OSAMA Bin Laden has swapped his hate-fuelled rhetoric for lengthy progressive rock jams, his new audio tape has revealed.
The Al Qaeda chief is believed to have become disillusioned with killing everyone and instead wants to 'explore a new sonic direction', producing a batch of Yes/ELP-influenced tracks linked by the concept of how whales are really time machines.
Security analyst Tom Logan said: "I think this tape is genuine. We know that Bin Laden's close consort Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was heavily into prog, favouring Caravan, It Bites and early Van Der Graaf Generator, so maybe he'd made Bin Laden a compilation tape and got him into it that way.
"This sounds like it's got Bin Laden on vocals and lead guitar with the rest of the band made up of senior Al Queda officials. Intelligence sources believe it's Deputy Operations Chief Ayman al-Zawahiri on drums, and I have to say he's pretty good, a bit like a young Phil Collins."
Al Qaeda fans' reaction to the new tape has been mixed. One devotee said: "I'd just bought a shitload of fertiliser and was on my way to blow up Tie Rack in Bridgwater when I get a message from my handler saying it was all off and that I should nip into Oxfam and see if they've got any Rick Wakeman albums."
However hook-handed radical cleric Abu Hamzu has surprised his followers by describing the new Bin Laden output as 'intensely groovesome'.
He added: "I used to be a pretty decent bassist before I got my hands blown off fiddling about with bombs.
"When I was doing civil engineering at Brighton Poly we had a band doing Pink Floyd and Alan Parsons Project covers and some of our own stuff, which was more Hawkwind-influenced but with a jazz fusion twist."
