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Osama bin Laden has again appeared in an undated videotape hailing the September 11 attacks and a spokesman for his al Qaeda network appeared to go another step towards clearly claiming responsibility for them.
"More than $1 trillion in losses resulted from these successful and blessed attacks and may God bless these martyrs and welcome them to paradise," bin Laden said in the footage aired by the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
MBC said evidence on the tape suggested it was made in the first half of December. It did not say how it obtained the film, which resembled other footage aired on Tuesday by another Arabic channel, the Qatar-based satellite station al-Jazeera.
"Losses on the Wall Street market reached 16 percent and they said this number was a record since the market opened," bin Laden said on MBC. "They announced today or two days ago that airline companies had let go of more than 170,000 employees."
Bin Laden, whose fate remains unclear since the US retaliatory strikes on his strongholds in Afghanistan, has never clearly claimed responsibility for the attacks on New York and Washington - indeed he initially issued statements denying it.
The latest comments went no further toward a clear claim on his part but one of his al Qaeda colleagues did appear to do so.
A videotape released by the US authorities in December did show the Saudi-born Islamist appearing to admit to at least prior knowledge of the attacks. But while US officials hailed that as the "smoking gun" proving his role, many Muslims called it a fake being used to justify the American war in Afghanistan.
"We struck at infidel"
In the latest footage on MBC, however, a known spokesman for al Qaeda appeared to go further in claiming a role for the group in ordering the attacks that killed about 3,000 people.
"We were able to hit the source of infidelity which day and night publicly fights against Islam," Sulaiman bu Ghaith was seen saying in a separate taped excerpt.
"We were able to strike at this infidel right at his doorstep," he added. Bu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti-born cleric, emerged as an al Qaeda spokesman after the US attacks.
It remains unclear whether bin Laden is alive or dead after the US military campaign in Afghanistan.
In the videotape, bin Laden first appears dressed in flowing white robes, sitting in a patch of grass beside his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, who also briefly speaks to the camera. Bin Laden is later seen in military fatigues, extolling the virtues of martyrdom while looking straight into the camera.
Bu Ghaith, however, is shown sitting in a closed space while addressing an unseen gathering to his left. All three men use a sermon-like style of speech common among Muslim clerics.
The statements were juxtaposed with images of the crumbling twin towers of the World Trade Centre and of frightened and injured New Yorkers. The tape also included images of what MBC said were al Qaeda members killed by Americans in Afghanistan.
Jazeera had shown more of Zawahri's comments while bin Laden sat silently beside him. Its excerpt also included a filmed statement by Ahmed Alghamdi, a Saudi believed to be one of the 19 hijackers.
Jazeera has said it will air further extracts.
US President George W. Bush said that "good progress" had been made in destroying al Qaeda but that the war in Afghanistan was far from over.
© Reuters
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