UK news agency sent second Bin Laden tape

A media bidding war has broken out for a second audio tape, allegedly freshly recorded by Osama Bin Laden, obtained yesterday (11 February 2003) by the Birmingham-based online news agency, Al-Ansaar.

In the new recording, Bin Laden is said to predict his own death in an act of 'martyrdom' later this year.

The tape has been translated from Arabic into English by Al-Ansaar director Imran Khan and others, but it has not yet been officially authenticated. Mr Khan, however, claims it has been tested with voice recognition software to compare it to the speech of the Al-Qaeda leader. He is also personally confident of its authenticity.

"We've heard so many tapes of Bin Laden," Mr Khan told dotJournalism. "It's quite clear that it's him."

The statement from the Islamic Fundamentalist leader concentrates on the 'new crusade of war'. "Most of the tape is Osama discussing his thoughts on the US dominating the world, their hypocrisy, and how they are trying to take over the Gulf," said Mr Khan.

"He also talks about America supporting the Israeli's killing of innocents."

Mr Khan told dotJournalism that he had been swamped with telephone calls since 3am in the morning (UK time) and had been offered up to £40,000 (British pounds) by various national and international newspapers for the tape..

Many news wires and web sites are also bidding for the audio recording.

Mr Khan was forced to set up his own web hosting company at the beginning of the year, after more than 30 internet service providers pulled the plug on his Al-Ansaar web site following complaints about its content, which included letters from Palestinian children about the Israeli/Palestininian conflict.

Sources:
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20030212_440.html
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/13/1044927730845.html
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-bin-laden-tape0213feb12,0,1001514.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Feb/02132003/nation_w/29128.asp

See also: http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story542.html

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