Warning of coded orders in video

Audrey Gillan

Thursday October 11, 2001

The Guardian

The United States government believes that Osama bin Laden

and his al-Qaida network may be sending out coded messages

via videos it has recently put out through the Arabic satellite

channel al-Jazeera.

The president's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice,

suspects that the messages may be prompts for terrorists and

sleeper cells to begin a second wave of attacks.

Ms Rice called various television networks yesterday to raise

administration concerns about the broadcast of messages "that

could be a signal to terrorists to incite attacks". She requested

that the networks "exercise judgment" when they consider

whether to broadcast such videos in the future.

The Bush administration is also concerned that the tapes are

designed to frighten the American public.

The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said he had no

"hard indications" that covert communications were embedded

in the videotaped messages. But the means of communications

from Afghanistan to the outside world were limited, and Bin

Laden may be using western media to overcome that hurdle. "At

best, Osama bin Laden's messages are propaganda calling on

people to kill Americans," he said. "At worst, he could be

issuing orders to his followers to initiate such attacks."

Earlier, in an interview with CNN, the secretary of state, Colin

Powell, had also warned that the al-Qaida statements could

contain "some kind of message". Mr Powell said analysts were

looking at the statements, including the one made on Tuesday

by the al-Qaida spokesman Abu Ghaith praising the September

11 attacks on the US and warning that there would be more.