Laden heading for Iraq: Report

Coded electronic signals intercepted in recent days among Al-Qaeda's Middle Eastern elements across secret Internet sites carry the message that the terror network's supreme leader has come out of his hiding in Afghanistan and has set out, or is about to set out, for Iraq, Debkafile, a weekly, known for investigative journalism reported.

Some of the signals schedule his date of arrival as the second half of September when Ramadan is estimated to begin, it said.

The signals cap a secret exchange of messages in recent weeks in which the organisation's Iraq commander, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, attempted to persuade Bin Laden to leave Afghanistan and take command of the Ramadan offensive in Iraq.

According to Debkafile's exclusive counter-terror sources, Zarqawi is said to have argued that Bin Laden's presence in Iraq would boost Al-Qaeda's standing before setting on an "offensive whose scale and importance rival the September 2001 operation" and goes well with his own safety.

The secret contents of the messages, which the weekly claimed to have been authenticated by its experts, have begun to leak out and set up a huge flap in Al-Qaeda networks, cells and affiliates in many countries and talk of "a new jihad to honour the leader", the report said.

Among the possible routes that the terror chief can take is the long way round through Pakistani and Iranian Baluchistan and across the border into Iraq, it said.

Another alternative route, which he might find easier because of the organisation's established marine network through Pakistan, is the sea route.

The weekly had earlier reported that Al-Qaeda has established a new marine base in the remote Gawatar Bay, a Persian Gulf inlet down the middle of which runs the Pakistani-Iranian border.