Is it Bin Laden?

last updated 8 January 2015

Doha, Qatar

The Arab satellite station al-Jazeera this week aired an audiotape of a voice, purportedly Osama bin Laden’s, praising recent terrorist attacks. If the tape is truly of bin Laden, it is the first hard evidence that he survived the December bombing of his cave complex in Afghanistan. None of the other bin Laden tapes al-Jazeera has played over the past year referred to events after December. In this tape, the speaker lists four attacks from last month—the Bali bombing, the killing of a U.S. Marine in Kuwait, the bombing of a French oil tanker, and the Chechen siege of a Moscow theater—and calls them “a reaction undertaken by sons who are zealous in the defense of their religion.” He also warns of more attacks. The CIA is analyzing the tape.