Al-Jazeera has aired a tape showing Osama bin Laden, which sounds to be several months old. The BBC is breaking the story:

The Qatar-based channel said the recording had probably been made in April or early may in an “undetermined mountain area”.

The video footage does not show the men speaking, but al-Jazeera also released an audiotape attributed to Ayman al-Zawahri in which a voice calls for Iraqi guerrillas to ‘”bury” US troops.

The tape was aired on the eve of the second anniversary of the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington, which have been blamed on Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

Nope, no coincidence there: the goal is demoralization. Of course, the fact that the tape is so old may have a backlash effect. After all, if OBL was alive, why wouldn’t he come out with a new one?

UPDATE: Sky News is on the story, too.

UPDATE: Interesting observation via Fox News:

Fox News commentator Mansoor Ijaz pointed out that bin Laden’s beard was less gray that it was in videos released more than a year ago.