The first new video image of Osama bin Laden in nearly two years was broadcast on al-Jazeera TV, the eve of yesterday's second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The al-Qaeda leader was shown walking through rocky terrain with his top aide, both carrying assault rifles.
In an eight-minute audiotape accompanying the video footage, a speaker identified as bin Laden praises the "great damage to the enemy" on Sept. 11 and mentions five hijackers by name. On a second tape, a voice said to be that of chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahri threatens more attacks on Americans and calls on Iraqi guerrillas to "bury" US troops.
According to terrorism experts, such tapes reassure al-Qaeda sympathizers that the terror network is still a force and its leaders still active and in seeming good health. A tape showing bin Laden would be crucial to that effort and the timing -- a day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, blamed on al-Qaeda -- highly symbolic.
Al-Jazeera editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hilal said the tapes were given to al-Jazeera on Wednesday, apparently to coincide with the attacks anniversary. The station, he said, decided to immediately broadcast the parts showing bin Laden and al-Zawahri.
Hilal said the tapes contained 1 hour, 45 minutes of footage but only eight minutes showing the al-Qaeda leaders. The rest of the footage, which was produced by a company called Al-Sahhab, includes "achievements" of the terrorist group, Hilal said without elaborating. He said the station might show additional footage later.
Al-Sahhab is said to specialize "in preparing film material for al-Qaeda," al-Jazeera said Wednesday.
Al-Jazeera says the tapes were produced in late April or early May, but the Arab satellite channel would not say how it obtained them or who by. The video's backdrop resembles the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where US officials believe bin Laden is hiding out.
US intelligence officials will review the tapes to try to determine if they are authentic and when and where they were made, officials in Washington said.
Messages from al-Qaeda leaders are sometimes viewed as presaging an attack.
"This is another reminder that they continue to plot to attack us and to attack freedom," Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Wednesday.
US President George W. Bush, asked about the tape during a tour of forensics labs at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, said he had not heard it yet.
The voice identified as bin Laden praises the Sept. 11 hijackers.
"Those men caused great damage to the enemy and disturbed their plans," the speaker says, calling them true believers who should become an ideal for other believers.
He makes no direct threatening remarks, but the voice said to be al-Zawahri threatens more attacks on Americans. A religious song could be heard in the background of the alleged bin Laden audiotape. Both tapes were translated from the Arabic by The Associated Press (AP).
The video image of bin Laden appeared to be the first since he was shown at a dinner with associates on Nov. 9, 2001, in Afghanistan. That tape was made public a month later.
The tape follows several attributed to other al-Qaeda figures who made a point of saying bin Laden was still active in the fight against the West. The last such message, attributed to an al-Qaeda spokesman, was aired on the Arab television station al-Arabiya on Sunday. Last month, an audio tape attributed to al-Zawahri also stressed that bin Laden was alive and well.
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