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Ahmad al-Haznawi
al-Ghamdi
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DOHA,
April 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Raising many question
marks and even suspicions concerning the content and timing, Qatar-based
Al-Jazeera TV broadcast Monday a videotape of an allegedly September 11
suicide bomber defiantly reading his last will. Al-Jazeera, moreover,
said it was the first proof that Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network
carried out the attacks on the United States.
Commenting
on the latest Bin Laden tape, IslamOnline’s Public Opinion Consultant,
Dr. Abdul Mannan Qadeer, said, “The airing of such a tape now may be
meant as a proof that Al-Qaeda is still capable of threatening the
American interests as long as U.S. bias towards Israel continues,
especially following Israel’s latest massacres against the
Palestinians.
“The
same meaning was stressed in an alleged Bin Laden statement published a
few days ago in the Pakistani papers. The statement made threats about
kidnapping U.S. citizens to swap them for Palestinians detained by
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s occupation forces.
“However,
the high quality of the videotape, shot with digital cameras, throws
deep doubts about the purpose behind the timing of airing it. It is not
logical for a man going to death to make his will in a well-equipped
studio, before an apparently professional cameraman,” Qadeer added.
“In
addition to the timing, which distracts the whole world from the war
crimes and atrocities committed, and still, by the Israelis in
Palestine, there is another point. That is feeding the negative image,
in the west, about Muslims in general and Arabs in particular.
“The
tape appeared in a time when the Western states started condemning
Israel for its atrocities. This throws doubts about the beneficiary
behind such negative propaganda by people allegedly working for Arab and
Islamic causes,” charged Qadeer.
For
his part, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised doubts about the
authenticity of the tape, branding it to be a "patchwork of
clips" from last year and not new material, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
"The
impression is it is not new," Rumsfeld said. "The tape is new
but it does not reflect anything of UBL (Osama bin Laden) from recent
periods."
He
said, however, he was not certain that the videotape that he saw was the
same one obtained by the Arabic television news network Al-Jazeera.
He
said the tape that he saw included shots of Bin Laden talking and
included Arabic commentary that appeared to be more recent.
"I
was advised that what I was watching very likely was using a patchwork
of clips from previous periods, along with ... some commentary from more
recent periods," he said.
"It
comments on things post September 11, but the UBL pieces appear to be
from last year as opposed to this year," he said.
Rumsfeld
said he had not reached any conclusion from the tape as to whether bin
Laden was alive or dead.
"We
killed them outside their land and we will kill them on their own turf
today," Ahmad al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi, a bearded young Saudi,
announced in a strident voice, reported AFP.
In
a "message addressed to the whole world, friends and foes
alike," that "the time of humiliation and enslavement is over
and the time has come to kill the Americans on their own turf ... next
to their forces and intelligence services."
"The
time has come to prove to the whole world that the United States put on
a garb that was not tailored for it when it had the mere thought of
resisting the mujahedin (fighters)." "Let me be among those
whose death gives life to a whole nation," he said.
Ghamdi,
wearing fatigues and a black and white Palestinian keffiyeh or
headdress, concluded with a repeated request that God accept him as a
"martyr" and admit him to paradise.
Recorded
later on the same tape, the first showing one of the presumed suicide
bombers, Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri termed the September 11
attacks "a great victory".
He
was shown sitting outside in the open with suspected terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden, who remained silent.
"This
great victory was achieved only thanks to the grace of God the Almighty,
not due to any skill or competence on our part," Zawahri said.
"God
chooses from among his worshippers those who deserve His grace ... and
he favored the 19 brethren with the victory we are enjoying today,"
he said in a reference to the 19 mostly Saudi bombers suspected of
having crashed planes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania last
September.
The
Satellite Channel said the
video was made in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandhar, southern
Afghanistan, "six months" before the attacks on the United
States.
A
date seen on the text Ghamdi read converts to March 6, 2001.
Al-Jazeera
said it had been able to check the identity of the presumed suicide
bomber and he was named on a U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation list
of suspects.
The
man corresponds, according to the names and pictures appearing on the
FBI's website, to Ahmad Ibrahim A. al-Haznawi, alias Ahmad al-Haznawi.
He was one of (alleged) four suspects who crashed a United Airlines
Boeing in Pennsylvania.
Haznawi
spoke to the backdrop of a painting showing a ball of fire in front of a
building (Apparently the destroyed World Trade Center) and the words
"Drive the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula" in Arabic.
The
station said the tape provided the "first proof" that bin
Laden's Al-Qaeda network, hosted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, had
carried out the attacks on New York and Washington.
Al-Jazeera
said it would air on Thursday a special program on the tape, which it
said the channel received "recently" without specifying how.
The
satellite news channel said in a statement that the hour-long tape,
titled "the wills of the martyrs of the New York and Washington
battles," contains shots of various Al-Qaeda leaders accompanied by
a narrative which "appears to have been recorded recently."
With
additional reporting by Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Staff
. 
