
Bin Laden began by saying, “To the American people, my talk to you is about the best way to avoid another Manhattan”–a reference to the Sept. 11 suicide attacks in which nearly 3,000 people were killed–and “about the war, its reasons and its consequences.”
“Your security is not in the hands of Kerry, Bush or Al Qaeda,” he said later in the tape. “Your security is in your own hands. Any state that does not mess with our security has naturally guaranteed its own security.”
Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks, although few people outside of Internet chat rooms and the sometimes-conspiracy minded Middle East ever doubted he was behind the hijackings.
Although he did not issue any direct threats, he did suggest the conditions for an attack remain.
“Bush is still misleading and deluding you and hiding the real reason [for the attacks] from you,” he said. “Consequently, there are still reasons to repeat what happened.”
Bin Laden said his anti-Americanism was born in 1982, when Israeli forces invaded Lebanon “with the help of the American 6th Fleet.”
At the time, he said, “many things raged inside me that are hard to describe, but they resulted in a strong feeling against the injustice and a strong determination to punish the unjust.”
In raising the Arab-Israeli crisis, as he often has in the past decade, bin Laden was picking at an issue that has, along with the Iraq war, fueled anti-Americanism in the Muslim world, including within nations that previously held the U.S. in high esteem.
Bin Laden also tried to appeal to Arabs who believe they are living under repressive regimes. He said it was not difficult for him to deal with the Bush administration “because it is similar to regimes in our [Middle East] countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.”
Bin Laden said both types of regimes “include many who are full of arrogance and greed.”
He also mocked Bush for staying too long in a Florida classroom as the Sept. 11 attacks were unfolding in the skies above lower Manhattan.
Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert based in Washington for the Rand Corp., said bin Laden appeared to aim the timing of his message more at maximizing his own exposure than at having any influence on the U.S. elections.
The height of campaign frenzy and the Friday afternoon broadcast would almost certainly guarantee that bin Laden will remain in the spotlight through the weekend and into next week, Hoffman said.
“Bin Laden is the consummate opportunist, and he is certainly using the opportunity presented by the elections to elbow himself into the limelight,” Hoffman said.
He said bin Laden was clearly attempting to look like a statesman, “dressing up in a formal outfit as one of our statesmen would put on a dark suit and a red tie for a formal address.”
While bin Laden did not issue any direct threats, his presence is threatening enough to most Americans, Hoffman said.
Examined for hidden cues
Intelligence officials said bin Laden also was attempting to speak to his followers. At a minimum, his goal was to show them they are not alone, they said.
Previous Al Qaeda messages have presaged or signaled new attacks, and intelligence officials said they were still examining the tape to determine whether there were any hidden cues for followers. It was not immediately clear Friday how Al Jazeera received the tape or how U.S. officials got a full, 18-minute copy.
However, the State Department on Friday asked the government of Qatar to discourage Al Jazeera from broadcasting the video, a senior State Department official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the State Department spoke to officials in Qatar before the television channel showed a portion of the tape on its evening news broadcast, The Associated Press reported.
Although U.S. officials warned earlier this summer of possible attacks timed near the elections, some have doubted the credibility of the intelligence. Officials said Friday that they still have concerns, but no specific threat information existed pointing to imminent attacks. Nonetheless, they noted, domestic law-enforcement agencies have stepped up surveillance of suspects, questionings, detentions and deportations ahead of Tuesday.
Bin Laden last appeared to the world in a video aired one day before the second anniversary of the attacks–Sept. 10, 2003–with his lieutenant, Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri, at his side. The two, carrying weapons, were shown walking through a mountainous region in an almost surreal image of idyllic splendor.
