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Bin Laden video praises martyrdom

This handout image yesterday shows a video frame broadcast by al-Qaeda featuring Osama bin Laden. PHOTO: AFP/INTELCENTER

Al-Qaeda's fugitive chief Osama bin Laden, who has not been heard from for more than a year, appeared in an undated videotape posted on the Internet yesterday, in which he praises martyrdom.

"The happy [person] is the one chosen by Allah to be a martyr," bin Laden said in a short clip which was included in a videotape titled Winds of Martyrdom, and carried by the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group.

SITE said the footage was old, but did not give an estimated date.

The images showed the al-Qaeda leader wearing an Afghan-style hat, military fatigues and a graying beard, standing outdoors against a background of a hill and shrubs.

Bin Laden was last heard of in an audiotape posted on the Internet last July, in which he accused Iraqi Shiites of waging "genocide" against the minority Sunnis. He had also warned in an audio message posted a day earlier that jihad would go on in Iraq.

"The last Prophet [of Islam, Mohammed] ... wished to have died as a martyr," said bin Laden in the video.

It bore the symbol of the As-Sahab group, which usually produces audiovisual statements from al-Qaeda's leadership.

The videotape also featured messages from other al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan, as well as testimonies by purported suicide bombers ahead of launching attacks in that country.

This is the 63rd As-Sahab video to be released this year, according to the US-based intelligence institute IntelCenter.

On Friday, the US Senate doubled the bounty on bin Laden to US$50 million, reflecting frustration that the al-Qaeda mastermind remains free and rising anxiety over possible future attacks. The vote followed a flurry of reports that al-Qaeda had rebuilt its safe haven, leadership and capacity to plot terror operations, and was trying to sneak operatives into the US.

Bin Laden has been on the run since US-led forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks.

There have been repeated claims that he is hiding in remote territory along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Pakistan has repeatedly denied the reports.

Last month a Taliban leader claimed that bin Laden was alive, saying that he received a letter of condolence from the fugitive over the death of his brother.
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