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Bin Laden threatens more attacks in new tape

CTV.ca News Staff

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has appeared on a new videotape directly admitting to organizing the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and threatening more attacks to come.

Al-Jazeera broadcast parts of the 18-minute-long tape Friday evening.

In his clearest comments yet taking responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden addresses the American people and says the 9/11 attacks were carried out because “we are a free people … and we want to regain the freedom of our nation.”

“We decided to destroy towers in America,” the al Qaeda leader says, adding the attacks were even more destructive than they had hoped.

He ads that he thought of the idea of attacking the U.S. skyscrapers when he saw Israeli aircraft bombing tower blocks in Lebanon in 1982.

Appearing healthy and reading from a sheet of paper, he says the attacks would have been less severe if U.S. President George Bush had been more alert.

“It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the country would leave 50,000 citizens in the two towers to face those horrors alone … because he thought listening to a child discussing her goats was more important,” bin Laden said, referring to Bush’s visit to a school when the attack occurred.

Speaking just days ahead of the U.S. presidential election, he then says the United States could face new attacks because the reasons for mounting the Sept. 11 strikes still exist.

“Despite entering the fourth year after Sept. 11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened,” bin Laden tells Americans.

In words that suggest the tape was made fairly recently, bin Laden adds: “Your security is not in the hands of (Democrat Sen. John) Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. And each state that does not harm our security will remain safe.”

Despite the angry rhetoric, the video does not appear to contain a specific threat against American targets but appears to be more of an appeal to the American people.

This is the first video of the al Qaeda leader to surface in two years, though audio tapes of his voice have surfaced since.

U.S. officials say they believe the tape is authentic.

Al-Jazeera did not say how it received the tape. The Qatari-based channel has previously received audio and videotapes from people linked to al Qaeda.

About muffybolding

Muffy Bolding is a mother/writer/actor/knitter/feminist/withered debutante who likes the smell of asparagus pee, and remains obsessed with the bathroom hygiene of her three children -- despite the fact that they are 23, 19, and 16. She is blissfully married to a cute Jewish boy who looks like Willie Wonka, but remains tragically in love with the dead poet, Ted Hughes. She has the mouth of a Teamster, and her patron saint is Rocco (pestilence relief.) Ms. Bolding lives in Southern California, where she enjoys typing words, making movies, and plucking the rings from the fingers of the dead. She was the co-creator and Editor-in-Chief of the award winning satire zine, Fresno Lampoon, and in between writing screenplays, carnival barking, and savagely threatening her trio of darling larvae with a wooden spoon, she currently publishes the zine, "Withered Debutante." More of her work can also be found in the anthology, "Mamaphonic: Balancing Motherhood and Other Creative Acts", the compilation zine, "Mamaphiles III: Coming Home", as well as in The Cortland Review and hipmama.com. She is currently writing and producing for film and television, and working on a book of essays entitled, "Inside A Chinese Dragon." She has slept around, but not nearly as much as she would have liked.

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