Free Republic

A terrorist website releases a tape of Osama Bin Laden, claiming it's new. And how do the MSM react? By rushing to air it, or in the case of wire services like AP, trumpet it in print. As of 6:30 A.M. EDT this morning, the AP story Bin Laden Appears in New al-Qaida Video was featured on Drudge. There's only one problem. A senior Bush administration official informs this NewsBuster that:"intelligence agencies have determined the video was previously aired as a portion of a longer show first on MBC TV (Middle East broadcast station) on April 17, 2002."What's the...

FUGITIVE al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has "ceased to be important," with the movement he created posing a far greater threat, respected British Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk has said. "To look for bin Laden now is as useful as detaining nuclear scientists after the creation of the atomic bomb," Fisk, who has interviewed the Saudi-born terror mastermind three times, said. "Bin Laden has ceased to be important." "Yet we are still following the Hollywoodesque vision of the existence of Bin Laden. Is he alive? When will they catch him?" "Bin Laden created Al-Qaeda. His work is done. Would it...

PARIS: He has not issued any public statements all year. Speculation has grown over his influence, health and even possible death. Where is the Western world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden? The Al-Qaeda leader's period of silence has been the longest since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, offering no clues to the whereabouts or fate of a man who this year appears to have quietly slipped off the radar. Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27, 2004, audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, as Al-Qaeda's...