Bush: Bin Laden’s video underscores threats

'Bizarre — as usual'
One U.S. official described the video to NBC News as "bizarre — as usual."

Officials told NBC News that they believe the tape was made sometime in June or later because of the specific references to the new French President Nikolas Zarkozy, inaugurated in May, and the new British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, installed in June.

The Department of Homeland Security said Thursday it had no credible information warning of an imminent threat to the United States, and analysts noted that al-Qaida tends to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary with a slew of messages.

“Historically the anniversary of 9/11 has never been drawn to attacks. It’s drawn to video releases,” said Ben Venzke, chief executive officer of IntelCenter, which monitors Islamic Web sites and analyzes terror threats.

Web sites shut down
The United States intercepted the video before it was released on Islamic Web sites where al-Qaida usually posts its messages, a U.S. counterterrorism official said, without elaborating on how. U.S. officials analyzed the video for hours before transcripts and videos were leaked, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Soon after Washington announced it had the video, all the Islamic militant Web sites that usually carry statements from al-Qaida went down and were inaccessible, in an unprecedented shutdown.

The reason for the shutdown was not immediately known. Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News terrorism expert, said he suspected it was the work of al-Qaida itself, trying to find how the video leaked to U.S. officials.

"For them this is totally disruptive that the U.S. government could have a copy before their targeted audience does," he said. "They could be concerned and trying to plug the leak quickly."

Kohlmann said it was unlikely the U.S. government shut down the sites.

"I don't think they would have the legal or technical capability to do so, to collectively shut all these sites at the same time. Also, I don't think the U.S. government is necessarily interested in shutting these sites down, unless there is something so provocative and dangerous in what bin Laden is saying."

"It's pretty remote that the content of his speech is so incendiary that they would shut down all the sites. The idea that they (U.S. government) could totally prevent this from coming out on the Internet is ludicrous," he said.

Bin Laden sports apparently dyed beard
The release of the video may have been driven by reports that bin Laden is dead, NBC News' Robert Windrem said. U.S. intelligence officials have been quoted, as they were before the 2004 tape, as saying there are equal bodies of evidence that bin Laden was alive or dead.

Al-Qaida’s media arm, Al-Sahab, announced bin Laden’s new message in a banner advertisement on an Islamic militant Web site that included a photo of him.

“Soon, God willing, a videotape from the lion sheik Osama bin Laden, God preserve him,” the advertisement read, signed by Al-Sahab. Such announcements are usually put out one to three days before the video is posted on the Web.

One difference in bin Laden's appearance was immediately obvious. The video showed bin Laden's beard fully black. In his past videos, bin Laden’s beard was almost entirely gray with dark streaks.

Bin Laden’s beard appears to have been dyed, a popular practice among Arab leaders, said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terror messages.

“I think it works for their (al-Qaida’s) benefit that he looks young, he looks healthy,” Katz said.

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