Binnie said the video shows a "softer image" of al-Zarqawi. It suggests he "isn't just the leader of a fanatical band, but a more general-like figure, and also an action man himself."

Al-Zarqawi has done audiotapes, including one in January. But he has kept a relatively low profile since then, when his group merged with five other Iraqi insurgent groups to form the Mujahedeen Shura Council.

The new video was stamped with the logo of the Mujahedeen Shura Council as well as the black flag logo of al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for some of the bloodiest suicide bombings in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein and for the beheadings and killings of at least 10 foreign hostages, including three Americans and a Briton.

The last time al-Zarqawi made a video was the 2004 beheading of American Nick Berg. In that one, al-Zarqawi's face was masked.

"He appeared to have a sense of mystique by never showing his face. In choosing to come out of the shadows, he may be changing tack," said London-based security consultant Charles Shoebridge.

Shoebridge, a former counterterrorism officer with London's Metropolitan police and a former British army officer, said the tape suggests al-Zarqawi is working to shore up his position within the insurgency.

Added Hiltermann: " Osama bin Laden is sitting somewhere in a cave, but al-Zarqawi is showing he is carrying out jihad in front of the world."

The tape was posted on the Internet two days after an audiotape of bin Laden appeared on Arab television. However, the al-Zarqawi tape is dated Friday, meaning it was made before bin Laden's was released.

In one scene in the tape, al-Zarqawi is pictured in a flat desert of dried, cracked mud with sprouts of vegetation similar to that in Iraq's western Anbar province. Although his whereabouts can't be definitively discerned, Binnie called it "extremely likely" al-Zarqawi was in Anbar or someplace close to it.

The United States has put a $25 million bounty on his head.