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American Morning

Audio Message Suggests Al Qaeda Regrouping, Planning New Attacks

Aired July 10, 2002 - 08:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Up front this morning, a really ominous audio message suggests that al Qaeda is regrouping and planning new attacks. A man claiming to be an al Qaeda spokesman said on a Web site the terrorist organization is expanding its war to include assassinations and attacks on "the enemy's weak infrastructure."

The man also says top al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden and Mullah Omar, are alive and they are in good health.

But is the statement authentic?

Let's turn to Barbara Starr, who joins us from the Pentagon with the very latest on that -- good morning, Barbara.

What are they telling you there this morning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Paula.

U.S. officials are aware of this tape and they tell us that what they are going to do now is try and use voice print matching to determine if this tape was really made by a man named Abu Ghaith, the spokesman for the al Qaeda and for Osama bin Laden.

Now, what's really interesting is that a couple of weeks ago, there was another audio recording from a man claiming to be Abu Ghaith, and they used voice print matching and they were able to verify, indeed, that it was him. Of course, they couldn't tell exactly when that audio recording was made, so it didn't tell them whether Abu Ghaith is currently alive at this time, though obviously he was when the recording was made.

So they're going to do that again. They're going to use voice print matching, try and determine if it is him. Since they have his voice print, this should be relatively easy to do.

But what they're also going to do is look very closely at the content of this tape and see what's new here. Their initial read is that it is possible that the material which has now surfaced is simply additional material that did not surface when that first recording was posted. It doesn't lessen the urgency or lessen their concern about the threats that are made on the tape. But they hope it will give them some additional clues about what is going on here. And officials say it's still the case that this year so far, since the first of the year, they have no verified direct contact with Osama bin Laden himself. But it appears that some of his associates are still surfacing around the world -- Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks, Barbara.

Barbara Starr reporting from the Pentagon this morning for us.

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