New video offers few clues for U.S. search

Bin Laden claims derided

experts say he looks ill

December 28, 2001|By Jill Zuckman, Tribune staff reporter. Tribune news services contributed to this report.

The United States stepped up its search for Osama bin Laden on Thursday amid Afghan government reports that he may have slipped safely into neighboring Pakistan, and the Pentagon readied its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hold the Saudi exile's Al Qaeda followers.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. could not confirm the announcement from the Afghan Defense Ministry that bin Laden was being protected by a radical Islamic group in Pakistan, a charge the group denied.

While the U.S. pressed its hunt for bin Laden, American intelligence officers questioned captured Al Qaeda fighters and the Pentagon prepared to send 45 former Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to the base at Guantanamo. Rumsfeld said there were no plans to hold military tribunals there.

This activity surrounding the fate of bin Laden and his followers came as the man who masterminded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said in a new videotape that the U.S. would soon collapse regardless of his fate or the future of his Al Qaeda network.

The 34-minute tape, broadcast by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite television channel, was quickly condemned as "terrorist propaganda" by the White House and snubbed by television networks, which said they did not want to risk sending coded messages to bin Laden sympathizers. Some experts who viewed the video said the presentation contains hints that the gaunt and thinner-looking bin Laden may be gravely ill.

"The tape contains the usual rhetoric we have seen before from a deviant and cowardly criminal. Bin Laden is deluding himself if he believes that his criminal acts are justified by any religion or principle of humanity," said Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S.

End of U.S. `imminent'

Although bin Laden appeared almost frail, he was defiant and inflammatory in his message.

"We say that the end of the United States is imminent, whether bin Laden or his followers are alive or dead, for the awakening of the Muslim umma [nation] has occurred," bin Laden said in the tape.

"It is important to concentrate on the destruction of the American economy," bin Laden said in the video, taped in an undisclosed location.

James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, said the "only interest that appears to be there is that it shows him to be alive at a certain point in time, but from what I've heard, it doesn't appear to have any value in changing people's opinions one way or the other."

Brief portions of bin Laden's remarks had been released Wednesday, but the full text was not aired until Thursday. The remarks added to the mystery--and the U.S. frustration--regarding bin Laden's whereabouts.

In Washington, Rumsfeld said he no longer pays attention to the bin Laden rumors that accumulate daily. "I've stopped chasing them," Rumsfeld said.

`That's newspaper talk'

But the pursuit of bin Laden goes on, as does the search for the leadership of Al Qaeda and the former Taliban government. Rumsfeld denied a published report that the U.S. is backing away from plans to send Marines into the Al Qaeda hideout caves and tunnels of the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan because of safety concerns.

"That's all newspaper talk--just flat out," Rumsfeld said, saying the Pentagon will use U.S. and Afghan forces in that region as it deems necessary.

The Pentagon also said American bombers struck a compound in Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan, suspected of housing members of the Taliban leadership.

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the U.S. had "very good indications that the compound was inhabited by Taliban leadership, and were confident enough and had watched it long enough that we felt we could strike it."

Myers said he was unaware of an unconfirmed report from the area that up to 40 villagers had been killed in a U.S. nighttime bombing raid.

Consistent with the release of earlier bin Laden statements, there was no indication Thursday of where or when the videotape was recorded. Al Jazeera, which has broadcast all of the previous bin Laden tapes, said the tape was mailed from Pakistan but had lain unopened on a secretary's desk for two days before someone noticed it Wednesday.

Al Jazeera did not say how it got the tape or when or where it had been shot, though the channel's anchor said it could have been recorded during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as bin Laden was swallowing constantly. Muslims refrain from eating and drinking from dawn to dusk during Ramadan, which ended on Dec. 15.

"I concentrate on the importance of continuing holy war actions against America, militarily and economically, and America is retreating with God's help," bin Laden said. "This economic hemorrhaging continues until today, but requires more blows. And the youth should try to find the joints of the American economy and hit the enemy in these joints, with God's permission.