"It will be even more difficult to catch them communicating than I'd imagined, given your excellent post."
There are probably a lot of other ways that are available that I didn't mention. These guys may well have a mentality that is on par with Attila the Hun, but they are also extremely intelligent and sophisticated as religious fanatics go. That's one of the reasons why we can never under-estimate them when they talk about using WMDs against us.
"Does this trick still work, or is our intelligence on this one?"
As far as I know, the Hotmail trick is still viable because like you noted, there is no message being sent for the intel boys to intercept. That was how the double suicide bombing in Moscow over the summer was carried out, as well as an attack on a Hindu temple in Gujarat last October.
"The killings were one at a time and didn't garner much attention at the time, but Emerson is one of the first people the FBI called on the morning of 9/11 because he had to literally rent warehouses to hold all the information he's been collecting on AQ and other terrorist groups."
Al-Qaeda has been active in the US ever since it was formed in 1989. They carried out dozens of killings here either directly or through al-Fuqra.
FYI, CNN is now airing the tape. Bin Laden's message to the US evidently references a $450 billion dollar budget deficit (for which he praises Allah), which is based on a figure that came out in July 2003.
He is talking about the Sunni triangle:
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,6119,2-10-1462_1432458,00.html Doha - Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden threatened on Saturday to send suicide bombers to the United States and to attack any forces joining the US-led coalition in Iraq, in a tape broadcast by Qatar's Al-Jazeera television.
"We will go on fighting you and we will carry on martyrdom (suicide) operations in and outside the United States until you stop being unjust," he warned in an audiotaped "message to the American people" aired by the Doha station.
"We reserve the right to retaliate at the proper time and place against all countries that take part in this unjust war (against Iraq), namely Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy," said the mastermind of the September 11 suicide hijackings in the United States.
"Islamic countries that take part will not be excluded. This applies particularly to the Gulf states, chiefly Kuwait, (which served as) launchpad for the crusader forces."
Al-Jazeera did not give a date for the audiotape, but a "message to the Muslim Iraqi people" also aired by the channel referred to "the government of Mahmud Abbas," the Palestinian prime minister who stepped down on September 6, indicating the tape was recorded before then.
In the message to Iraqis, al-Qaeda chief bin Laden hailed their "jihad," or holy war, against the American occupiers, paying tribute to the "heroes" in Baghdad, Baqubah, Mosul and al-Anbar province, areas where US troops regularly come under attack.
He also praised "Ansar al-Islam, the descendants of Saladin," in a reference to the Iraqi Kurdish Islamist group which the United States accuses of links with al-Qaeda.
The speaker also called on "Muslim youths everywhere, especially in countries neighbouring (Iraq) and Yemen," to "roll up their sleeves" and join the jihad.
He said the United States had become "bogged down in the quagmires of the Tigris and Euphrates," and was reduced to "begging for mercenaries from east and west" to join its forces in Iraq.
I see we both found that CNN report quite interesting.
So IF intelligence agencies verify it's his voice, and I expect they will, then he was definitely alive as of July.
Personally, I think if Americans are told that OBL is discouraging Americans from supporting their president, he may have taken his rhetoric a step too far. (But I'm probably being overly optimistic).