"His choice of Afghanistan as a base (rather than any other failed state, like Somalia or the Sudan) was an attempt to hook into some Mahdi prophecies, which refer to that region by some archaic Arabic name as the place where the Mahdi will arise."
The name of the region in the prophecy is Khorasan. It corresponds to modern-day Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and maybe parts of central Asia (IIRC). ("The Black Flags of Khorasan")
The eastern province of Iran is today named Khorasan.
The capital of Khorasan is - - Mashad.
http://www.farsinet.com/mashhad/khorasan.html
The UBL video had him wearing the clothing of a cleric from Mashad. This reinforces my argument from an earlier thread about Iran fronting him as the Mahdi.
Tariq al-Qods.
That sure helps explain the 'black flags'.
I went to look up Tariq-al-Qods and clicked onto this cache version of a website.
Take a look at the very top where it says:
This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.salamiran.org/Media/IRNA/970424.html as retrieved on Dec 31, 1969 23:59:59 GMT.
***1969??? Al Gore hadn't even invented the internet yet!***