Triple Threat: Terror Leaders' War of Words

April 29, 2006 — -- For the first time ever, the world now has heard from three of the world's top terrorists in one week, leaving analysts wondering if it's a coincidence -- or a coordinated message.

It began Sunday, when the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera aired an audiotape of Osama bin Laden. Two days later, a video from his top man in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, appeared on an Arabic Web site.

Now, wearing the black headdress of an Arab warrior, al Qaeda's second in command boasts on an Internet video that his fighters in Iraq have conducted 800 suicide missions since the war began. That, Ayman al-Zawahiri claims, has broken the back of America.

"His message is not only to the America people, but to his own supporters telling them that they are winning, telling them that they should hang in there," says Richard Clarke, the former White House counter-terrorism director who is now an ABC News consultant.

None of the communiqués threatens an attack on the United States, but Clarke notes that each encourages Muslims to help drive American forces out of Iraq.

Clarke believes al Qaeda's leaders may be losing influence.

"I think for at least bin Laden and for his deputy Zawahiri, they have been reduced to commentating on events in the Islamic world," Clarke said. "They have almost become terrorist bloggers, rather than terrorists' commanders."

Clarke also thinks it is more than coincidence these tapes surfaced just days before the third anniversary of President Bush's trip to the U.S.S. Lincoln, when the president spoke of an end to combat operations in Iraq in front of a banner declaring, "Mission Accomplished."