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BRITISH
PAPER SAYS BIN LADEN CONFESSES
 LONDON, Nov. 11 (IslamOnline
& News Agencies) - The British newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph, reported
that alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden admitted that he and his al-Qaeda
organization were responsible for the deadly September 11 attacks on the U.S.
The Telegraph report was
contrary to what a Pakistani daily reported earlier in regards to bin Laden’s
denial of masterminding the attacks on Washington and New York.
The Telegraph claimed it has
an undisclosed video in which bin Laden admits responsibility for the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden according to the Telegraph
called the sites "legitimate targets."
The paper said the video has
been circulating for 14 days among bin Laden’s supporters.
“In the footage, shot in
the Afghan mountains at the end of October, a smiling bin Laden goes on to say
that the World Trade Center’s twin towers were a "legitimate target"
and the pilots who hijacked the planes were "blessed by Allah," the
Sunday Telegraph reported.
According to the paper, bin
Laden said that the killing of at least 4,537 people was justified, because they
were "not civilians" but were working for the American system.
“Bin Laden also makes a
direct personal threat against Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, for the first
time, and warns nations such as Australia, Germany and Japan to stay out of the
conflict,” the paper reported.
The Sunday Telegraph alleged
the video will form the centerpiece of Britain and America's new evidence
against bin Laden, to be released this Wednesday.
The footage, which the
Telegraph obtained access to in the Middle East Saturday, was not made for
public release. In the past, such videotaped messages were broadcast by the
Qatar-based al-Jazeera television network.
In a special interview with
the Pakistani daily newspaper, The Dawn, bin Laden spoke to Hamid Mir, editor of
Pakistani daily, Ausaf, at an undisclosed location near Kabul.
Mir told MSNBC Saturday that
bin Laden denied being responsible for the September 11 attacks. He added that
bin Laden told him that the 19 men the U.S. declared as hijackers and
perpetrators of the attacks were nothing more than passengers.
The interview constituted the
first one given by bin Laden to any journalist since the attacks on New York and
Washington.
Mir said that he first met
with bin Laden in 1997 and then again in 1998. He added that when he saw bin
Laden this time, he found him greatly changed.
“Previously he was very
soft-spoken," the 36-year-old Mir told Agence-France Press (AFP). "But
now he speaks like an experienced orator. He is very hard-hitting. He was in
high spirits. He's very healthy and he laughs a lot.”
The world's most-hunted man,
bin Laden feels certain the Americans will kill him sooner or later, according
to Mir.
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