Al Qaeda, Bush wage media war as anniversary nears

LONDON, Sep 8 (Reuters) With striking symmetry, Al Qaeda and the United States have waged a propaganda war this week in which both sides agree on one point: the central role of Osama bin Laden, even after five years in hiding.

A video aired by Al Jazeera television on Thursday purported to show bin Laden meeting some of the September 11 suicide hijackers as they trained for their 2001 mission to strike the United States in attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

It followed a series of anniversary speeches by President George W Bush in which he has focused heavily on the figure of bin Laden and even quoted him extensively to underline the threat which he says Al Qaeda still poses to the United States.

The rival salvoes were the latest in a long-running battle for hearts and minds, and served to highlight weaknesses on both sides: for Bush, the failure to catch bin Laden; for Al Qaeda, the reliance on old footage of a leader who has not issued any new video message since the eve of the US presidential election nearly two years ago.

The latest tape was a clever and well-timed counter to Bush but also a missed chance to dispel the questions surrounding bin Laden, said Roland Jacquard, head of the International Terrorism Observatory in Paris.

''Is he still alive, is he too physically decayed to appear on television, doesn't he dare to communicate, is he afraid of his whereabouts being discovered?'' In sporting parlance, Jacquard said, ''I would say it's 1-1'' between Al Qaeda and Washington in terms of the latest propaganda exchanges.

CHANGE OF TACK Bush, for his part, has delivered a series of speeches designed to impart a key message: ''Five years after September the 11th, 2001, America is safer -- and America is winning the war on terror.'' Whereas US officials, after failing to catch bin Laden in Afghanistan, once tried to play down his significance, the president placed him centre stage in a speech on Tuesday in which he repeatedly quoted his messages and writings.

Mustafa Alani of the Gulf Research Center in Dubai said while that change of tack may serve Bush's purpose in explaining to Americans why they are still under threat, it could backfire with the wider world and particularly with Arab public opinion.

He said it risked sending the message to Arabs: ''If the president of the United States is quoting what Osama bin Laden is saying, Osama bin Laden must be really important, and Mr Bush must be really terrified of Osama bin Laden.'' Washington's difficulties in countering Al Qaeda's appeal stem partly from widespread anger in the Islamic world over the invasion of Iraq and US backing for Israel.

It also faces an adversary which combines media and Internet skills with a strong tactical sense, sometimes keeping material in reserve and releasing it for maximum impact at an opportune moment -- a technique illustrated by Thursday's broadcast, five years on, of taped ''wills'' by two of the September 11 hijackers.

Alani said he would not be surprised to see further Al Qaeda communications in the days leading up to Monday's anniversary, perhaps even including a long-awaited new video from bin Laden.

''They have planned for the propaganda war as much as for the physical war on the United States. This is a long-term strategy,'' he said.

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