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Osama bin Laden might not have had the means to carry out a mass casualty attack on the United States on the eve of the elections, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.
U.S. intelligence analysts believe this was the reason why bin Laden released a videotape to discuss al-Qaida and the American presidential elections. They said bin Laden, in his first video appearance in three years, wanted to bolster the morale of his followers who have been waiting for such a strike.
Over the last two months, the CIA has lowered the prospect of a major al-Qaida attack. Intelligence sources said information that was relayed to the U.S. intelligence community of a specific attack this summer has been discredited.
They said the U.S.-Pakistani operation in Waziristan in August rounded up several senior al-Qaida operatives along the Afghan border and in Britain and damaged the organization’s communications network.
But there is another videotape released by al-Qaida that has U.S. intelligence worried. And that is a 75-minute tape by a U.S. national termed “Azzam the American.” Azzam claims to be an al-Qaida member and warns that the streets of America will “run with blood.”
The U.S. intelligence community believes that Azzam, whose face was shrouded, could be the key to al-Qaida’s real intention. Some analysts believe Azzam is really Adam Gadahn, also known as Adam Pearlemen, an American Muslim from Orange County, California. The FBI has assessed that Gadahn joined al-Qaida in the late 1990s and has been missing since 2000.
A second individual was heard on the Azzam tape. He is off-camera but asked Gadahn several questions. The assessment is that he is Adnan El Shukrijumah, a former Florida resident and an al-Qaida operative sought by the United States for more than a year.
The big question: Are Gadahn and El Shukrijumah in the United States and planning al-Qaida’s encore to 9/11?
On the sidelines
Intelligence analysts are raising the scenario that bin Laden will have little or nothing to do with any future mass-casualty attack in the United States. He will sit on the sidelines and play statesman while others plan and even finance the attack.
The analysts say bin Laden has invested his hopes in Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi, regarded as the most lethal insurgent in Iraq. Al Zarqawi has hurt the United States more than bin Laden could imagine, and the two appear to have formed an alliance. This means Gulf Arab princes might be diverting their money to Al Zarqawi.
The Al Battar Camp, an online biweekly magazine published by Saudi followers of bin Laden, has hailed the purported bin Laden-Zarqawi alliance.
The 21st issue of this influential publication has expressed enthusiasm over Al Zarqawi’s pledge of loyalty to bin Laden and regards this as a significant development.
With U.S. officials not ruling out that Al Zarqawi has obtained chemical weapons, such a move could be the start of a joint operation against the United States.
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