Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden praises martyrdom as a weapon and a path to glory for Muslims in a video that CNN said on Saturday was intercepted before it was to appear on radical Islamist Web sites.
CNN, which noted it could not verify the authenticity of the 40-minute video and had translated it from Arabic into English, said on its Web site there was no indication of where or when the footage had been shot.
The news network said the video contained old clips but concluded it had been compiled in the last four weeks.
However, a senior U.S. intelligence official tells NBC News that the footage of bin Laden "is old video and that it is a short portion of an older video."
"It may have been recorded prior to the September 11 attacks," the official said.
Appears in fatigues, speaks of martyrdom
In the video, bin Laden is shown dressed in a dark-colored camouflage jacket and a dark cap. The clip is less than a minute in duration, compared to recent videos of his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, which lasted more than an hour and contained commentary on recent events.
The U.S. official noted that bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and other al-Qaida leaders had been using the Internet over the last three years to comment on specific events — as Zawahiri did this week when referring to the knighting of author Salman Rushdie.
"They want to see themselves as commentators on world events that effect the Islamic world," the official said.
However, in the tape released Saturday, bin Laden speaks only of the wonders of martyrdom, making no reference to current events. The official told NBC News that bin Laden looks as he did prior to the Sept. 11 attacks in terms of his appearance and dress.
Octavia Nasr, CNN’s senior editor for Arab affairs, said bin Laden appears in only a 50-second portion of the video in which he asserts the Prophet Mohammed had wanted to be a martyr.
“What is this status that the best of mankind wished for himself?” CNN said bin Laden asked rhetorically. “He wished to be a martyr. He himself said: ’By Him in whose hands my life is! I would love to attack and be martyred.”’
“This glorious prophet who was inspired by God summarized this entire life by these words. He wished upon himself this status. Happy is one who was chosen by God as a martyr,” bin Laden said, according to the CNN translation of his remarks.
Praise for comrades
Mustafa abu al-Yazid, named as al-Qaida's new commander in Afghanistan in May, also appears in the video praising fighters ready to die for the cause of jihad, or holy war.
The video is a compilation of documentary footage and testimony by fellow militants praising fallen Islamists from areas ranging from north Africa to Tajikistan in central Asia. Some of the militants are seen reading their final testaments.
CNN did not say how the footage had been intercepted. But a segment of the video, produced by al-Qaida’s media arm al-Sahab, was seen on the lauramansfield.com Web site which provides Arabic translations and terrorism analysis.
For the past several weeks, radical Islamist Web sites have proclaimed there will be “good news soon from Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” CNN reported.
U.S. officials told NBC News there is no indication that the latest tape should be seen as any sort of signal to al-Qaida operatives planning attacks anywhere.
Bin Laden has not been seen in a contemporaneous video since Oct. 29, 2004 — the Thursday before the U.S. presidential elections. He has not been heard in a contemporaneous audio since last July. It may be, the official told NBC News, that al-Qaida is simply trying to show that bin Laden is still part of the group's hierarchy and is still a significant player in militant Islam.
Bin Laden bounty grows
The Senate voted on Friday to double the bounty on bin Laden to $50 million and require President Bush to refocus on capturing the Saudi-born militant after reports that al-Qaida is gaining strength.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush said he wanted bin Laden caught dead or alive. But a year before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Bush shifted his emphasis, saying he did not know bin Laden’s whereabouts and “I truly am not that concerned about him.”
Top U.S. intelligence officials told the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee this week that residents of remote northwestern Pakistan, where bin Laden is believed to be hiding, have proven to be impervious to the financial rewards already offered by the U.S. government.