New Message From Bin Laden

Is there a big one coming? If so, will it wake us up?

From the New York Times:

Two days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, Osama bin Laden apparently released a new audiotape, entitled “An Address to the American People,” news agencies reported Monday.

The tape appeared on As-Sahab, the Arabic-language Web site used by Al Qaeda to deliver its messages. The recording was reported and translated by the SITE Intelligence Group and IntelCenter, two groups in the United States that monitor jihadist Web sites.
SITE said the message, which was released on Sept. 13 and lasted 11 minutes, 20 seconds, offered reasons for Al Qaeda’s attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001 and advised how the conflict between Al Qaeda and the United States might come to a close.

The group said the recording spoke of injustices against the Muslim world, mentioning American support for Israel.

“The time has come for you to liberate yourselves from fear and the ideological terrorism of neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby,” the voice attributed to Mr. bin Laden said, news agencies reported. “The reason for our dispute with you is your support for your ally Israel, occupying our land in Palestine.”

The voice on the tape also said that the White House had shown no real shift in policy under the Obama administration because it is “occupied by pressure groups” that control it, Reuters said. And it warned that its actions against Americans would not stop unless the wars in Afghanistanand Iraq were ended.

“Otherwise,” the voice said, we will have no choice but to continue our war of attrition on every front.”

IntelCenter said the message consisted of a still image of Mr. bin Laden with a voice track underneath, news agencies reported. An employee of IntelCenter could not immediately be reached for comment about its translation of the tape, and it was not possible to verify that the recording was actually made by Mr. bin Laden.

The last tape attributed to Mr. bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda who is widely thought to be hiding in the mountainous region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, was issued June 3. That message, which came as President Obama was embarking on a tour of Muslim countries, warned the United States about its policies in Pakistan.

It said the new American administration had sowed new seeds of hatred among Muslims.
“I think the reports we’ve seen are consistent with messages we’ve seen in the past from Al Qaeda threatening the U.S. and other countries that are involved in counterterrorism efforts,” the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said at the time. “But I don’t think it’s surprising that Al Qaeda would want to shift attention away from the president’s historic efforts and continued efforts to reach out and have an open dialogue with the Muslim world.”