Secret interviews with Bin Laden revealed

The interviews took place in Afghanistan, the first in October with the Qatar-based Arab TV station, Al-Jazeera, and in November, filmed by an “amateur”, found in a house in Jalalabad. The first interview was never revealed, or shown, due to a secret agreement between Richard Cheney and the Emir of Qatar. The second is…strange.

The first is an exclusive interview between a frightened Al-Jazeera reporter and an exultant and defiant Osama Bin Laden which took place in Afghanistan on 20th October, the contents of which were used by British Prime Minister Tony Blair on 14th November, in his public accusation that Osama Bin Laden was behind the September 11th attacks.

The video reached the British and US governments through the work of their respective secret services, after they discovered that a video of the interview had been made and distributed throughout the Middle East, whose leaders are reported to be increasingly worried about the growing influence of Al-Jazeera in the area. Contacts from the British and US secret services obtained copies of the video, which has never been shown.

Al-Jazeera decided not to broadcast the interview after a private meeting took place in October between US Vice President Richard (Dick) Cheney, and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin-Khalifah Al Thani. The Qatar royal family finances Al-Jazeera and has close ties with the USA.

In the interview, an aggressive and determined Osama Bin Laden refuses to answer the reporter’s questions and he himself dictates the theme of the discourse. He manages again to portray his message that the attacks against America were justified by this country’s support for Israel, which stole lands from the Palestinians and continues its campaign of terror today.

He declares that “the battle has been moved to inside America and we must continue until we win this battle, or die for the cause and meet our Creator”. Linking these attacks with their cause, he declared “Evil terror is that which America and Israel are practising against our people, and what we are practising is good terror which will stop them from doing what they do”.

Osama Bin Laden and Islamist extremists have tried to explain the cause behind the international terrorist movement with the justification that while Israel refuses to adhere to UN Resolutions which instruct this country to leave the Palestinian lands it occupied and to cease the practice of building colonies on them, settled by Jews, the stakes would be raised in their fight to claim back the lands which were taken from them.

However, there is nothing concrete in this interview which incriminates Osama Bin Laden, the references to the September 11th attacks being too vague, and after the event.

In the second video, which mysteriously appears in a private house in Jalalabad, filmed by an amateur and screened on Sky News on Thursday, the evidence incriminating Osama Bin Laden in the terrorist attacks on September 11th would be devastating…at face value.

However, Arabic-speaking Pravda.Ru contacts were present watching this video clip and it can be stated that what was claimed and seen are two different things. What was seen were video shots of Osama Bin Laden (no doubt it was him, unless the video industry used its best technicians to produce a professional-looking montage), speaking in the distance with a group of fellows, talking about the September 11th events in great detail.

Whether or not the voice was his can be debatable. The Arabic-speaking contact of Pravda.Ru in Lisbon pointed out that anyone could have dubbed on the voices because there are no close-ups of the lips of the people while speaking. What he could hear was a lot of mumbling and during the mumbling, the supposed translation comes up with some incriminating phrases.

Why such potentially damning evidence should have been left in a house in Kandahar, conveniently discovered after a supposed victory by the US-led alliance, giving for the first time the only real evidence against Osama Bin Laden, is highly suspicious.

Also suspicious is the fact that Osama Bin Laden mentioned names of those held responsible for the hijackings. If Osama Bin Laden has the means and intelligence to fight the Soviet Union during ten years, to play cat and mouse with the USA for another ten years and to see the Taleban walking home, armed after what was supposed to be one of the mightiest military attacks in history, himself only he knows where, the second video seems too good to be true.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY PRAVDA.Ru