Newscast purports to be from Al Qaeda

ROME -- An Internet newscast called the Voice of the Caliphate was broadcast yesterday, purporting to be a production of Al Qaeda.

The broadcast featured an anchorman who wore a ski mask and an ammunition belt.

The anchorman, who said the report would appear once a week, presented news about the Gaza Strip and Iraq, and expressed happiness about the recent hurricanes in the United States. A copy of the Koran was at his right hand, and a rifle affixed to a tripod was pointed at the camera.

The origins of the broadcast could not be verified. If the program was indeed an Al Qaeda production, it would mark a change in the group's use of the Internet to spread its messages. Direct dissemination would avoid editing or censorship by television networks, many of which usually air only excerpts of the group's statements, and avoid showing gruesome images of killings.

The broadcast was first reported from Dubai by Adnkronos, an Italian news agency. The 16-minute production was available on Italian newspaper websites.

The lead segment recounted Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which the narrator proclaimed a ''great victory," while showing the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, walking and talking among celebrating compatriots.

That was followed by a repetition of a pledge on Sept. 14 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, to wage war on Iraq's Shi'ite Muslims, who now lead a government coalition.

An image of Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Sunni Muslim, remained on the screen for about half of the broadcast.

The masked announcer also reported that a group called the Islamic Army in Iraq had claimed to have launched rockets armed with chemicals at US forces in Baghdad. A video clip showed five rockets fired in succession from behind a sand berm, as an off-screen voice yelled ''God is great" in Arabic. The Islamic Army asserted responsibility last year for the beheading of Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq.

A commercial break of sorts followed. It previewed a movie, ''Total Jihad."

The ad was in English, suggesting that the target audience might be Muslims living in Britain and the United States.

The final segment was about Hurricane Katrina. ''The whole Muslim world was filled with joy" at the disaster, the anchorman said, noting that President Bush was ''completely humiliated by his obvious incapacity to face the wrath of God, who battered New Orleans, city of homosexuals." Hurricane Ophelia's brush with North Carolina was also mentioned.

Caliphate refers to the 7th- and 8th-century Islamic empire that stretched from the Middle East to the Atlantic, an achievement that bin Laden has said Muslims should reestablish.

According to credits following the broadcast, it was produced by the Global Islamic Media Front.