BY RUPERT CORNWELL in Washington
America has an even worse case of the jitters after the apparently authentic warning that Osama bin Laden and most of his lieutenants are alive and planning fresh attacks.
The White House had yet to react yesterday to the audiotaped message from Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, bin Laden's spokesman, which has been obtained by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV network.
In the past, the network has been al Qaeda's main media conduit.
Senior US politicians did say that whatever the fate of bin Laden himself, the threat from al Qaeda was real and growing, despite the military operation against it.
"They are more dangerous now," said Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a likely Democratic challenger to President Bush in 2004.
Senator Bob Graham of Florida, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, yesterday added that "with or without bin Laden" al Qaeda appeared to be regenerating.
He cited the recent attacks on western-world targets in Pakistan and the deadly fire at a Tunisian synagogue in April, for which Abu Ghaith claimed responsibility.
In his message, the al Qaeda spokesman declared that bin Laden was in "good and prosperous health" and that the terror group was still capable of threatening America.
"The few coming days and months will prove to the whole world, Allah willing, the truth of what we are saying."
Whatever the truth about bin Laden, there seemed little doubt Abu Ghaith's message was genuine and recent.
He refers to the latest Washington controversy about whether Bush and the US intelligence services knew enough beforehand to have prevented the September 11 attacks, arguing that the row was intended to distract attention from the problems of the US economy.
He also said "98 per cent" of the al Qaeda leadership, including Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's Egyptian-born deputy, and Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, had survived the US onslaught.
These boasts will only increase US anxiety about another al Qaeda attack.
Hardly a day passes without another warning from the FBI, most recently that the weapon of choice might be a fuel tanker or an emergency vehicle commandeered by terrorists.
Many fears focus on July 4, Independence Day, when the majority of Americans expect the next attack, according to a poll last week.
The poll came after a string of warnings from senior Bush administration officials that further attacks, possibly involving weapons of mass destruction, were inevitable.
The worries were further fanned by the disclosure this month that in May the authorities had arrested Abdullah al Muhajir, a Chicago-born Muslim convert, on the suspicion he was involved in a plot to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in Washington DC.
Al Qaeda, Abu Ghaith said, was now "monitoring, detecting and observing" new American targets, "which we will strike at in a period which is not long".
- INDEPENDENT
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