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Rumsfeld Surmises 2 "New" Bin Laden Tapes Use Old Video
Thursday, April 18, 2002
By SFC Kathleen T. Rhem
U.S. Army
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
Two videos shown this week on Arab television networks allegedly show Osama bin Laden praising the results of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. But U.S. officials said they believe the shots of bin Laden in the tape weren't taken recently.

"There's nothing in any of the tapes I've seen or heard of that suggests they are current with respect to (bin Laden)," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told Pentagon press April 17. He said the shots of bin Laden in both videos appear to have been taken before 2002.

The first tape was broadcast April 15 on the pan-Arab Al Jazeera network, which operates out of Qatar. It allegedly shows a man believed to be one of the Sept. 11 hijackers of Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, reading his will and saying, "It is time to kill the Americans in their own homeland."

It also shows shots of bin Laden while a narrator lauds the Sept. 11 attacks. Earlier this week, Rumsfeld had said the shots of bin Laden from that video appear dated. In an April 15 briefing, he described the tape as "a patchwork of clips from previous periods, along with some … commentary from more recent periods."
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

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