Posted on 10/28/2004 10:58:27 AM PDT by Smogger
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN – A new videotape that has surfaced in Pakistan threatens a massive attack against the United States by a purported American member of Al Qaeda. It is not yet known if the tape is an authentic Al Qaeda production, but it bears enough resemblance that some experts are taking the tape seriously. The chilling 75-minute digital videotape, seen by a Christian Science Monitor reporter in Pakistan, where it was obtained by ABC News, shows a high degree of sophistication and bears the logo of Al Qaeda's video production house, As-Sahab.
On the video, the unknown man's face is masked with a Palestinian scarf and sunglasses. He stabs the air with his finger, which appears to be fair-skinned, as he delivers his warning in American-accented English.
"Allah willing, the streets of America will run red with blood, matching drop for drop the blood of America's victims," says the speaker, who calls himself Azzam al Amriki (or Azzam the American). "What took place on September 11th was but the opening salvo in the global war on America."
The next attacks, he adds, "could come at any moment."
This is the first time a purported Al Qaeda video has featured an English-speaking messenger, and while he references the top two Al Qaeda leaders, neither Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri appear. This unique circumstance, as well as the highly charged timing of the tape's release just days before Americans head to the polls, has the US intelligence community approaching the tape with caution.
"As-Sahab is an Al Qaeda propaganda outfit and engages in psychological warfare," says Bruce Hoffman, an expert on terror at the RAND Corp. in Washington. "Given the hype of the US election in general, that the jihadists claim credit for affecting the outcome of the Spanish elections, and the heightened chatter that intelligence agencies acknowledge, I'm surprised we haven't seen something like this sooner."
While ABC has not aired the video, knowledge of its existence was leaked to the Drudge Report and picked up by the mainstream press including NBC, Fox, the Washington Post, and Reuters who all reported on the video without seeing it.
"ABC News has shared this tape with both the CIA and FBI as part of our reporting process. ABC News is committed to accurate, credible, and complete journalism and is applying the same scrutiny to this tape that we apply to all raw information. ABC continues to report this story very aggressively," says Jeffery Schneider, vice president of ABC News.
At press time, the US intelligence community had yet to authenticate the video but they continued to work on it.
"Unless you can identify the individual or compare [it] to known samples, it is difficult to authenticate," says a US intelligence official. "There's no information in the intelligence community that links this video to a specific threat. So what [the speaker] is talking about doesn't appear in other intelligence."
The tape, delivered to ABC in Islamabad last Sunday by a courier who was paid a $500 transport fee, contains a lengthy Q&A session between "Mr. Amriki" and an off-camera interviewer. It ends with his warning, which cuts off abruptly when the tape runs out.
Analysts at Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, say the tape is genuine, explaining the material bears the same "signature" as previous As-Sahab video releases, which are unique in the world of jihadi video for their sophisticated editing techniques.
It features the same gold logo that appeared, among other places, in a 2003 statement from Mr. bin Laden.
There's also simultaneous Arabic subtitling - a complicated and time consuming process to put together - and a scrolling message across the bottom of the screen (similar to the news tickers on CNN and Fox) that was featured on a recent statement from al-Zawahiri.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, as-Sahab has consistently pushed the frontiers of jihad media, publishing everything from "Nineteen Martyrs" (the story of the 9/11 hijackers) to live action terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia captured on video, says terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann, who saw a portion of the material. "For someone to put that amount of advanced effort into fabricating an as-Sahab video sounds a little far-fetched," he says.
Ahmad Muffaq Zaidan, Pakistan's bureau chief for the Arab-language network Al Jazeera and the recipient of past As-Sahab material here, also rated the material genuine. "We have seen this style before - the translation, the logo, the scroll," he says.
The US intelligence official agrees that "there's a production value" to the tape.
"The tape itself was edited and portions were spliced together," he says. "It probably was worked on for a period of time - probably done fairly recently, as recently as late summer."
The tape's speaker references the conflict in Darfur, the 9/11 commission, Massachusetts same sex legislation, and the upcoming US presidential election.
Nevertheless, it's become easier and cheaper to produce a relatively sophisticated video. With about $3,500, one can purchase a small digital video camera and a laptop with video editing software, and create output, which as Kohlmann puts it, is worthy of "a half-decent Hollywood studio."
"Terrorist wannabes [have] manufactured an encyclopedia full of fraudulent threats and communiques on the Internet," says Kohlmann. "It is now getting easy enough that similar wannabes can produce their own jihad videos too."
Al Amriki issues several bursts of Arabic, mainly from the Koran, speaking the language well, but not as a native, say Arabic speakers who've heard the tape. And he's clearly a sophisticated news consumer - quoting sources ranging from BBC's Arabic language radio to US comedian Bill Maher.
His rhetoric - both in English and Arabic - closely mirrors past statements by Al Qaeda: calling US leaders crusaders and weaving a picture of America as a corrupt empire about to expire.
The courier who delivered the tape would reveal nothing about Al Amriki's identity, saying only that he received the material last Friday in Peshawar. He insisted it had been filmed in Pakistan's tribal belt, where militants are battling the Pakistani military.
ISI analysts believe dozens of US and European passport holders of Muslim descent have joined jihadi groups there, and say this man is probably one of them. Others believe he may be a new John Walker Lindh, the California native caught fighting with the Taliban in 2001.
US law enforcement agents have suggested it could be Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an Orange County native, suspected by the FBI to be working with Al Qaeda, possibly as a translator. Mr. Gadahn, who was born Adam Pearlman, also goes by the nom de guerre Abu Suhayb Al-Amriki.
"In the realm of psychological warfare, which is calculated to ratchet up the fear level, if it is a sworn enemy making those threats it's one thing, if it's someone speaking our language, living among us, it does heighten the sense of fear," says Mr. Hoffman of RAND. "That's what terrorism tries to do - raise the level of fear."
• Reporter Gretchen Peters is also ABC's producer in Pakistan. Staff writer Faye Bowers contributed from Washington.
Excellent! So when I take my son to the Red Sox parade on Saturday and get blown up because Muslims hate fags, even though most of them practice homosexuality, I can die knowing that ABC won't mention Margaret Marshall and her overt connections to GLAAD!
It's "nuisance". "Annoyance" is way too strong a word. We don't want to hurt any feelings.
AQ is running short on supplies!
I really really really am waiting with baited breath for some news outlet besides drudge to say yes is has been authenticated.
MSNBC was supposed to comment on it with a story but still nothing new today.
ARGH
Ping
ABC is the ONLY news agency with a copy of this tape? Can we find another?
Apparently it was shopped around or leaked or something to an affiliate which contactd the government for guidance.
Sure. Give seeBS a few days and they'll trot one out for all to see.
OK, if it's not possible to authenticate with absolute metaphysical certainty, then this sounds like at least an extremely clever wannabe. And if we had to know it's real for-sure-for-sure, no terror tape of this ilk would ever make the grade. It should be aired, perhaps not in its entirety (!), but it certainly ought to make the MSM news radar. No reason not to report it, unless someone wants to MANIPULATE a presidential election by suppressing legitimate news.
ABC -- Out with it. Now.
It occurred to me that this might be a clue -- assuming that the threat is real (which I don't assume). Neither chemical nor biological warfare attacks would make the streets run red with blood. For that, the threat would have to be violence of some sort. I can't imagine what would cause enough bloodshed to dwarf September 11, but there you are.
Notice that most of the passages in bold are pretty far down in the article, where many readers won't see them. What the CSM puts up front is this: "It is not yet known if the tape is an authentic Al Qaeda production."
That's pretty breathtaking, considering that the FBI, the CIA, and Pakistani intelligence all say that it is genuine.
Maybe it depends on the meaning of "Al Qaeda." A little clintonian parsing here. The speaker is a terrorist with al Qaeda associations, but do we know that the al Qaeda leadership authorized it?
Clinton should be proud of how he has educated the press in these methods of lying.
As we go to vote next Tuesday, our election process is under attack from two directions--George Soros and the terrorists.
Lord have mercy on us all!!!!
How much you wanna bet that he says something along the lines of "If you re-elect Bush, you die!"
I think that is the ONLY reason ABC is not releasing the video.
Bill Clinton made the tape at the DNC national head quarters. Couldn't you tell he was biting his lip under his headscarf
However, a Boston Red Sox baseball cap remains barely visible beneath the scarf, and the shape of the man's face is oddly horse-like.
To heck with them. Why doesn't the FBI release it?
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