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| Afghanistan |
| Binny releases video |
| 2001-10-06 |
October 6, 2001 -- Taunting the United States from his Afghan lair, a defiant Osama bin Laden released a videotape that shows the terror chief and his smiling military commander attending the graduation of a new group of terrorists. In the video, aired by the Qatar television station al-Jazeera yesterday, a somber and composed bin Laden stands beside his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at an al Qaeda camp surrounded by rugged mountains. A handful of men armed with AK-47s - their faces covered - are near the two leaders. Singing and the beating of drums ring out. Militant gunmen fire into the air. In the background is a stark encampment with three or four squat cement huts and several tents. Bin Laden, dressed in white-and-beige robes and a colored turban, occasionally glances at the camera. Later, he and a smiling al-Zawahiri, both carrying assault rifles, sit on the ground and listen to a ceremonial speech by a militant. All-terrain vehicles are parked in the background, suggesting the camp is in a remote region. An al-Jazeera reporter said the video was believed to be "a couple of weeks old" - taped after the Sept. 11 kamikaze attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The TV station said the ceremony marked the graduation of a group of newly trained al Qaeda fighters. The station also said it marked the anniversary of the 1998 union of al Qaeda and al-Zawahiri's Egyptian Islamic Jihad group, which is linked to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat 20 years ago yesterday. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |