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From the 2004 TM archives . . .

Was thinking about Zawahiri’s wording “very precise” some more. A second interpretation in addition to the first (precision=GPS=drone/missile) would be assassination. The story below written by Bill Gertz, which was based on the same information that led to the orange alert for NYC-DC-NJ, ran within days of that orange alert during the summer of 2004 that had direct ties to what just happened in London (and other potential related and imminent threats).

An attack may have been disrupted and pushed back to Election Day 2004 (UBL’s last video address was days before the election and may have been a signal). Worth noting in that we should place much of the “dots” we see now back into the context of 2004 to make sense of them, and some of the “dots” we saw in 2004 should be brought forward to summer 2007 for them to make sense. So this red banner flashing “good news soon” as it did this time last year, might not mean “either-or” (either a new UBL message or a new attack), but “both-and”.

Also remarkable that this was exact time when the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades (in a statement purportedly signed by Saif Adel), the nom de guerre used by the front group that claimed responsibility for Istanbul 2003, Madrid 2004, and London 2005, threatened to set fire to “the land of the Romans”. This threat was issued upon the expiration of their April 2004 90-day truce offered to Europe, which was seen as a threat against the “Romans” of Italy, but in light of all the recent “Romanesque” threats, should be “brought forward” to the present and applied in a wider sense to all of the West, and the US/UK in particular.

Reinforcing this “Roman” threat was a UBL audio tape released earlier that year where he both indirectly, then directly called America “the new Rome”.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3368957.stm

Full text: ‘Bin Laden’ tape
The is a translated transcript of an audiotape said to be of Osama Bin Laden, aired by al-Jazeera satellite channel on 4 January, 2004:

(excerpted)

” . . . Jihad is the path, so seek it. This is because if we seek to deter them with any means other than Islam, we would be like the one who goes round in circles. We would also be like our forefathers, the al-Ghasasinah [Arab people who lived in a state historically located in the north-west of the Persian empire]. The concern of their seniors was to be appointed officers for the Romans and to be named kings in order to safeguard the interests of the Romans by killing their brothers of the peninsula’s Arabs. Such is the case of the new al-Ghasasinah; namely, Arab rulers.

. . . They should start by directing the Muslims to the important priorities at this critical stage and lead them to a safe haven, provided that their top priority should be uniting opinions under the word of monotheism and defending Islam and its people and countries and declaring a general mobilisation in the nation to prepare for repulsing the raids of the Romans, which started in Iraq and no-one knows where they will end.”

The threats against “Rome” in 2004 and the threats against “Rome” in 2007 are one and the same.

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040811-123531-3824r.htm

U.S. Officials: Al Qaeda Plans Major Assassination; Bin Laden Will Signal Attack

August 11, 2004
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES (excerpted)

U.S. intelligence officials say a high-profile political assassination, triggered by the public release of a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda terrorist attack, The Washington Times has learned.

The assassination plan is among new details of al Qaeda plots disclosed by U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports who, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the killing could be carried out against a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad. . .

The new details of al Qaeda’s plans were found on a laptop computer belonging to arrested al Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan of Pakistan. “We’re talking about planning at the screwdriver level,” one official said. “It is very detailed.” Regarding the new bin Laden message, the officials said there are intelligence reports, some of them sketchy, that a new tape from the al Qaeda leader will surface soon. In the past, video and audio messages by bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, were broadcast days or weeks before an attack, the officials said. “The message likely will be the signal for the attack to be launched,” one official said.

Bin Laden last released a taped message in April. The CIA said that the audiotape probably was the voice of bin Laden and that the mention of the March 11 Madrid train bombings shows that the tape was current. That tape offered a “truce” for any European state that pledged to stop attacking Muslims and end cooperation with the United States. . .

On Aug. 2, the Bush administration raised the terrorism threat level from “elevated” to “high” for five finance-related sites in the District, New York and New Jersey, based on the intelligence in Khan’s computer, as well as other intelligence. . .