The video released Sunday, stamped with the emblem of As-Sahab, al-Qaida's
media branch, was titled "Knowledge is For Acting Upon" and subtitled "The
Manhattan Raid."
It showed the al-Qaida leader meeting with colleagues in a mountain camp
believed to be in Afghanistan, as well as video clips of Vice President Dick
Cheney defending his old job at the oil company Halliburton, and President Bush
at his inauguration. Other scenes show training at the camp, with masked
militants doing martial arts kicks and practicing hiding and pulling out knives.
It included the last testament of two of the Sept 11 hijackers, Wail
al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi, and showed bin Laden strolling in the camp,
greeting followers.
"Among the devout group which responded to the order of Allah and order of
his messenger were the heroes of Sept 11, who wrote with the ink of their blood
the greatest pages of modern history," the narrator said, referring to the
hijackers who flew planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
Al-Shehri and al-Ghamdi were each shown speaking to the camera, their image
superimposed over background pictures of the crumbling World Trade Center towers
and the burning Pentagon, as well as a model of a passenger jet.
They both spoke of how Muslims must stand up to fight back against the West.
"If we are content with being humiliated and inclined to comfort, the tooth
of the enemy will stretch from Jerusalem to Mecca, and then everyone will regret
on a day when regret is of no use," al-Ghamdi said.
The two videotaped testimonies had never been seen before.
Al-Shehri was on American Airlines Flight 11, which was the first to hit the
World Trade Center. Al-Ghamdi was on United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the
second tower.
In the footage, Bin Laden wore a dark robe and white headdress, and was shown
sitting alongside his former lieutenant Mohammed Atef and Ramzi Binalshibh,
another suspected planner of the Sept 11 attacks.
Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, was killed by a US airstrike on
Afghanistan in 2001. Binalshibh was captured four years ago in Pakistan and is
currently in US custody, and last week Bush announced plans to put him on
military trial.
Bin Laden was shown expressing his appreciation for the Taliban, the Islamic
regime that ran Afghanistan and gave refuge to al-Qaida until the US-led
invasion toppled them in late 2001.
The video showed events up to 10 years before the Sept 11 attacks - US
troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War and bin Laden preaching to
followers after the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Sudan. It also
showed events afterward including a man in an orange jumpsuit at the US prison
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
It was unclear when the tape was made, or how soon before the Sept 11 attacks
the footage of bin Laden was recorded.
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