DRUDGE

MAG: In Saying, 'I Swear to God,' Osama bin Laden May Have Sent a Signal Sat Oct 13 2001 17:09:07 ET

New York – Administration officials believe Osama bin Laden may have surreptitiously issued a "Go" order for a second strike in his videotaped message aired this past Sunday (Oct. 7), according to a new report from TIME magazine.

Intelligence sources tell TIME's Doug Waller that analysts have zeroed in on one sentence at the end: "I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad." A former al-Qaeda follower told U.S. intelligence officials bin Laden wouldn't normally use the locution "I swear to God." "That may mean it was a signal," TIME reports. An intelligence official tells TIME, Bin Laden's public statements "are often used for more than one purpose." Agents are looking at words and phrases from past diatribes to see if anything else on the latest video jumps out.

TIME also has learned that the FBI's preventive efforts are focusing increasingly on trucks as vehicles for terrorism. "U.S. roads are jammed with bombs on wheels," writes TIME's John Cloud, "30,000 vehicles that transport poisonous gas, toxic liquids, petroleum products and explosives."

Since drivers of rigs hauling dangerous loads must have both a commercial driver's license and a hazardous material ("haz-mat") endorsement from a state, FBI agents and other law enforcers have contacted or visited dozens of the 600 truck-driving schools across the U.S., reports TIME's Michael Weisskopf. They are seeking enrollment records going as far back as 1994.

"State officials say that a former employee of Careers in Trucking in Henderson, Colo., has given the Denver FBI office a promising lead," according to TIME: "25 to 35 Arab men attended the school in small groups over the past two years, the ex-employee says. Each student paid $3,400 in cash for the 15-day program—and none sought job placement afterward. Because none of the students spoke English, they were accompanied by an interpreter, the same person for each group.

Arab students received a driver’s license, sources say. (It’s not clear how they passed the written test, which is in English.) Owner Charlie Tweedy says FBI agents have examined his files and interviewed his employees. But he denied that his company had taught non-English speakers."

Americans (83%) surveyed overnight Friday for a TIME/CNN Poll released Saturday believe that the most likely kind of terrorist attack within the next 12 months would use a bomb carried in a car or truck (only 37% anticipate another airplane hijacking like the ones that occurred Sept. 11.

More exclusives are coming in TIME's issue on newsstands Monday, Oct. 15, including these items from the story TIME released Saturday, entitled, "THE INVESTIGATION: Search and Disrupt: The FBI struggles with a daunting new task: thwarting terror before it happens":

ˇ New Alert for Oct. 18: Federal law enforcement officials tell TIME's Elaine Shannon the FBI may issue a new alert this week, pointing to possible terrorist activity Thursday, the day four al-Qaeda associates convicted of bombing the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 are due to be sentenced.

ˇ Overseas Source? Though Attorney General John Ashcroft and his aides wouldn't reveal precisely what information prompted their extraordinary alert, law enforcement officials tell TIME the raw data underlying the warning came from an overseas source developed by the CIA, buttressed by other intelligence efforts around the world. The source may or may not be reliable, but one official said, "nobody's going to take a chance."

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2001

Answers

That makes sense. As a Muslim he would have sworn to Allah, not God. Hmmmmmm.......

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2001

Could be it just translated as God and was Allah in the original Arabic. I think maybe they're referring to the phrase in its entirety. I felt right at the start that the release of the video itself was a signal, not so much that there was a specific phrase to hang a hat on.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2001