'Bin Laden Tape' Nearly Confirmed

Nov. 13 -- U.S. officials are all but certain the voice on the audiotape broadcast Tuesday on the Arab television network al Jazeera is that of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden himself.

Intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that the recording was apparently made off an audio connection on the Internet. They also said officials are almost certain the tape is an authentic, recent recording of bin Laden speaking.

"I think it's been authenticated. It is his voice," said former CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro.

ABCNEWS correspondent John Miller — one of the few American journalists to ever interview the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the United States — said the voice "certainly sounds like bin Laden, not a crudely edited tape."

Yossef Bodansky, author of The Man Who Declared War on America, a book about bin Laden, said there's no doubt in his mind the tape is the real thing.

"It is his language. It is his dialect. It's his voice," Bodansky said.

Forensic audio specialist Tom Owen said technology allows officials to make a very well-educated guess at the tape's authenticity. "You could get a high certainty based on the fact that you have a large sample of the known voice vs. this voice," Owen said.

"This voice is four minutes long. That's an eternity in voice identification."

A journalist with al Jazeera said today he received the audiotape in Pakistan from an agent of the al Qaeda leader. Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan told Reuters the agent telephone him Tuesday and they met in the capital, Islamabad, later that night.

"He only gave me the cassette, and in half a minute he disappeared," Zaidan said.

American officials have not been able to verify bin Laden's whereabouts this year. It had not been known if he had survived the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan, where he had been based.

Bush Being Cautious

President Bush said today he was taking the tape "very seriously," although he was, at the urging of CIA Director George Tenet, being very careful about jumping to any conclusions.