Web site airs al-Qaida, Sept. 11 videos

[Henk Elegeert]

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060910/ap_on_re_mi_ea/sept11_video_4

" Web site airs al-Qaida, Sept. 11 videos

By OMAR SINAN 33 minutes ago

A videotape posted on the Internet late Sunday,
purportedly by al-Qaida, showed previously unseen
footage of Osama bin Laden and other commanders in a
mountain camp apparently planning the Sept. 11
attacks on New York and Washington.

The 55-minute documentary-like retrospective of the
five years since the attacks was unusually long and
sophisticated in its production quality compared to
previous al-Qaida videos. The footage — with English
subtitles — surfaced on the eve of the fifth
anniversary of the attacks on a Web site that
frequently airs messages from bin Laden's terror
network.

"Planning for Sept. 11 did not take place behind
computer monitors or radar screens, nor inside
military command and control centers, but was
surrounded with divine protection in an atmosphere
brimming with brotherliness ... and love for
sacrificing life," an unidentified narrator said.

The tape showed the al-Qaida leader smiling and
meeting with colleagues in a mountain camp believed
to be in Afghanistan, as well as video clips of U.S.
Vice President Dick Cheney defending his old job at
the oil company Halliburton, and President Bush at
his inauguration.

Excerpts of the footage aired on Al-Jazeera
television on Thursday, and al-Qaida had said it
would later release the full video on the Internet.
The video released Sunday was stamped with the
emblem of As-Sahab, al-Qaida's media branch.

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 jihad now is not an obligation (on Muslims),
when will it be?" said al-Shehri, pointing to
attacks on Muslims in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Chechnya.

"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 this release.

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 U.S. airstrike on Afghanistan in 2001. Binalshibh
was captured four years ago in Pakistan and is
currently in U.S. custody, and last week President
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 U.S.-led
invasion toppled them in late 2001.

"They allowed us to prepare and train, despite
international pressure, and knowing that we were
getting ready to strike the idols of this age — the
American forces and the NATO pact," the al-Qaida
leader said.

The video also showed young men wearing Arab
headdresses and sitting on the ground, watching a
recorded speech by bin Laden on a laptop computer.

"The calls of the Mujahid Sheik Abu Abdullah Osama
Bin Laden awakened the consciousness of the youth of
Islam ... and awakened their spirit of sacrifice,
defiance and love of martyrdom," the narrator said.

The footage was the fourth in a series of long
videos that al-Qaida has put out to memorialize the
attacks, said Ben Venzke, head of IntelCenter, a
private U.S. company that monitors militant message
traffic and provides counterterrorism intelligence
services for the American government.

The previous ones were issued in April and September
2002 and September 2003, each showing footage from
the planning of the suicide attacks and hijackers'
last testimonies, Venzke told The Associated Press
on Thursday, when the excerpts aired on al-Jazeera.

The video came about 2 1/2 hours after another
video, apparently made by producers of the Internet
site itself, and not by al-Qaida.

That 19-minute video showed a montage of previously
aired images of the Sept. 11 attacks, including a
diagram with headshots of the hijackers organized
into four groups, and tape from CNN and Fox News
showing the World Trade Center engulfed by flames as
an airliner rammed into the second tower.
"

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