Al-Qaeda Videotape Threat Is Propaganda: Officials

[Gold9472]

Al-Qaeda videotape threat is propaganda: officials

http://olympics.reuters.com/news/new...-THREAT-DC.XML

Mon Sep 12, 2005 1:52 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A videotape threatening al Qaeda attacks on Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia, appears to be a propaganda ploy from the militant network, timed to coincide with the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the United States, U.S. officials said on Monday.

The videotape, aired on Sunday by ABC News, featured an American-sounding man with a concealed face whom officials believe to be Adam Yahiye Gadahn, an Islamic convert from Southern California wanted for questioning by the FBI.

An American speaker may have been chosen to issue the threat against Los Angeles to make the message appear more ominous, officials said. Concerns about local cells supporting al Qaeda have been heightened by the July 7 bombings in London, in which four British Muslims killed themselves and 52 other people.

A technical analysis of the videotape, which ABC received in Pakistan, suggests the speaker is the same man who appeared in a tape that surfaced in October and warned of a massive attack on the United States, a counterterrorism official said.

"The thinking is that it's the same voice," the official said.

Officials submitted the 2004 tape to weeks of technical analysis before saying they were confident, but not certain, that the speaker was Gadahn.

The FBI says Gadahn trained at terrorist camps in Afghanistan after converting to Islam in the 1990s.

Sunday's videotape threatened attacks against the U.S. and Australian cities and warned that attackers would show no compassion.

But officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because U.S. counterterrorism operations are classified, said there was no evidence of a specific threat.

"It's a propaganda message. It's an attempt to try to intimidate, to try to suggest they're still a force to be reckoned with," said one official.

"We take these things seriously," the official added. "But there's been very little correlation in the past between an al Qaeda statement and the timing or specific location of an attack."

The September 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington killed about 3,000 people and prompted the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

[somebigguy]

Propaganda huh???? You mean this is all a big scam???

[somebigguy]

giddyup

[PhilosophyGenius]

Well how do the hell do these "experts" know? And does anyone here agree with me that 'terrorism anylists' are the most useless overrated people in the whole world cuz all they do is report whats in the news and what the govn't says, and act like they descovered that. And one time during the Iraq war, they had a panel of experts which consisted of former army dudes and one terror expert. haha, that shit was funny.

[princesskittypoo]

i kind of liked hearing the gulf war experts and all. i watched a history channel special where they were talking to prisoners of war that they had rescued. it was really interesting to see inside what had happened.