ARABS CALL U.S. VIDEOTAPE FAKE

Arabs call U.S. videotape fake

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Cairo | Reuters | 15/12/2001

Angry over U.S. support for Israel, ordinary Arabs yesterday accused the United States of faking a videotape it says proves Osama bin Laden's guilt in the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities.

But the few Arab officials and analysts who commented on the tape, released by the Pentagon on Thursday, accepted it as damning evidence that the Saudi-born extremist was behind the attacks which killed nearly 3,300 people.

Most newspaper editorials and columnists ignored the tape, devoting attention to an escalation in tension between Israel and the Palestinians, after Israel cut all ties with President Yasser Arafat on Thursday and confined him to Ramallah.

"The attitude in the region is disturbing. Arab newspapers have been saying for three months that there is no proof of bin Laden's involvement, and then they play down the tape," said Lebanese political commentator Michael Young.

Egyptian state television ran the video on Thursday night describing it has "the tape which proves Osama bin Laden's involvement in the September 11 events". But commentators who appeared in Egyptian talk shows yesterday were sceptical.

"The tape is suspicious. It's not continuous and the sound is muffled," military analyst Hassan Suweilam said on one show.

"If the United States has evidence which condemns bin Laden, it should present it to courts, not on television screens."

Most reaction among television viewers in North Africa and the Gulf was similar.

"Sometimes it was as if they were turning down the sound so that you couldn't hear what he was saying," said Beirut shopper Myrna Ghosn. "I don't think the translation is right."

"Bin Laden was articulating his words in a way that is different from his previous television appearances...I'm not convinced that was him speaking," said 24-year-old Tunisian university student Hichem Masmoudi.

Others questioned the tape's significance after the U.S. toppled Afghanistan's radical Taliban movement, sending bin Laden and his followers on the run, and while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tightens his vice on Palestinians.

"The U.S. is making a lot of noise about bin Laden's tape, while keeping quiet on Sharon's atrocities both in the past and present... where is justice?" asked an Omani civil servant.

"The tape...is irrelevant since Arabs have already condemned the attacks in the United States. The focus now should be on Sharon and his criminal acts against the Palestinians, which the U.S. is ignoring," an Omani university lecturer said.

But the few Arab officials to comment were damning. "The tape displays the cruel and inhumane face of a murderous criminal who has no respect for the sanctity of human life or the principles of his faith," Saudi ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan said.

Bush scorns claims that bin Laden video was a fake

SATURDAY DECEMBER 15 2001
FROM ROLAND WATSON IN WASHINGTON AND MELISSA KITE IN LAEKEN

PRESIDENT Bush has dismissed sceptics who suggested the Osama bin Laden video was a fake, saying it amounted to a “devastating declaration of guilt”.

Speaking for the first time about the tape, Mr Bush said it was “preposterous” for anyone to think it had been doctored. “That’s just a feeble excuse to provide weak support for an incredibly evil man,” he said. Tony Blair also insisted that the latest video recording of bin Laden was proof that the Saudi dissident had the blood of innocent people on his hands.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We have never doubted his guilt. What this video does is to make absolutely clear that he has the blood of innocent people on his hands.

International reaction to the tape has both encouraged and alarmed the White House. Some Arab leaders and Muslim groups have condemned bin Laden’s jovial admission of his leading role in the September 11 attacks.

But the view from the street corner in large parts of the Muslim world, bolstered by some Islamic scholars, is that the tape is a forgery, the result of US dirty tricks. Al-Jazeera, the Qatari-based Arabic satellite station, broadcast a denunciation of its veracity from a London-based Islamist as the tape was still rolling on Thursday.

The Bush Administration had hoped to let bin Laden’s words, in which he confirms his role as the mastermind of the four hijackings, speak for themselves. But, after the suspicous reaction from some, Mr Bush felt the need to address the doubters, saying that those who questioned the tape’s authenticity were misguided.

“Those who contend it’s a farce or a fake are hoping for the best about an evil man. This is bin Laden unedited. This is a man who sent innocent people to their death. Here’s a man who is so devious and so cold-hearted that he laughs about the so-called suicide bombers that lost their lives,” he said. Intelligence experts are still picking over the evidence provided by the tape, apparently shot in a guesthouse in Kandahar in mid-November.

Peter Bergen, author of Holy War Inc., Inside the Mind of Osama bin Laden, said the tape presented the US authorities with grounds for both optimism and pessimism. It confirmed bin Laden’s status as the al-Qaeda mastermind, suggesting that the network would be severely disrupted by his removal. But at the same time, the strict “need to know” approach to the planning, in which very senior al-Qaeda figures were left in the dark, revealed the extent of the problems faced by intelligence services trying to infiltrate the organisation.

Mr Bergen said: “What immediately struck me was how compartmentalised it was, the fact that even his own spokesman didn’t know it was happening.”

He said one element which emerged was the absence of any reference to any other countries such as Iraq, regularly touted by some as likely sponsors of the September 11 attacks, even though bin Laden referred to Egyptian Islamic Jihad as being supportive.

Mr Bush said he had wrestled with whether to make the tape public. “I had mixed emotions about this tape because there’s a lot of people who suffered as a result of his evil. And I was hesitant to allow there to be a vivid reminder of their loss and tragedy displayed on our TVs.

“On the other hand I knew that the tape would be a devastating declaration of guilt for this evil person.” Mr Blair’s spokesman said: “(bin Laden) is somebody who not only thinks nothing of murdering innocent people, but somebody who sends people to their deaths without their knowledge and then boasts about it.”

He said that, despite success in the military campaign in Afghanistan, the terrorist threat remained. It was right that Britain now had some of the strongest anti-terrorism measures in the world after the passing of David Blunkett’s Anti-Terror Bill.

Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.