ww.csmonitor.com/2004/1029/p06s01-wosc.html
By Gretchen Peters | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN A new videotape that has surfaced in Pakistan threa tens 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 Q aeda production, but it bears enough resemblance that some experts are t aking the tape seriously. The chilling 75-minute digital videotape, seen by a Christian Science Mon itor reporter in Pakistan, where it was obtained by ABC News, shows a hi gh degree of sophistication and bears the logo of Al Qaeda's video produ ction house, As-Sahab.
Permission to reprint/republish On the video, the unknown man's face is masked with a Palestinian scarf a nd sunglasses. He stabs the air with his finger, which appears to be fai r-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 cal ls 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." 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 leader s, neither Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri appear. This unique circ umstance, as well as the highly charged timing of the tape's release jus t days before Americans head to the polls, has the US intelligence commu nity approaching the tape with caution. "As-Sahab is an Al Qaeda propaganda outfit and engages in psychological w arfare," says Bruce Hoffman, an expert on terror at the RAND Corp. "Given the hype of the US election in general, that the jihadi sts claim credit for affecting the outcome of the Spanish elections, and the heightened chatter that intelligence agencies acknowledge, I'm surp rised 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 wi thout seeing it. "ABC News has shared this tape with both the CIA and FBI as part of our r eporting process. ABC News is committed to accurate, credible, and compl ete journalism and is applying the same scrutiny to this tape that we ap ply to all raw information. ABC continues to report this story very aggr essively," 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.
to known samples, it is difficult to authenticate," says a US intelligence official. "The re's no information in the intelligence community that links this video to a specific threat.
is talking about doesn't app ear 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 A mriki" and an off-camera interviewer. It ends with his warning, which cu ts off abruptly when the tape runs out. Analysts at Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, say the tape is genuine, expl aining the material bears the same "signature" as previous As-Sahab vide o releases, which are unique in the world of jihadi video for their soph isticated editing techniques. It features the same gold logo that appeared, among other places, in a 20 03 statement from Mr bin Laden. There's also simultaneous Arabic subtitling - a complicated and time cons uming process to put together - and a scrolling message across the botto m of the screen (similar to the news tickers on CNN and Fox) that was fe atured on a recent statement from al-Zawahiri. "For someone to put that amount of advanced effort i nto fabricating an as-Sahab video sounds a little far-fetched," he says. Ahmad Muffaq Zaidan, Pakistan's bureau chief for the Arab-language networ k Al Jazeera and the recipient of past As-Sahab material here, also rate d the material genuine. "We have seen this style before - the translatio n, 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 e lection. Nevertheless, it's become easier and cheaper to produce a relatively soph isticated video. With about $3,500, one can purchase a small digital vid eo camera and a laptop with video editing software, and create output, w hich as Kohlmann puts it, is worthy of "a half-decent Hollywood studio."
manufactured an encyclopedia full of fraudulen t threats and communiques on the Internet," says Kohlmann. "It is now ge tting easy enough that similar wannabes can produce their own jihad vide os too." Al Amriki issues several bursts of Arabic, mainly from the Koran, speakin g the language well, but not as a native, say Arabic speakers who've hea rd the tape. And he's clearly a sophisticated news consumer - quoting so urces ranging from BBC's Arabic language radio to US comedian Bill Maher . His rhetoric - both in English and Arabic - closely mirrors past statemen ts by Al Qaeda: calling US leaders crusaders and weaving a picture of Am erica 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 Pesh awar. He insisted it had been filmed in Pakistan's tribal belt, where mi litants 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 o ne of them. Others believe he may be a new John Walker Lindh, the Califo rnia 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 Qaed a, possibly as a translator. Mr Gadahn, who was born Adam Pearlman, als o 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 th ing, if it's someone speaking our language, living among us, it does hei ghten the sense of fear," says Mr Hoffman of RAND. "That's what terrori sm tries to do - raise the level of fear." Reporter Gretchen Peters is also ABC's producer in Pakistan.
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