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New binladen videotape warns real battle { September 11 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1039794,00.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,1039794,00.html
New 'Bin Laden' videotape warns of real battle to come
David Teather in New York
Thursday September 11, 2003
The Guardian
A chilling videotape, purportedly of Osama bin Laden, was released yesterday on the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, warning that the real battle with America and the west has not even started.
The tape shows a figure believed to be Bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaida network, dressed in Afghan-style robes and walking in rocky mountainous terrain, apparently accompanied by his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri. It was aired on the Arab television network al-Jazeera.
The men do not address the camera. But on a soundtrack accompanying the tape Zawahiri is heard exhorting fighters in Iraq to rise up against the occupying forces and "devour the Americans". He names the US president, George Bush, and Tony Blair as the "top criminals".
The tape shows a thin and haggard Bin Laden walking downhill with Zawahiri, both men using walking sticks. It also shows close-ups of Bin Laden sitting next to a tree.
It is the first video footage of Bin Laden in more than a year; intelligence experts were trying to verify the men's identities. Reference is made to the second anniversary of the attacks but it is not certain when the film was recorded.
In an eight-minute voice-over, the supposed voice of Bin Laden praises the September 11 hijackers who crashed commercial jetliners into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.
The voice attributed to Zawahiri in a separate 12-minute message, says: "We assert that what you have seen until now are only the first skirmishes. The real battle has not started yet."
Last night Mr Bush and the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, both toughened their stance on terrorism.
Mr Bush urged Congress to pass new measures denying bail to terror suspects and expanding the death penalty, while Mr Rumsfeld said that most of the 660 suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba could expect to be held for the duration of the global war on terrorism.
"Our interest is in not trying them and letting them out," he said. "Our interest is in ... keeping them off the streets, and so that's what's taking place."
Meanwhile, dozens of insurers yesterday began legal actions in New York and Washington against al-Qaida, Bin Laden and countries including Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to recover $300bn (£188bn) paid out for the September 11 attacks.
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