Tale of the Tape: The 9/11 Hijacker Video
LONDON, Oct. 3, 2006 — -- U.S. intelligence officials are reviewing a new videotape that shows two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, and Osama bin Laden.
Ringleader Mohamed Atta is seen laughing with Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines Flight 93.
It also shows bin Laden speaking to a large group.
The Times of London, which first obtained the tape, says it was shot in Afghanistan in January 2000, 18 months before the terrorist attacks.
ABC Senior Foreign Correspondent Jim Sciutto spoke with the man who received the tape, Yousri Fouda.
He is the Al-Jazeera London bureau chief and a Sunday Times of London contributor.
Sciutto: What do we know about the al Qaeda public relations machine -- it seems to be getting more sophisticated, more active?
Fouda: Al Qaeda is the type of organization that loves, that thrives on the media, they tape almost everything they do, and then they will have their own strategy on when and where and through which manner they will release that tape, certainly that was my impression when I interviewed Al Mohammed in Karachi [in Pakistan] back in 2002. When I asked for certain tapes and certain videos by some of the 9/11 hijackers and they told me no, they have a certain strategy and they not going to release this now … and that they can release in a couple weeks plus the statements, plus the Internet and they have -- they're never short of a way to deliver a statement, or a tape or a CD and basically they are computer freaks.
(Fouda went on to explain how tech-savvy al Qaeda and its sympathizers have become. It is a skill that Fouda saw firsthand when he interviewed in person al Qaeda plotter Ramzi Binalshibh.)
When I arrived in that safe house in Karachi, Ramzi Binalshibh was sitting on the floor surrounded by at least four or five laptops and the same number of mobile phones and countless sim cards and he was using the texting. Binalshibh knows his way around the Internet. … They are professionals. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself, who is the main mastermind behind 9/11 as the head of the military committee behind al Qaeda, that was before. … He used to do the media work, so it falls very much into the heart of the al Qaeda -- it's very much part and parcel of the jihad as far as they are concerned.
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