Archival footage of Osama bin Laden concerns analysts

There is a new seven-minute, 55-second video containing footage of Osama bin Laden walking along mountainous terrain with his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri.

That the segment, undistributed to Arabic language Internet web sites used by Muslim terrorists when discovered, was extracted from a lengthier segment containing footage of the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 19 “martyred” hijackers. This is the second time within the last week that archived footage of Osama bin Laden has been destined for distribution on web sites. The segment within the last week contained a 50-second segment of bin Laden amid other footage, while the latest footage was extracted from a longer video.

Investigators and analysts note that the last time that Osama Bin Laden actually appeared in any authenticated video footage with an established date was October 2004. Additionally, the last authenticated audio message by bin Laden was in July 2006. In consideration of global political events and current threat levels, analysts are questioning the motives of the sudden resurgence of bin Laden videos.

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