Osama bin Laden has resurfaced to taunt the US on video, in a move likely to intensify the hunt for the man blamed for the attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11.
The tape, most likely filmed in early December if bin Laden's comments are anything to go by, sheds no light on what happened next or whether he is still alive.
Excerpts were shown by Qatar's al-Jazeera television, which has kept secret how it got the tape.
PHOTO: AP
"Our terrorism against the United States is blessed, aimed at repelling the oppressor so that America stops its support for Israel," bin Laden said.
"The West in general, spearheaded by America, holds an indescribable amount of Crusader loathing for Islam."
Gaunt, hollow-eyed and pale-faced, the world's most wanted man had little new to say in his rambling address.
But for one man who knows him, the Saudi-born millionaire's purpose is clear.
"The basic point, I think, why he decided to release this videotape is that he wants to tell the world -- and especially the Americans -- `I am alive,'" said Pakistani journalist and editor Hamid Mir, the last person to interview bin Laden in a secret meeting in Afghanistan on Nov. 8.
US President George W. Bush, on holiday on his Texas ranch, dismissed the tape via a spokesman as "terrorist propaganda."
His officials, still unsure if bin Laden is alive or dead, said there was no let-up in the hunt for the man blamed for the attacks which killed more than 3,000 people.
Fighters from his al-Qaeda network are still holding out in a handful of pockets around Afghanistan following the rout of their Taliban protectors.
But one US defense official said Afghan allies, helped to power by Washington, seemed less keen to help pursue the search, despite a US$25 million bounty on his head.
He said they had been reluctant to return to the mountain caves and tunnels in the eastern Tora Bora region to scour it for signs of the elusive leader, whose forces were bombed into submission there earlier this month.
Afghanistan's anti-Taliban forces dismissed the claim, saying they were still vigorously searching the area.
Bin Laden's comments gave no hint as to where he was, and in fact took every precaution to conceal his whereabouts.
Dressed in a camouflage combat jacket, he sat facing the camera in front of a cloth or canvas screen, his Russian-designed submachinegun propped beside him.
The fact bin Laden had swapped his usual white turban for a beige woollen hat was significant, said Mir, who has interviewed bin Laden several times, the last time somewhere around Kabul.
"He changes his turban and background to prove that this is a new thing," Mir said, adding bin Laden was aware of the need to ensure his viewers realized the video was a new recording.
"When I was interviewing him he said: `Now I am wearing a commander's jacket, but when in I was in Kandahar this jacket was not with me and before in Jalalabad I wore a white shawl,'" Mir quoted him as saying.
"When you come to me, wear something different each time so nobody should doubt your interview," Mir quoted the fugitive as saying.
In the video, bin Laden looks directly at the camera and at other times he appears to be observing whatever was going on behind it.
He looks very different from the man at ease in a private amateur video shot in early November as he met a friend, gloating and chuckling with delight after the worst attack on US soil in its history, at his humbling of the world's only superpower at the hands of Muslim "martyrs."
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