Al Qaeda to attack this month? (So they say.)

[matt_mcl]

I suppose this is the first victim?

[Violet]

[Derleth]

I haven’t heard anything specific, myself, but I doubt it: Al Qaeda has enough problems keeping itself alive to think about hitting us again. Someone else, someone else with a beef with us who perhaps sympathizes with Al Qaeda, but not Al Qaeda itself.

(Besides, I’d worry about September 11, 2002. Anniversaries seem to be important to the terrorist mind.)

[Larry_Mudd]

Argh.

The OP was about this article at a website sympathetic to al Qaeda.

Al-Qaida will carry out a series of operations during the month of August and Osama bin Laden will speak in a video taped address soon after. The news of these developments, published by the London- based Ash Sharq al-Awsat newspaper Tuesday, came through e-mail from sources close to bin Laden’s supporters, the newspaper says.

These sources say that Al-Qaida has completed preparations for the August operations and that " what remains is only the execution". The email went on to say that “Sheikh bin Laden is alive and will appear in a videotape after carrying out these operation to confirm that he is still alive and will continue fighting the United States”.

The online version of Ash Sharq al-Awsat appears to be down. (It’s in Arabic anyway, but it would be nice if an arabic-literate Doper would be able to get a bit closer to the horse’s mouth.)

The eaten OP was basically a “whaddya think of this?” sorta thing.

It worries me slightly more than Rumsfield’s “BE VERY AFRAID! Because we’re still under attack!” warnings, although I can’t say exactly why.

[Gopher]

Haven’t there been dozens of warnings just like that too?