Arab Media Doubt Authenticity Of Video Showing Bin Laden

A number of Arab media doubt the authenticity of a video showing Osama bin Laden, provided by the Pentagon as evidence of bin Laden's organising the September 11th terrorist attacks in the US. The Lebanese newspaper Al-Sharq said on Friday that "the picture is blurred, no sound is heard, and no one knows why the film was made." Specialists confirm that this is a "paste-up incorporating some other footage," the paper claims. The writer of the article suggests a story that bin Laden is only a "proxy" for the United States to wage war against Afghanistan in order to "provoke a series of collapses in the Islamic world." The newspaper of the same name, Al-Sharq, appearing in Qatar, underlines that "the tape is for amateurs and of poor quality." If, in the paper's view, the US is sure of the proofs provided by the footage, then the first thing to be done is to hand it over for a judicial investigation rather than demonstrate on television. The material shown cannot elucidate the truth, and will only "thicken the veil of haze around the whole affair" at a time when Washington "is hinting at making strikes in other regions, in particular Somalia," the paper says.