CIA analysts have concluded that the voice on an audiotape sent to an Arab television network is "likely" that of Osama bin Laden, sources told NBC News on Monday. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told an interviewer that it is safe to assume that the fugitive al-Qaida leader is alive.
While the CIA was not yet ready to definitively pronounce the tape the work of bin Laden, officials said that preliminary technical analysis indicated it was his voice.
“We’ll continue to play with it” before making a final pronouncement, said one official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity.
Others using less sophisticated means also identified the voice as bin Laden’s.
“It is bin Laden’s superb and special Arabic language that is very hard to emulate,” Ibrahim Hilal, Al-Jazeera’s editor-in-chief, told the Associated Press. “It is undoubtedly his voice, his style, and the typical examples from history he uses.”
And Straw, the British foreign minister, said Monday in London that while he had no confirmation that the voice on the tape was that of the Saudi-born terrorist, but that it was a safe assumption.
Straw says bin Laden apparently alive“There is no question that the al-Qaida organization and its networks are still around. And so far as we know, Osama bin Laden is still alive,” Straw told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
“I’ve had no confirmation but let’s for the purpose of this interview assume that it was him,” Straw said. Asked whether he thought that assumption was safe, Straw replied: “Yes.”
If authenticated, the tape would appear to indicate that bin Laden was alive at least as late as last month, because it includes references to the capture of topped Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
The last time a purported communique from bin Laden was aired by al-Jazeera, in October 2003, it contained references to the government of Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who was appointed in April and resigned Sept. 6. CIA officials said the voice on that tape was bin Laden's.
Prior to that, the intelligence community was divided over whether bin Laden was dead or alive. The last message purportedly from bin Laden, a videotape aired by al-Jazeera on Sept. 10, was regarded as a propaganda ploy by al-Qaida, aimed at capitalizing on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. That message included video of bin Laden on a mountain hike that CIA analysts said apparently had been filmed nearly two years earlier in the Tora Bora region of Aghanistan.
In the tape aired Sunday by al-Jazeera, the voice believed to be bin Laden's urged Muslims to continue fighting a holy war in Iraq and the Middle East rather than cooperate with peace efforts.
“The CIA and appropriate intelligence authorities are reviewing the tape to check for its authenticity,” Allen Abney, a White House spokesman, said Sunday.
Al-Jazeera played the tape while showing a still photo of bin Laden against a dark blue background.Hilal, Al-Jazeera’s editor, told the AP that the network received the message Sunday. However, he declined to reveal how it was delivered.network broadcast only 14, Hilal said.
In those excerpts, the speaker urged Muslims to “liberate the Islamic world from the military occupation of the Crusaders.”
The speaker criticized leaders of Muslim nations for refusing to pressure the United States on the Palestinian issue and for not supporting the Palestinian resistance.“The occupation of Iraq is the beginning of the full occupation of the other Gulf states. ... The Gulf is the key for control of the world in the point of view of the big powers because of the presence of the biggest deposits of oil."
