MADRID (AP)-- When four Islamic radicals blew themselves and dozens of innocent commuters up on the London transportation system on July 7, 2005, it took nearly a month for al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri to release a comment, saying in an Aug. 4 video tape that Britain itself was to blame for the carnage.

This week, when Osama bin Laden's right hand man decided to weigh in on Pakistan's bloody crackdown on a radical mosque, he was able to get his violent message onto hardline Islamic Web sites in a matter of days.

Analysts and intelligence experts say the speed and frequency with which the Egyptian terror leader has been issuing statements in recent months does not reflect the actions of a man cowering in a remote cave, cut off from the outside world and unable to direct terror operations.

If anything, the video and audio tapes offer chilling evidence that al-Qaida's leaders are in greater command and communication than previously feared.

"The notion of them hiding in a deep, dark primitive cave isolated from electricity and all communication with the outside is strongly misguided," said Ben Venzke of the IntelCenter, a U.S.-based intelligence group that monitors terrorism messages. "The speed which they have demonstrated (in getting messages out) shows that they are far from cut off."

Venzke said the surge in al-Qaida propaganda messages began in 2006, but that al-Qaida has doubled the pace this year. The terror group's media wing, al-Sahab, released 58 audio and video messages last year, but has already issued 62 in just over six months this year, he said.

Venzke's assessment follows a stark report by U.S. counterterrorism analysts that al-Qaida has restored its operating capabilities to a level unseen since the months before Sept. 11, 2001. And while the intelligence does not point to a specific threat, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said earlier this week that he had a "gut feeling" that the United States faced a heightened risk of attack this summer.

Al-Zawahri is certainly acting like a man with renewed confidence.

Since January, he has issued at least 10 audio and video tapes on a host of major issues, from America's troop surge in Iraq, to Britain's decision to grant a knighthood to author Salman Rushdie, to the Palestinian group Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip. Two of those messages have come this week.

Those videos are getting more and more sophisticated with footage and clips thrown in, including bits of broadcasts from Al-Jazeera, other Arab station and Western programs. At times al-Zawahri uses his speech to analyze what the commentators are saying, meaning he has had an opportunity to see it.

In several cases, the turnaround time for al-Zawahri's messages has been chillingly swift.

It took only 11 days for the Egyptian surgeon-turned-terrorist to issue an audio taped homage to a slain Taliban commander in May, and the same amount of time for him to congratulate Hamas on its power grab in the Gaza Strip the next month.

When Congressional Democrats in the United States passed a bill tying funding for the war in Iraq to a timetable for withdrawal of American troops, al-Zawahri was ready to respond with a mocking video taped message just nine days later. Interestingly, the May 5 video did not mention that U.S. President George W. Bush vetoed the bill on May 1, leading to speculation it was recorded between the bill's Apr. 26 passage and the May 1 presidential action.

But it was al-Zawahri's reaction to the Red Mosque siege in Pakistan this week that has really turned heads. The July 11 audio message, released along with a video showing a still image of the al-Qaida leader, came out just eight days after the siege in Islamabad began.

In the tape, al-Zawahri makes reference to the deadly standoff as a "dirty, despicable crime," making it likely he recorded the message several days into the escalating siege, which culminated in a deadly army assault the day before al-Zawahri's statement appeared.

The absence of bin Laden from recent al-Qaida messages may be a reflection of a long-held belief that the two men are no longer in hiding together, according to a senior Pakistani intelligence agent. Bin Laden was last heard from in a July 1, 2006 audio tape in which he voiced support for the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq and warned nations not to send troops to fight a hardline Islamic regime that had recently seized power in Somalia.

"There is no indication that they (bin Laden and al-Zawahri) are together, and it is understandable because they must be hiding in separate places for strategic reasons," he said.

Rohan Gunaratna, a leading analyst who heads the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore, said bin Laden's silence is an indication that al-Zawahri has supplanted him as al-Qaida's supreme commander.

"Ayman al-Zawahri has emerged as the leader of the global jihad movement. He's not only speaking on behalf of al-Qaida but as the leader of the al-Qaida organization and its associated homegrown groups," he said.

That assessment was disputed by Venzke, who said it is impossible to draw any conclusions from bin Laden's long silence. He noted the terror chief has remained off the airwaves before, only to return with a flurry of statements when least expected.

The Pakistani intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his work, said he was not surprised by al-Zawahri's swift statement about the army raid on Islamabad's Red Mosque, saying it was a clear indication that al-Zawahri or people close to him have access to the Internet and sophisticated communications equipment.

That theory was bolstered by a comment from al-Zawahri himself, who claimed in a Tuesday audio message to have read an article by a slain Hamas leader that he said was found on the Internet.

Ahmed Rashid, the author of several books on Islamic extremism in South and Central Asia, said it is a mistake to think of al-Qaida leaders holed up in the mountains.

"They have studio facilities, they have access to all sorts of communications and news and all the rest of it, so they are not hiding out in some cave," he said. "They are very well settled somewhere."

Still, Rashid said the men are likely to be hiding somewhere on the remote Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, rather than in a city like Karachi where they and their men would have difficulty hiding.

Several top al-Qaida operatives have been nabbed in Pakistani cities in recent years, most notably Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Faisalabad in March 2002, Ramzi Binalshibh, captured in Karachi six months later, and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, arrested in Rawalpindi in March 2003.

While the border is barren and lawless, some of the mud-brick compounds of wealthy tribal elders can contain the latest in modern amenities and technology. Pakistani forces hold little sway in the region, making the area an ideal hideout.

Regardless of where al-Zawahri and bin Laden are holed up, Venzke said the volume of video and audio messages belies the notion -- perpetuated by the Bush administration -- that al-Qaida's leaders are so busy trying not to get caught that their ability to direct operatives has been substantially degraded.

"The operational risks of releasing a video from a covert point to a public point are much greater than communicating from one covert point to another covert point," said Venzke. "If they have the ability to publicly release videos, then they certainly have retained the ability to communicate with their cells and affiliates around the world."

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