LONDON (Sept. 24) - A leaked intelligence report of Osama bin Laden's death has met skepticism from Western and Muslim governments but may increase a clamor from his followers to show himself on video for the first time in nearly two years.
One theory surrounding the mysterious French leak is that it was designed precisely to flush the al Qaeda leader into the open, prompting him to release a new tape that might give a clue to his whereabouts and state of health.
"Western intelligence, the Americans, the Saudis want bin Laden to appear," said Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamist groups at the al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo.
"Perhaps they're trying to agitate him to appear by video to try to fix some information about his real (location)."
Rashwan said expectations of an imminent appearance by bin Laden had mounted among contributors to Islamist Web sites discussing the report of his demise.
The French regional daily L'Est Republican quoted France's DGSE foreign intelligence agency as saying the Saudi secret services were convinced the al Qaeda leader had died of typhoid in Pakistan in late August.
But France, the United States and Britain all said they were unable to confirm the death of bin Laden, who in previous tapes over the past five years has boasted of how he ordered the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Saudi Arabia said on Sunday it had no evidence that he had died, and reports to that effect were "purely speculative."
Bin Laden's most recent audiotapes were issued in July, but the al Qaeda leader, believed to suffer from a serious kidney ailment, has not recorded any new video message since the eve of the U.S. presidential election in late 2004.
That long absence from view -- contrasting with frequent, high-quality video broadcasts from his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri -- has heightened speculation he is either too ill to appear, or too tightly confined to a secret hiding place.
A new tape would give Western intelligence significant clues to bin Laden's physical state. And the logistical chain involved in producing and delivering it to a broadcaster such as Al Jazeera could also be vulnerable to investigation.
But the other, perhaps more likely, explanation behind the French leak is that is just the latest of many speculative and poorly sourced scraps of intelligence on bin Laden, the world's most famous fugitive.
The latest account said he had died from typhoid; others have had him expiring from a lung disease or killed by bombing. Despite a statement last year from then-CIA boss Porter Goss that he had an "excellent" idea of bin Laden's whereabouts, the trail appears to be cold.
"The big question is whether his death ... would have a demoralising effect, or if he achieves the status of martyr and becomes a rallying figure," one U.S. intelligence official said this weekend.
Rashwan, however, was in no doubt bin Laden's death, whenever it happened, would be announced by al Qaeda within days because it would make him an even more powerful symbol and motivator for his supporters.
"He is now the symbol of the Islamic jihad," he said. "He will become for them a kind of myth. It will give them more inspiration than the individual himself."