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| Iraq |
| Al-Qaeda Tape Of Iraq Attacks Claim Inauthentic: Analysts |
| 2003-07-15 |
| EFL A group alleging links to the al-Qaeda claimed in an audio tape broadcast by al-Arabiya satellite station Sunday, July 13, that it is responsible for growing attacks against the U.S. forces in Iraq. However, analysts ruled out the tape was authentic, as it offered no evidence to back up the claims by the white-bearded man on it. The voice said the "Armed Islamic Movement for al-Qaeda, the Falluja Branch," a previously unheard-of name, vowed to keep attacks against American forces, one day before one an American soldier was killed and eight others injured in separate attacks. "We don’t have any way of proving or disproving what was said on that tape," a spokesman in Florida for the United States Central Command was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying. A number of analysts and observers said the tape could not be released by al-Qaeda, as it bears none of its hallmarks of messages previously broadcast by the group on Arab channels. "The tape might rather be a sort of psychological pressure on American soldiers by an Iraqi resistance group," Diyaa Rashwan, an analyst in Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, told Islamonline.net. The man appearing on the tape was unidentified, a style al-Qaeda did not use in its audio and video tapes, Rashwan said, adding that it was clear the voice "was doctored" electronically. "All al-Qaeda earlier tapes did not end with praying for Bin Laden or Taliban leader Mulla Omar, unlike the al-Arabiya tape," the Egyptian analyst added. "So the audio was probably recorded by an Iraqi resistance fighter who wants to wage a psychological war on American soldiers," said Rashwan. Conspicuously, the tape mentioned the western calendar before the Islamic calendar and included no Koranic sayings, which did not also confirm with the style followed by al-Qaeda. Seems reasonable. |
| Posted by:Steve |