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(CNSNews.com) -- A letter purportedly written by a senior al Qaeda leader -- and said to be authentic by U.S. intelligence officials who released it last week -- may be a forgery, according to Washington analysts who cite numerous anomalies in the text.

Some analysts have gone so far as to label the letter a likely U.S. government "influence operation," which, if exposed, threatens American credibility in the Middle East.

"If this is a forgery, then either it was designed to blow up in the face of the American government; or someone in the 'coalition of the willing' has been caught with their pants down," said one analyst, who spoke with Cybercast News Service on the condition of anonymity.

The 6,000-word letter was dated July 9 and released Oct. 11 by the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Intelligence officials said the letter, purportedly penned by Osama bin Laden's chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and addressed to Iraqi terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was intercepted in a counter-terrorism operation in Iraq.

Stephen Ulph, from the foreign policy think tank, The Jamestown Foundation, noted that despite the confidence U.S. officials expressed in the letter's authenticity -- namely that it had been verified by "multiple sources over an extended period of time" -- there was little in the way of independent corroboration offered.

The anonymous source remarked that the U.S. "apparently found the original letter, suggesting we 'closed the loop' and have been reading mail of senior al Qaeda for months, yet we appear to not know where [al Qaeda leaders] are at."

Christopher Brown, research associate at the Hudson Institute's Transitions to Democracy program, doubts that Zarqawi was even in Iraq at the time the letter was purportedly written to him, an opinion shared by a retired U.S. intelligence operative who spoke recently with Cybercast News Service.

In email communications with Cybercast News Service last week, Brown also pointed out that Zawahiri uses both Muslim and Christian dates in his letter. The use of Western dual dates is customarily done only for material designed for western consumption, not for internal communications, he said.

The letter, dated July 9, also makes no reference to the July 7 London bombings, Brown noted.

Zawahiri purportedly mentions in the letter that he has a daughter named "Nawwar," which he explains "means the timid female gazelle and the woman who is free from suspicion ..." But Brown questioned why Zawahiri would feel the need to explain the meaning of an Arab word to another Arab.

Furthermore, Zawahiri's alleged definition of "Nawwar" as "timid female gazelle" is incorrect, according to translators with Transperfect Translations, a global translation firm. "Nawwar means: blossom, flower, bright as in illuminated. It also could be a nice female's name, and by extension could be the beginning of the spring season," said the translators.

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