Security is being stepped up across the country today after the release of a new audiotape in which Osama bin Laden threatens to attack the U.S. homeland -- though the government is not elevating the national alert level.
The new security measures are being taken as ABC News learns that al Qaeda Web sites have posted messages saying yet another tape is about to be released -- this one from al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who apparently escaped a missile attack that targeted him in Pakistan a week ago. The Web sites say he will mourn his colleagues who were killed in that attack.
The bin Laden tape, declared authentic by the CIA, was broadcast Thursday by the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera. It was scratchy, and bin Laden's voice sounded weak -- less robust than on his last audiotape a year ago.
But there was nothing weak about what he had to say.
"The operations are under way," he said in a translation of the tape, which was in Arabic. "And you will see them inside your own home as soon as they are finished, God willing."
"He has renewed his threats against the United States," said FBI Assistant Director John Miller, who once interviewed bin Laden as a reporter for ABC News. "He has renewed his threats to have an attack on U.S. soil."
