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US concludes bin Laden tape is real

The United States has concluded that the audiotape containing Osama bin Laden's message is real and was recorded recently, officials said on Monday.

The audiotape, broadcast on Qatar's Al-Jazeera channel, is what it sounds like: Laden himself, reading a prepared statement promising new attacks against the US and its allies, an intelligence official was quoted as saying.

Experts, linguists and translators at the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency compared the message to previous recordings of Laden.

While no analysis is 100 per cent certain, the experts are as certain as they can be that it is genuine, the official said.

It had been a year since US intelligence received any definitive evidence that Laden had survived the attacks on Afghanistan in the months after September 11.

The tape gives little clue to Laden's location and his health, officials said.

Although his whereabouts are unknown, US officials believe he is probably hiding in a remote mountainous region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The speaker on the tape appears to be referring to the killing of a US diplomat in Amman, Jordan, on October 28, the most recent event noted in the transcript.

Whether Laden or the Al Qaeda had a direct hand in the attack is unknown, US officials said.

The speaker also praises several more terrorist attacks between April and October, including the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, on October 12, that left close to 200 people dead, and the Chechen takeover of a theatre in Moscow, in late October.

PTI

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