Dec 27, 2007 8:59 pm US/Pacific
Group: Bin Laden To Release Message On Iraq
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Osama Bin Laden (File)
AP
Terror leader Osama bin Laden will release a new Internet message that focuses on Iraq, a terrorism monitoring group said Thursday.
The SITE intelligence group said it has learned that the al Qaeda leader will discuss Iraq and the insurgent group the Islamic State of Iraq, which is a front organization for al Qaeda.
SITE, which provides counter-terrorism information to government and private groups, said the announcement of the impending message was posted to jihadist forums earlier in the day.
The posting said the message - titled `The way to contain conspiracies" - would last 56 minutes. It did not say when it would be released, but advertisements for past al Qaeda statements usually give a timeframe of 72 hours.
SITE said the posting was signed by As-Sahab, the production branch that releases al Qaeda messages. It didn't say if it would be a video or just an audio message. Al Qaeda has dramatically increased the pace of its messages this year.
Former Pakistani prime minster Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated Thursday, was the target of threats from virtually all of the militant groups who make Pakistan their home - from al Qaeda to homegrown terrorists to tribal insurgents on the Afghan border.
Her assassination after a rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi - where the country's military and intelligence services are based - also focused anger and suspicion on the government of President Pervez Musharraf.
The former prime minister blamed al Qaeda, the Taliban and homegrown militants for an Oct. 18 suicide bombing that tore through a procession welcoming her back from exile to lead her opposition party in parliamentary elections. But she accused militant "sympathizers" in Musharraf's administration of backing the attempt on her life. Bhutto's supporters chanted, "Killer, Killer, Musharraf!" outside the hospital where she was pronounced dead Thursday.
Al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri decried Bhutto's return in a video message this month and called for attacks on all the candidates in the Jan. 8 elections. And according to Bhutto, several Pakistanis arrested in an assassination attempt during her second term in the mid-1990s said they were following Osama bin Laden's orders.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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