Sep 7, 2006 4:43 pm US/Pacific
Arab TV Airs Osama Bin Laden 9/11 Planning Video
CAIRO, Egypt (CBS / AP) ―
Al-Jazeera broadcast Thursday a previously unshown video of the preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks in which al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is seen meeting with some of the planners and hijackers in a mountain camp in Afghanistan.
The station did not say how it obtained the video, which was produced by As-Sahab, al Qaeda's media branch.
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Special Section: Remembering Sept. 11The video included the last wills and testaments of two of the hijackers, Wail al-Shehri and Hamza al-Ghamdi.
It was the fourth in a series of long videos that al Qaeda has put out to memorialize the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, 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 video from the planning of the suicide hijackings and farewell statements from some of the hijackers, Venzke told The Associated Press.
In the latest video, bin Laden is shown sitting outside in what appears to be a mountain camp with 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 in Afghanistan in 2001. Binalshibh was captured four years ago in Pakistan and is currently in U.S. custody, and this week President Bush announced plans to put him on military trial.
Bin Laden - wearing a dark robe and white headgear - strolls through the camp, greeting dozens of followers, some masked, and many carrying automatic weapons.
Al-Jazeera said that among those he greets in the video are several of the 9/11 hijackers, but their faces were not clear and it was not immediately known which ones are shown.
The footage shows scenes of training at the camp. Masked militants perform martial arts kicks or learn how to break the hold of someone who grabs them from behind. Several militants are shown practicing hiding and pulling out fold-out knives.
Venzke said the footage shown on Al-Jazeera was part of a video he expected would be more than an hour long, based on the previous ones on the Sept. 11 attacks.
"They produce long videos like these not just for 9/11, but for any significant events they feel warrant their attention," Venzke said.
One aim is to boost recruitment, but such videos have several purposes - "to speak to their supporters, to raise morale within their own group, to facilitate fund-raising, and to serve as a psychological attack," he said.
Al-Jazeera also broadcast an audiotape Wednesday that was said to be the first released by the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, who succeeded the militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi three months ago.
In that tape, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer said he was confident that victory will be achieved and called on all mujahedeen to unite on the battlefield, the station reported.
It played a brief excerpt from the tape, in which the speaker said, "Our enemy has unified its ranks against us. Isn't it time to get together, worshippers of God?"
Al-Muhajer, a previously unknown militant, became the leader of Iraq's most feared insurgent group after al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. air strike June 7. Al-Muhajer was announced as al Qaeda in Iraq's new leader on June 12 and received Osama bin Laden's endorsement in an audiotape from the al Qaeda chief.
U.S. officials say they believe al-Muhajer is an Egyptian known as Abu Ayyoub al-Masri, an explosives expert who trained with al-Zarqawi in bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military has put a $5 million bounty on al-Muhajer's head.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
