|
Video Shows Bin Laden Taking Credit for September 11 Attacks
WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - On a videotape released Thursday by the Pentagon, Saudi exile Osama bin Laden took credit for planning the deadly September 11 attacks on the United States.
So far, it is the most compelling piece of evidence publicly released to support U.S. President George W. Bush's administration's allegations that bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organization planned and executed the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people at New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.
The videotape, which was confiscated recently by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, captures the Saudi exile in conversations mid-November with supporters about the attacks, strongly suggesting that he knew details about the attacks in advance.
"We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower," said bin Laden. "We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all…I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we hoped for."
Bin Laden, who publicly denied any involvement shortly after the attacks, admits to supporters in the videotape that he had known for several days before about the al-Qaeda operations against New York and outside Washington.
"We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day," said bin Laden. "We had finished our work that say and had the radio on. It was 5:30 p.m. our time. I was sitting with Dr. Ahmad Abu-al-[Khair]. Immediately, we heard the news that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
"We turned to the radio station to the news from Washington. The news continued and made no mention of the attack until the end. At the end of the newscast, they reported that a plane just hit the World Trade Center….After a little while, they announced that another plane had hit the World Trade Center. The brothers who heard the news were overjoyed by it."
Bin Laden then went on to explain that not all of the suspected al-Qaeda operatives who are believed to have staged the four airplane hijackings knew what the overall plan was.
"The brothers, who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America," said bin Laden, "but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes."
On the videotape, bin Laden further states that the groups of alleged hijackers didn't know the other groups. He identified Egyptian Mohammad Atta as the man in charge of one group of hijackers, who flew their plane into one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The Saudi dissident stated that he was pleased with the results of the operation and the renewed global interest it sparked in Islam. He said he believed the attacks had won new converts to Islam.
"Those young men…said in deeds, in New York and Washington, speeches that overshadowed all the other speeches made elsewhere in the world," said bin Laden. "The speeches are understood by both Arabs and non-Arabs - even by Chinese. It is above all the media said. Some of them said that in Holland, at one of the centers, the number of people who accepted Islam during the days following the operations were more than the people who accepted Islam in the last eleven years.
"I heard someone on Islamic radio who owns a school in America say: 'We don't have time to keep up with the demands of those who are asking about Islamic books to learn about Islam.' This event made people think [about true Islam] which benefited Islam greatly."
The Bush administration had held up public release of the videotape for several days to check translations of bin Laden's conversations from Arabic to English.
Four Arabic language-speakers collaborated on independently producing the translation of bin Laden's videotaped conversations. The transcript and annotations were independently prepared by George Michael, translator of Diplomatic Language Services, and Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, the Arabic language program coordinator at Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
The failure to produce evidence was cited by some in the Arab and Muslim worlds, who were skeptical of Washington's allegations that bin Laden was responsible for the deadly September 11 attacks.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in a released statement, added weight to the video's authenticity and translation by stating that, "For anyone who was not convinced of Osama bin Laden's complicity in the events of September 11, the content of this videotape should remove all doubt. Bin Laden clearly spoke as someone who had foreknowledge of the attacks."
Taking excerpts from the video, CAIR stated, "Bin Laden seemed to revel in the death and destruction in Washington and New York, he falsely implied that the acts of the hijackers were justified by Islamic beliefs and that he made the sickening statement that the attacks 'benefited Islam greatly'."
The videotape is the first piece of publicly released evidence alleging bin Laden's role in the attacks. Previously, the administration had shared top secret information, believed to be communications intercepts and other intelligence, with other members of its anti-terror coalition, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Washington had previously declined to release other evidence. Some officials were concerned that releasing any information could have compromised intelligence gathering operations launched against bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden had repeatedly declared his innocence in a series of interviews following the attacks. Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban regime, which granted bin Laden sanctuary, demanded evidence to support the U.S. charges. The regime refused requests to hand the Saudi millionaire over to Washington, setting the stage for the U.S.-led military campaign, which began in October.
Bin Laden is believed to be holed up with several hundred supporters at the Tora Bora cave complex in the White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan, which is being besieged by anti-Taliban Afghan militias on the ground, supported by massive U.S. airstrikes.
|
