Washington — The release of a threatening audiotape believed to carry the voice of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden has raised fears of a new wave of terrorist attacks, particularly in Western Europe, U.S. officials and European diplomats said Wednesday.
Senior U.S. intelligence officials said they were concerned that the audiotape, or specific words on it, could be a signal for terrorist cells allied with bin Laden's al-Qaida network to launch attacks on Western interests.
The officials said that in recent days there had been an increase in so-called "chatter" among suspected terrorists monitored worldwide by the CIA and the National Security Agency and British intelligence. Such an increase in communications has sometimes - but not always - been followed by terrorist attacks.
"When he makes a threat, something happens down the road," said one official, who like all others spoke on condition of anonymity.
"I think there's a message here, a message that we'd better be looking, and looking closely now, for more terrorist attacks," Sen. Richard Shelby, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said of the audiotape, which was broadcast Tuesday on the Arab TV station Al-Jazeera.
Shelby noted concerns that members of al-Qaida might retaliate for U.S. military action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. "There's a correlation between what we might have to do in Iraq and the terrorist attacks in the future," Shelby said on the CBS "Early Show."
U.S. officials said Wednesday that extensive analysis of the tape indicated the voice probably was that of bin Laden, whose whereabouts have been unknown since he was overheard exhorting his troops by walkie-talkie at Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan last December.
But the analysis is not definitive.
"We're in the mid-90s, but not 100 percent," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A final determination of the tape's authenticity is being held up by its poor quality, the senior official said.
The quality of the audio could indicate the speaker's comments were recorded off the telephone, the official said. It also is possible that the tape was dubbed from an original recording in order to protect the security of the speaker's whereabouts.
"It didn't sound like it was (spoken) directly into a microphone but was recorded from a video recorder or a cassette recorder," he said.
But other terrorism experts said that the fact that bin Laden, if the voice on the tape is his, chose not to appear on video and spoke weakly could mean that he is ill or isolated.
It "could be kind of indicative that he's fallen out of his high, holy place," said a U.S. intelligence official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
U.S. intelligence analysts believe that bin Laden probably remains somewhere along the border between Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas of North and South Waziristan, where local Pashtun tribesmen may be sheltering him, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and other al-Qaida and Taliban leaders.
There have been numerous reported sightings of bin Laden in the area. "Some of those are beginning to look a little more credible," said one U.S. official on Wednesday.
The audiotape appears to have been recorded sometime after Oct. 28, when a U.S. diplomat was murdered in Amman, Jordan, but before Friday, when the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution demanding that Iraq readmit U.N. weapons inspectors. Syria, an Arab nation, supported the resolution, and analysts believe bin Laden would have singled out Damascus if he made the tape after the vote.
One significant feature of the recorded message - which mentions such recent incidents as the diplomat's murder and last month's bombing in the Indonesian resort of Bali - was its direct threats against U.S. allies in Europe, Canada and Australia.
"What do your governments want by allying themselves with the criminal gang in the White House against Muslims?" the speaker asked. He went on to specifically mention Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia.
U.S. officials and foreign diplomats said there had been a marked increase in threats toward Western Europe.
Europe is "a softer target than the United States, especially now," said one U.S. official.
"We are very worried," said a French diplomat.
In a speech Monday in London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned that "barely a day goes by without some new piece of intelligence (on terrorist threats) coming via our security services."
But Blair, responding to criticism that the Bali attack could have been prevented, also cautioned against overreacting to general threats.
"If, on the basis of a general warning, we were to shut down all the places that al-Qaida might be considering for attack, we would be doing their job for them," the prime minister said.
News reports from London this week said many European ports were on high alert following warnings from French and Dutch security services that terrorists might try to drive a truck with explosives onto a ferry headed for Britain.
The British, after three decades of struggle with the Irish Republican Army, have experience in dealing with constant security threats. They shared that expertise last week with visiting U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who is considering revising the Bush administration's color-coded public threat warning system.
A U.S. official said Blair's warning came at President Bush's urging. Not only are analysts worried about a new attack in Western Europe, officials said, but they fear that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials have lost credibility by crying wolf too often.
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