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Answers to a couple of questions:

- The tape originally came via the al-Ansar News Agency in the UK, one of several press offices al-Qaeda maintains in the British Isles, per al-Bawaba.

- It was intended to be played following the Hajj and al-Jazeera was going to wait until then to air it. From the looks of things, they got caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

- The US believes the audiotape is genuine Osama. Whether it's recent or not or any other questions referring to authenticity, we honestly don't know at this point. It'll probably take the boys at the NSA a little while to crack this one.

- There need not necessarily be a mole at al-Jazeera for the US to know that the tape was en route. All al-Jazeera programming is strictly monitored by the Qatari government to make sure that they say nothing bad about Qatar. The US could easily have intercepted a phone call to or from the Qatari Ministry of the Interior.