MENACING new al-Qaida video obtained by NBC News.

MSNBC article by Lisa Myers, NBC senior investigative correspondent.

The tape appears to be real, because it was posted late Wednesday night on a known al-Qaida Web site — produced by a company that has made other bin Laden tapes.

The tape also contains what U.S. counterterror experts say may be never-before-broadcast video of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center shot from across the East River in Brooklyn. The FBI says it is familiar with the video, which was provided by a friendly bystander.

But that raises the question — how did a tape that was not widely circulated end up on a known al-Qaida site?

Interesting. Ms. Myers claims that the tape appears to be real either "because it was posted late Wednesday night on a known al-Qaida Web site", or because it was "produced by a company that has made other bin Laden tapes."

I wonder if Ms. Myers is referring to this one?

The Bush administration has called the tape, which officials said was found in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the "smoking gun" that proves bin Laden's direct responsibility for the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

There's a slight problem with this "smoking gun".

Or, perhaps this one, an audio tape which "US intelligence officials have said...was almost certainly that of Osama Bin Laden," but which "A team from the Lausanne-based Dalle Molle Institute for Perceptual Artificial Intelligence, Idiap, said it was 95% certain...does not feature the voice of the al-Qaeda leader.(sic)"

It would be quite interesting to know the identity of the "friendly bystander" who provided this latest video tape. Perhaps it was those Mossad agents arrested on 911. who acknowledged, "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event."

(emphasis mine)

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

S