Is Osama Bin Laden Accidentally In New al Qaeda Video

UPDATE: From Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal – According to one of my most trusted sources, the blurry image seen on the tape is indeed Osama bin Laden.

One of the reasons that this is convincing is that the blurry image remains in the video. As Sahab, which produces al Qaeda’s propaganda, is very selective in the information it releases, and rarely leaves garbage in its videos. As Sahab intentionally leaves in this clip, for reasons unknown. Does al Qaeda want to generate a buzz? Is this a hidden message? Perhaps this is a precursor to a new bin Laden tape?

Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/osama_bin_blurry.php#ixzz0VNychmQ2

The Danger Room has a story that they say, may be something, may be nothing. If you check out al-Qaeda’s latest video, there’s a blurry image that bears a striking resemblance to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Danger Room features 5 stills from the video. You be the judge.

Last night, al-Qaeda’s media unit, As-Sahab productions, released a video featuring a lengthy sermon from the group’s theological star Abu Yahya al-Libi. Most of it is pretty typical stuff. But towards the end, things get interesting.

The camera blurs and closes in on the assembled crowd hugging and congratulating al-Libi. One of those fuzzy well-wishers, some in the Italian press are saying, bears a striking resemblance to one Osama Bin Laden. Danger Room pulled a few stills from the video so you can judge for yourself.

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Growing Up Bin Laden, Osama’s Son Omar Speaks

Time magazine takes a look at the life of Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden’s 20 known children

For Omar Bin Laden, the fourth eldest of Osama bin Laden’s 20 known children, the awful realization that his own father was a terrorist mastermind plotting a global conspiracy that would destroy the lives of thousands of innocent people and even his own family came gradually.

Of course, there were warning signs: Omar’s childhood was marked by regular beatings and survivalist training; there was the growing army of ruffians and retainers who called his father “Prince”; and then there was that Afghan mullah who had given his father an entire mountain in Tora Bora.

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Bin Laden ‘Warns’ U.S. In New Audio Tape

An audio message purportedly by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has been released on an Islamist website. The message, entitled “a statement to the American people”, was about 10 minutes long and was accompanied by a still image of Bin Laden but no video.

In the message, a voice tells the US president that he is “powerless” to stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The message comes just two days after the US marked the eighth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on America.

‘No real change’

In the recording, the voice discusses what motivated the al-Qaeda network to launch the 11 September attacks. He explaining that they were, in part, fuelled by US support for Israel.

“The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby,” the voice in the tape says.

“The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine.”

The voice believed to be Bin Laden also speaks of how the conflict between al-Qaeda and the US may end.

“If you stop the war, then fine. Otherwise we will have no choice but to continue our war of attrition on every front [...] If you choose safety and stopping wars, as opinion polls show you do, then we are ready to respond to this,” it says.

In the message, the al-Qaeda leader accuses the new president of failing to fundamentally change foreign policy because of his decision to retain key figures from the previous administration, including Defence Secretary Robert Gates.

“If you think about your situation well, you will know that the White House is occupied by pressure groups,” he says.

Source – Read Full Article

Osama bin Laden’s Son Thought Killed in Predator Strike

Sa’ad bin Laden, the son of Osama bin Laden, is thought to have been killed in a US Predator airstrike in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The report has not been confirmed.

Sa’ad is thought to have been killed during a strike earlier this year, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal.

“We’re pretty sure but we’re not certain,” one official said. “We are hopeful.”

US intelligence want to confirm or deny Sa’ad’s death by using DNA testing. But it is unclear if they have recovered a body from the attack site.

The officials would not identify the date or the location of the airstrike that is thought to have killed Sa’ad. The covert US air campaign has focused heavily on North and South Waziristan. Fifty percent of the attacks occurred in South Waziristan, and 38 percent took place in North Waziristan, according to data compiled by The Long War Journal. The US has killed a total of 22 High Value Targets which include some of the high- and mid-level Taliban and al Qaeda.

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Bin Laden Warns Americans To Be Prepared For Consequences

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden warned Americans “to be prepared to receive the consequences of the Obama and Bush administrations.” In a new recorded audiotape aired by Arabic Al Jazeera TV Wednesday, June 3 – as Saudi king Abdullah greeted US president Barack Obama on his arrival in Riyadh – bin Laden said Obama had planted the seeds for “revenge and hatred” toward the United States in the Muslim world.

The warning was issued the day before the US president was to deliver a speech to Muslims from Cairo.

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New Video May Help FBI Solve Somali-American Terror Case

A video posted on a jihadist Web site could Read more

Osama bin Laden Plotting New Attacks

Osama bin Laden and the core al-Qaida leadership are plotting new attacks against the United States and its allies from safe havens
in Pakistan, a senior US official warned Thursday.

Officials have said President Barack Obama’s new Afghan-Pakistan strategy will focus on destroying safe havens for terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Read more

Missing Somali-Americans Back in U.S. After Overseas Terror Mission

Many of the Somali-American men who were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group overseas have returned to the United States, according to a source familiar with an FBI investigation into the matter — but the FBI still has not revealed publicly if it is pursuing arrests in the case.

“Some of the guys who were missing aren’t missing anymore,” the source said. “Some of them got blown up and some of them came back, and some of them are still there [in Somalia].”

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area who traveled to war-torn Somalia, where some of them trained and fought with an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group known as al-Shabaab, according to counterterrorism officials.

Asked to characterize how many of those men are now back on American soil, the source would only say that “several” have returned. Federal authorities believe the men went to Somalia to join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

Usama bin Laden weighed in Thursday on the battle. In an audiotape posted online, the Al Qaeda leader urged Somalis to fight against the Somali government, insisting, “The war which has been taking place on your soil these past years is a war between Islam and the international crusade.”

via FOXNews.com

U.S. Zeros In On Chitral Pakistan In Hunt For bin Laden

Where’s Osama? Try Chitral, once a trekkers’ paradise in Pakistan that has been sealed off to outsiders and is now regularly buzzed by American spy drones.

The U.S. won’t say it officially, but an exhaustive Daily News investigation finds the world’s biggest manhunt for the monster who murdered nearly 3,000 people on 9/11 has zeroed in on Chitral’s stunning peaks and deep valleys.

Six U.S. and foreign officials confirmed to The News that northwestern Pakistan’s impenetrable Hindu Kush mountains – which boast some of the world’s tallest climbs – in the Chitral region have been eyed as Bin Laden’s hideout since 2006 by Osama hunters aiming for the big kill.

A lengthy review of evidence, including recent Predator fly-bys, Bin Laden’s tapes since 9/11 and interviews with three dozen experts on Al Qaeda, Pakistan and special operations, point to these vast mountains as the terror chief’s most likely haven.

Captured Al Qaeda leaders have given up as his hideout. “Debriefings of Al Qaeda leaders arrested confirmed this,” said Rohan Gunaratna, author of “Inside Al Qaeda.”

Two senior foreign officials said the nearby town of Kalam also is suspect.

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Is the Economic Crisis a Security Threat

Could the deepening global recession boost the flagging efforts of Osama bin Laden to challenge the established global order? Probably not. But the signs are there that, as President Barack Obama’s intelligence chief Admiral Dennis Blair warned last week, the economic crisis may be the source of the primary threat to global security right now. Security experts note that the economic downturn is already creating social unrest and political instability in some strategic hot spots around the world, and they warn that a prolonged slump could undermine U.S. and Western security interests.
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Blair, addressing the Senate Intelligence Committee on Feb. 12, prioritized the global recession as America’s “primary near-term security concern” and warned that the threat level would increase as the slump endures. “The longer it takes for the recovery to begin, the greater the likelihood of serious damage to U.S. strategic interests,” Blair warned, emphasizing the danger of political instability in countries allied with Washington. “Economic crises increase the risk of regime-threatening instability if they persist over a one-to-two-year period.” (See pictures of the global food crisis.)

Part of the strategic challenge posed by the downturn lies in the realm of the economy itself. Emerging powers such as China or India could take the opportunity presented by U.S. economic weakness to extend their own influence in regions traditionally dominated by the U.S. China, in particular, has already established itself as a major player in Latin America and Africa, and it is investing heavily in extractive industries across the globe right now, procuring energy supplies — most recently in new oil deals inked with Russia, Venezuela and Brazil — and other natural resources for its industrial economy.

Read Full Article – TIME.

Afghan National Indicted for Alleged Ties To Terrorists – Los Angeles

Federal officials said this morning they have indicted an Afghan national for lying about his alleged ties to terrorists in a bid to fraudulently obtain a U.S. passport.

Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, 34, who was arrested without incident this morning at his Tustin residence by members of the joint terrorism task force, was named in a five-count indictment returned Feb. 11 by a federal grand jury.

The indictment, unsealed this morning, alleges Niazi hid associations with “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” groups including Al Qaeda, Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban, when he completed nationalization papers five years ago. During one visit, the government alleges Niazi visited Dr. Amin al-Haq, the security coordinator for Osama bin Laden.

Charges against Niazi include perjury, naturalization fraud, misuse of a passport obtained by fraud and making a false statement to a federal agency. He is scheduled to make a court appearance this afternoon at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

The indictment alleges that Niazi lied on his naturalization application when he failed to disclose a 2004 trip to Pakistan and made false statements by denying he had any association with a terrorist organization, the indictment states. If indicted on all counts, Niazi faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in federal prison and a $1.25-million fine.

Niazi then used the fraudulently obtained passport to travel to Pakistan in 2005, according to the unsealed indictment. When he returned to Los Angeles Airport, the government alleges, Niazi lied to customs officials, telling them he had been visiting family in Qatar when he had instead traveled to Pakistan.

UPDATED at 1 p.m. The suspect and his wife have lived for at [...]

Source – Read Updates Here

Where Is Bin Laden – Science May Hold The Answer

Fugitive terrorist Osama bin Laden is most likely hiding out in a walled compound in a Pakistani border town, according to a satellite-aided geographic analysis released today.

A research team led by geographer Thomas Gillespie of the University of California-Los Angeles used geographic analytical tools that have been successful in locating urban criminals and endangered species.

Basing their conclusion on nighttime satellite images and other techniques, the scientists suggest bin Laden may well be in one of three compounds in Parachinar, a town 12 miles from the Pakistan border. The research incorporates public reports of bin Laden’s habits and whereabouts since his flight from the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in 2001.

The results, reported in the MIT International Review, are being greeted with polite but skeptical interest among people involved in the hunt for bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader behind 9/11. Bin Laden’s whereabouts are considered “one of the most important political questions of our time,” the study notes.

“I’ve never really believed the sitting-in-a-cave theory. That’s the last place you would want to be bottled up,” Gillespie says. The study’s real value, he says, is in combining satellite records of geographic locations, patterns of nighttime electricity use and population-detection methods to produce a technique for locating fugitives.

Source

Al-Qaeda YouTube Warning To Britain

AL-Qaeda last night issued a chilling video threat to Britain — on YouTube.

Rants by key henchmen of Osama bin Laden are accompanied by footage of a black-clad gunman riddling the Union Flag with bullets.

The Stars and Stripes is also peppered — along with Israel’s flag.

Fanatic Abu Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi — a former Guantanamo Bay inmate — vents his fury at the West while fondling an automatic rifle and brandishing a grenade. Read more

Gaddafi Urges Obama To Open Dialogue With Bin Laden and Taliban

While I don’t believe there is even a remote chance of this happening, it nonetheless amazes me that there is a segment of the population that would actually be in favor of such dialogue.
——-
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has advised President Barack Obama to give Osama bin Laden a chance to reform, telling the new president America’s most wanted man was looking for “dialogue.” Read more

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