Islamist websites are touting a new Osama bin Laden video — which would be the first in nearly three years — to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.
AP:
Terror mastermind Osama bin Laden plans a new video to be released in the coming days ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, his first new message in more than a year, al-Qaida’s media arm announced Thursday.
The announcement appeared on an Islamic militant Web site, showing a still photo from the video showing of bin Laden addressing the camera, his pointed finger raised upward. His beard, which in previous messages had been streaked with gray, was entirely dark. “Soon, God willing, a videotape from the lion sheik Osama bin Laden, God preserve him,” the banner advertisement read, signed by Al-Sahab, the terror network’s media arm. Al-Sahab usually puts out such announcements one to three days before the video is posted on the Web.
If the message is actually a video of bin Laden, it would be the first new footage of him since a video released on Oct. 29, 2004, just before the U.S. presidential elections, in which bin Laden said America could avoid another 9-11 style attack if it stopped threatening Muslims. Since then, there were a number of audiotape messages from bin Laden, but the last came in July 2006, when he praised the slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and welcomed his successor.
ABC News reports that the site in question is “” and that “Federal law enforcement authorities say that another Web site had posted a message on Sept. 2, promising ‘a special gift to be delivered on the blessed day of the invasion of Manhattan.’”
Fox has a “developing story” about Islamist promises of a “Special Gift” coming the same day.
Rusty Shackleford has extensive coverage, including numerous screencaps and links to various al Qaeda websites. He thinks it’s pretty serious:
I’m listening to the audio now. Starts out with sirens, gunshots, and panicked people screaming. There is a voice over in Arabic. Very menacing. Not at all like the usual. There’s shouting and screaming, and gunshots. Very different than most of these types of audios which are usually calm sermons with nasheeds (music) in the background.
No bin Laden audio, but towards the end of the audio is a nasheed praising Osama bin Laden. Then gunshots. Then it ends. Scary.
Sounds threatening to me. And considering that I monitor a lot of this stuff, if I even think its scary, then I think that’s saying something. It may not be a direct specific threat about an impending attack, but it is a general threat. And it reminds us of exactly who it is we’re fighting.
Michelle Malkin and AllahPundit have various Grecian Formula and botox jokes about OBL’s appearance.
