"New" Osama Vid? Not!

[Flabbergasted]

New" Osama Vid? Not!

By Noah Shachtman July 15, 2007 | 10:44:35 AMCategories: Info War

By now you've probably seen the screaming headlines, about a "new" Osama Bin Laden video. Ben Venzke, spokesman for IntelCenter, which tracks these Islamist dispatches as carefully as anyone, says to "take a deep breath, everyone."


While one might argue it's technically accurate it is very misleading," he e-mails reporters.


As-Sahab produced videos always contain tons of old footage mixed together in documentary style. In fact just a few weeks ago one was released that showed an old video clip of Osama bin Laden. Much like the case for that one this upcoming release reportedly has a 50-second clip of OBL. We do not have final confirmation yet but we believe this clip to be OLD, which means that it was either previously released and is just being reaired or it was recorded awhile ago but never shown till now. Either way in the language of as-Sahab videos a 50-second clip on a 40-minute produced video does not make a "new" Osama bin Laden "video". These videos always have old clips of OBL.

All of this is not to say that this video is not significant. Almost all produced as-Sahab videos are for a variety of reasons. These videos take a lot of time and energy for al-Qaeda to produce and generally they only do so for things they feel are important. For example this new video has a new animated intro which would have taken a lot of work and computing power to do.

So, yes on significant... No, this is not a new OBL video. It is a 40-minute video with a short clip of Osama bin Laden that we have likely seen before.

UPDATE: Hot Air and friends go sleuthing, and discover the OBL clips were shown in 2002.


http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/07/new-osama-vid-n.html