Bizarre Piano Soundtrack on New Bin Laden Tape

A new Osama bin Laden video popped up on jihadist message boards today. It's actually an audio tape with a still image of bin Laden overlaid on the clip. What's truly bizarre about the clip is that the first several minutes feature piano music playing as bin Laden talks.

Although the voice sounds like bin Laden, the clip is well below normal As-Sahab production values and lacks subtitles. The whole thing is kind of bizarre, to the point of looking forged, though I would not jump to that conclusion just yet.

The piano music is the strangest element. Other As-Sahab productions have featured various kinds of music, often incongruously, but this is stranger than any previous release. Later in the tape, the music stops. There is a hint of background sound, suggesting the piano solo may be intended to mask some background noise that could provide a clue to bin Laden's whereabouts.

If that is the case, the sum total of the presentation suggests it wasn't done by al Qaeda's normal media crew (presumed to be led by Amercian Adam Gadahn, aka Azzam the American). Whatever the ultimate explanation, there's probably some significance to be read into the aberrations.

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Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink