New videotape adds to bin Laden mystery

By John Lumpkin

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence hasn’t picked up any credible signs of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts in about two weeks, and officials on Wednesday scoured a newly aired videotape of him that contains clues suggesting it was made around the time he vanished.

U.S. officials suspect one of three possibilities: Bin Laden is dead, killed by U.S. bombs or his own followers; he’s hiding in a cave in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan; or he is fleeing through Pakistan. That leaves U.S. forces and their allies hunting through the caves of Tora Bora unsure whether they’ll find a body or a live target — if bin Laden is there at all.

The video excerpts that emerged Wednesday on Arabic TV station al-Jazeera add to the mystery.

In them, bin Laden hails the Sept. 11 hijacking as a "blessed attack against the international infidels" and makes several comments that suggest the tape was made between late November and mid-December.

Bin Laden refers to the Sept. 11 attacks as "three months ago," and says the U.S. bombings that began Oct. 7 are two months old. He also mentions a Nov. 16 U.S. airstrike in Khost, Afghanistan, as having occurred "several days" before.

The gaunt bin Laden appears stiff, and, though left-handed, he uses only his right hand to gesture. A U.S. official said his pasty complexion suggested he hadn’t seen much sunlight recently.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed the tape. "This is nothing more than the same kind of terrorist propaganda we’ve heard before." He did not know whether government analysts had determined when the tape was made, nor whether bin Laden might be injured on it.

U.S. intelligence sources — from electronic intercepts to trusted reporting — have been silent on bin Laden’s whereabouts since the height of U.S. bombing in Tora Bora about two weeks ago, when U.S. forces picked up a short-range radio broadcast of a voice believed to be bin Laden’s, giving orders to his troops in the Tora Bora area.

The transmission was not recorded, and officials acknowledge it may have been a ruse, but it was seen as a major clue to his whereabouts.

If bin Laden had been killed — either by U.S. bombings or by his own followers as a martyr — someone would have probably talked about it by now over communications channels monitored by military and intelligence agencies. In November, U.S. officials initially learned that top bin Laden lieutenant Mohammed Atef was killed through eavesdropped communications.

Army Col. Rick Thomas, a spokesman for Central Command, said Wednesday only that bin Laden "remains unlocated."

It’s possible al-Qaida survivors are in deep hiding, observing rigid discipline with their communications to avoid giving away their whereabouts. U.S. officials also consider it less likely that the leadership was so devastated by U.S. bombing that no one is left to talk.

A few hundred al-Qaida fighters are believed to have escaped into Pakistan, possibly with bin Laden. More fleeing al-Qaida members were captured by Pakistan’s forces at the border. In Tora Bora, a few isolated pockets of resistance remain, as do many deep caves complexes that have been bombed but not searched.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said in China a few days ago that he was "reasonably sure" bin Laden was killed by U.S. bombs at Tora Bora.

U.S. officials don’t believe bin Laden has moved beyond Afghanistan and Pakistan, though they have mentioned Somalia, Chechnya or Sudan as possible destinations. U.S. and allied warships are patrolling nearby seas, ready to search vessels thought to contain the terrorist leader.

On Wednesday, U.S. forces launched 70 to 80 sorties from the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea, but for the fourth consecutive day, no warplanes dropped bombs, ship spokesman Lt. John Oliveira said.