American intel officials believe three recent Qaeda videotapes represent a new strategy by Osama bin Laden's network to get more air time in English-speaking countries. Since early August, three different, and seemingly current, videotapes have surfaced featuring masked English-speakers uttering chilling threats. The English tapes may be aimed at getting lengthier and wider exposure for the terrorists' messages in target countries like the United States and Britain. Customarily, U.S. media have shown only snippets of Arabic-language videos featuring Qaeda bigwigs like bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. "Their view is that their propaganda will get more air time and column inches by using English-speakers," said a senior U.S. counterterrorism official, who asked not to be identified because he was talking about intelligence issues.
The first new video, which got major attention Down Under, surfaced in early August on the Al Arabiya television network. Entitled "The War of the Oppressed People," the tape included sound bites from a hooded man carrying an AK-47. In an Australian accent, he declared, "The Muslim world is not your backyard. The honorable sons of Islam will not let you kill our sons... As you kill, you will be killed. As you bomb, you will be bombed." Australian media reports say the masked man is probably Mathew Stewart, a former soldier who reportedly disappeared in Afghanistan four years ago after being diagnosed with depression and discharged from the Army. Stewart's mother has denied that her son is on the tape. Next, a video surfaced on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel carrying what amounted to a final message from Mohammed Sidique Khan, the eldest of the four suicide bombers in the July 7 London attacks. Khan's speech, delivered in the accent of his native Yorkshire, was packaged with a Zawahiri tirade in Arabic praising the London bombings; intel officials in the United States and Britain say it has bolstered otherwise sparse evidence of a Qaeda connection to the London attacks. Finally, ABC News acquired a videotape featuring another masked terrorist, this one speaking in a stilted American accent, who threatened mayhem in Australia and the United States. According to ABC, this speaker was identical to the English-language speaker in a threatening video that surfaced right before the U.S. presidential election last year. U.S. officials say they believe the speaker is former Orange County, Calif., resident Adam Gadahn (whose family has not commented). He is described as a low-level Qaeda spokesman. More English-speaking propaganda is likely on the way. |