Tornado Alley (PROG)

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(COMTEX) B: Analysts see change in bin Laden's tone ( United Press International )

WASHINGTON, Dec 22, 2004 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- Intelligence analysts say al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has shifted the tone of his messages away from anger, the New York Times reported.

The most striking example was his pre-election videotaped message in November was where he traded his battle fatigues, his AK-47 and mountainous backdrop for a sheik's garb, a desk and a script without a single threat of another attack against the United States.

Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst who interviewed bin Laden in 1997, said: "The talk revealed bin Laden to be sort of a policy wonk, talking about supplemental emergency funding by Congress for the Afghan and Iraq wars, and how it was evidence that al-Qaida's bleed-until-bankruptcy plan was working."

Michael Scheuer, a former senior CIA official who tracked bin Laden for years, said the Saudi dissident was trying a new approach to getting his message across.

"We are being told by the president and others that al-Qaida attacked us because they despise who we are and what we think and how we live," Scheuer said. "But Osama's point is, it's not that at all. They don't like what we do."

Copyright 2004 by United Press International.

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