Mark of the Beast
Bin Laden describes attacks on tape
NBC,
MSNBC AND NEWS SERVICES
Dec.
13, 2001 — “We did not
reveal” the plan to the Sept. 11 hijackers until “just before they boarded the
planes,” a smiling Osama bin Laden recalled in a homemade videotape released
Thursday by the Pentagon. He also described watching the first television
reports on the attacks with 50 to 60 supporters. “They were overjoyed when the
first plane hit the building, so I said to them: ‘Be patient.’ ”
BIN LADEN ALSO DESCRIBED how he and others who were
not identified estimated how many people would be killed in the attacks on the
World Trade Center towers. “We calculated that the floors that would be hit
would be three or four floors,” he said, according to the translation released
by the Pentagon. “I was the most optimistic of them all.”
After a section of the tape which the Pentagon
called inaudible, bin Laden continued, “Due to my experience in this field, 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 was all that we had hoped for.”
The grainy, blurry videotape is believed to have
been made at a dinner gathering in early November, based on the Nov. 9 time
stamp on the tape. It was not certain where the tape was filmed, but U.S.
officials said they believe it was filmed at a guesthouse in Kandahar, the
former Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan. The tape was recovered from a residence in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.
The tape shows bin
Laden relaxing on pillows in a room with a Saudi Arabian sheik, about whom
officials know little and whom they have declined to identify. Two bin Laden
associates — spiritual adviser Ayman al-Zawahri and spokesman Abu Ghaith — also
appear in the tape.
Click Here for the Transcript of the bin Laden videotape
The hour-long videotape did not record the gathering in chronological
order. The final 20 minutes of bin Laden’s visit came first — apparently
because the camera operator ran out of tape and rewound to the beginning — and
was followed by 20 minutes of unrelated videotape, then the first 20 minutes of
the gathering.
At the start of the visit, bin Laden strides into
the room and bends over to greet the sheik, then takes his place next to him,
sitting cross-legged on the floor.
The sheik promptly thanks bin Laden, saying, “You
have given us weapons, you have given us hope and we thank Allah for you.”
‘EVERYBODY PRAISES WHAT YOU DID’
“Everybody praises what you did, the great action
you did, which was first and foremost by the grace of Allah,” the sheik
continued. “This is the guidance of Allah and the blessed fruit of Jihad.”
“Thanks to Allah,” replied bin Laden.
The sheik informed bin
Laden that another cleric had delivered a sermon in Saudi Arabia on Sept. 11.
“He said this was jihad and those people were not innocent victims,” the sheik
said, apparently referring to the victims of the World Trade Center and
Pentagon attacks.
References to jihad, or holy war, and Allah run
throughout the videotape, and at one point bin Laden recites a portion of
verse: “I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but
Allah, and his prophet Muhammad.”
Moments later, he says, “This event made people
think (about true Islam) which benefited Islam greatly,” he said.
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