As best as I can tell at the moment, this is how I understand it:
1) this 6-year old tape was given to the British newspaper by al Qaeda via proven intermediaries with high level contacts with al Qaeda leadership
2) one of the links in this "chain of custody" was the Jazeera reporter mentioned by Mir (Peter Bergen on CNN vouched for this same reporter a couple hours later)
3) Mir seems to say that this al Jazeera reporter was given this exact same tape years ago by KSM, presumably before his arrest in 2003, and perhaps to prove al Qaeda's direct involvement in the planning of 9/11 when all this was still poorly understood in the year or so after 9/11. But the tape was not intended for public release at that time.
4) U.S. authorities themselves have had this tape for some time (maybe since the time of the KSM arrest in 2003) but did not release it.
5) Mir believes that the decision to release the tape right now, over 6 years since it was made, is significant. And the decision to release this comes directly from UBL himself
6) It was released after *6* years (remember UBL mentioning 9/11 six times in the last tape), and the release took place 2 days after a Zawahiri tape where he repeatedly mentions KSM *12* times - - who coincidentally, was the one who first gave the tape to this "widely respected reporter" possibly years ago. And in his last video in late 2004, UBL made the reference to the "wills and testaments" of the victims of 9/11 that "should be researched and studied" (even though the victims had no time to make such recordings . . . but their attackers did).
7) To my knowledge, Mir has never gone on TV after any of the dozens of UBL and Zawahiri tapes since 9/11 and said "this is a signal for an attack"
1,944 posted on 10/01/2006 3:41:55 PM PDT by callmejoe
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1694213/posts?page=1944#1944
"Mir believes that the decision to release the tape right now, over 6 years since it was made, is significant."
OPINION: I agree.
Not at all. Some clarifications/additions:
The name of the al Jazeera journalist is Yosri Fouda.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1780548.ece
Just as Mir seems to have high level access to al Qaeda having been the last to interview UBL, Fouda was able to interview KSM after 9/11 (before his capture).
http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jan/14-610042.html
" . . . Several months later, senior al- Qaeda official Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed that al Qaeda had carried out the attacks. In April 2002, Al-Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda interviewed Khalid, who proposed the September 11 scheme to bin Laden, and Ramzi Binalshibh, who played a key role in the preparation for 9/11. Fouda asked Khalid if al Qaeda was responsible for the September 11 attacks and Khalid confirmed that it was:
"Fouda summoned every thread of experience, looked Khalid in the eye and asked: ‘Did you do it [the September 11 attacks]?' But Khalid didn't flinch.
‘No filming today,' he declared, ‘and you do not have to worry about a camera or a cameraman for tomorrow. We will provide everything.'
Ramzi added his own detail of the arrangements: ‘You will be going straight from here to your flight whenever we are done.'"
Then, with little fanfare, Khalid got down to business by making an announcement that hit Fouda like a heavyweight punch. "I am the head of the al Qaeda military committee," he said, "and Ramzi is the coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation. And yes, we did it." [Masterminds of Terror, Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding (New York: Arcade Publishing, 2003), p. 38.]" . . .
Hamid Mir also said that Fouda was given this pre-9/11 videotape by KSM (likely at this meeting in 2002). Then in the past few days, al Qaeda apparently gave Fouda another copy of the tape, this time to distribute to the media.
On CNNi this evening, Fouda explained why it was important for al Qaeda to bring Atta to Afghanistan in 2000 to make sure he was up to the job. UBL was depending on Atta to hold the plot together since Fouda described the rest of the hijackers-in-waiting as "dumb and dumber". The same CNN story indicated that another copy of this tape may have been picked up separately by the U.S. in 2001 in the weeks after the invasion.
And the video display on the tape shows 08/01/2000 (January 8, 2000).
That meant this was then taped on Eid al Fitr - - the last day of Ramadan.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-2382788-524,00.html
I also just remembered that other pre-9/11 videotape showing many of the 9/11 plotters in Afghanistan (that had also been held for "6" years then released) was released on the very same day that the al Masri/al Muhajir audiotape was released (on 9/7/06) marking the 15 day countdown to Ramadan (9/23).
I really appreciate the report on Mir's comments. One questions still bothering me though- didn't Mir originally say there would be an audio direct from UBL next, rather than these two videos? Hopefully I'm not just out of the loop and you've already cleared this detail up.
Snip: Italy Minister of Internal Affairs Giuliano Amato is planning to make all Muslims sign a "contract of values". Ministry has decided to prepare this contract to prevent Muslim men punish their daughters and wives for abiding by Western values. Although this contract will never have a legal value, it will be a contract which will show that a Muslim family living in Italy abides by Italian values.
Supreme Court rejects Appeal over Islamic indoctination in schools
Snip: The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday by evangelical Christian students and their parents who said a Contra Costa County school district engaged in unconstitutional religious indoctrination when it taught students about Islam by having them recite language from prayers.
The court, without comment, left intact a ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco last November in favor of the Byron Union School District in eastern Contra Costa.
The suit challenged the content of a seventh-grade history course at Excelsior Middle School in Byron in the fall of 2001. The teacher, using an instructional guide, told students they would adopt roles as Muslims for three weeks to help them learn what Muslims believe.
She encouraged them to use Muslim names, recited prayers in class, had them memorize and recite a passage from the Quran and made them give up something for a day, such as television or candy, to simulate fasting during the month of Ramadan. The final exam asked students for a critique of elements of Muslim culture.
The students and parents who sued argued that the class activities had crossed the line from education into an official endorsement of a religious practice. A federal judge and the appeals court disagreed, saying the class had an instructional purpose and the students had engaged in no actual religious exercises.