Technical tests show tape is of his voice Bin Laden’s back [Archives:2003/07/Front Page]

A CIA technical analysis of an audiotape aired on al Jazeera satellite television channel Feb. 12 week shows “almost certainly” it is of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, a U.S. intelligence official told Reuters.
“The technical analysis tells us it is almost certainly bin Laden,” the intelligence official said, adding the audio was of better quality than a tape released last November.
Another U.S. official said “fairly sophisticated” means were used to compare the recent audiotape with past samples known to be of bin Laden’s voice.
U.S. intelligence analysts familiar with bin Laden’s voice had earlier this week determined the tape was probably of the al Qaeda leader, but it could not be determined to a greater degree of probability until the technical analysis was conducted.
The United States has blamed al Qaeda for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that killed about 3,000 people.
The U.S. government recently raised its national alert to the second-highest level of orange after intercepted communications of suspected al Qaeda operatives and other intelligence information suggested they were poised to strike U.S. interests possibly as early as this week, U.S. officials have said.
‘WALK-IN’ INFORMATION
One U.S. official said on condition of anonymity that some of the information about the al Qaeda threats came from a “walk in” who approached U.S. authorities overseas with intelligence that corroborated other information that U.S. spy agencies were picking up.
That person, who was not identified, confessed later to lying to U.S. authorities about a threat to a Jewish-owned hotel in Virginia Beach, Virginia, after failing a polygraph question about that piece of information, the official told Reuters.
But other information from the “walk in” matched intelligence that was coming in from multiple sources and methods, and the basis for raising the threat level to orange was not substantially based on this individual’s information, the official said.
The most recent bin Laden audiotape was released as the United States amasses thousands of troops in the Gulf region for a possible war against Iraq.
On the tape, bin Laden referred to the United States as “crusaders,” called on Muslims in Iraq to fight, and labeled the Iraqi government “socialists” and “infidels” but said they had common cause against America.
Some U.S. officials have seized on the references to Iraq in bin Laden’s tape to promote their views that Baghdad has links to al Qaeda. Iraq denies any ties to al Qaeda.
CIA Director George Tenet said earlier this week at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that bin Laden was trying to energize followers in the latest audiotape and that U.S. intelligence agencies were analyzing it to determine whether it contained hidden signals to prompt an attack.
The U.S. intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was uncertain whether there was a signal in the recent tape aimed at prompting a specific attack.
The authenticity of the tape, however, showed that bin Laden was alive during the “past several weeks,” the official said.
U.S. forces have been hunting for the al Qaeda leader, and his fate has been the subject of much speculation since the Sept. 11 attacks. U.S. officials believe he is hiding somewhere in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Tenet noted this week that the airing of previous bin Laden tapes were followed by attacks on Western interests.
About two weeks after an audiotape believed to be from bin Laden was broadcast on Nov. 12, an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya was bombed and shoulder-fired missiles narrowly missed an Israeli-chartered plane leaving Mombasa.
Another bin Laden tape aired on Oct. 6 by al Jazeera was followed that same month with attacks on a French tanker off the coast of Yemen, U.S. Marines in Kuwait, and explosions in a nightclub strip in Bali that killed nearly 200 people.

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