First bin Laden video in two years surfaces

BEIRUT, Lebanon -- The first video image of Osama bin Laden in nearly two years was broadcast on Al-Jazeera TV Wednesday, the eve of the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The al Qaeda leader was shown walking through rocky terrain with his top aide, both carrying assault rifles.\nIn an eight-minute audio tape accompanying the video footage, a speaker identified as bin Laden praises the "great damage to the enemy" on Sept. 11 and mentions the five hijackers by name. On a second tape, a voice said to be that of chief deputy Ayman al-Zawahri threatens more attacks on Americans and calls on Iraqi guerrillas to "bury" U.S. troops.\nAccording to terrorism experts, such tapes reassure al Qaeda sympathizers that the terror network is still a force and its leaders still active and in seeming good health. A tape showing bin Laden would be crucial to that effort and the timing -- a day before the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, blamed on al Qaeda -- highly symbolic.\nAl-Jazeera said the tapes were produced in late April or early May, but the Arab satellite channel did not say how or when it obtained them. The backdrop in the video resembled the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where U.S. officials believe bin Laden is hiding out.\nU.S. intelligence officials will review the tapes to try to determine if they are authentic and when and where they were made, officials in Washington said.\n"This is another reminder that they continue to plot to attack us and to attack freedom," Sean McCormack, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said Wednesday.\nPresident Bush, asked about the tape during a tour of forensics labs at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., said he had not heard it yet.\nMessages from al Qaeda leaders are sometimes viewed as presaging an attack. Press reports from the Mideast over the last week had suggested a new bin Laden video was set to air Wednesday, one U.S. official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.\nThe Department of Homeland Security previously said it did not plan to raise the national terror threat level above its current position at yellow, signifying an elevated threat of attack.\nThe voice identified as bin Laden praises the Sept. 11 hijackers.\n"Those men caused great damage to the enemy and disturbed their plans," the speaker says, calling them true believers who should become an ideal for other believers.\nHe makes no direct threatening remarks, but the voice said to be al-Zawahri threatens more attacks on Americans.\n"What you saw until now are only the first skirmishes," al-Zawahri allegedly says in a 12-minute tape. "The true epic has not begun."\nA religious song could be heard in the background of the alleged bin Laden audiotape. Both tapes were translated from the Arabic by the Associated Press.\nThe video image of bin Laden appeared to be the first since he was shown at a dinner with associates on Nov. 9, 2001, in Afghanistan. That tape was made public a month later.\nThe tape follows several attributed to other al Qaeda figures who made a point of saying bin Laden was still active in the fight against the West. The last such message, attributed to an al Qaeda spokesman, was aired on the Arab television station Al-Arabiya Sunday. \nBin Laden was last heard from on April 7, exhorting Muslims in a tape obtained by AP to rise up against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other governments he claimed were "agents of America." That audiotape, which CIA analysts said appeared to be authentic, made a vague reference to the Iraq conflict, although it was not specific enough to determine whether it had been recorded before or after the Iraqi war began on March 20.\nThe videotape broadcast Wednesday shows bin Laden and al-Zawahri dressed in loose-fitting Afghan clothing and flat, rolled brim caps known as pakuls. They walk slowly up and down a rocky hill dotted with green plants.\nIn one shot, bin Laden, in his late 40s and more than 6 feet tall, is assisted by a walking stick in his right hand and wears a blanket over his left shoulder. He showed signs of age since his last video image two years ago; his beard was whiter.