Timeline

Audio and Video Messages From Bin Laden

By the Associated Press
Saturday, September 8, 2007; 10:02 AM

  • Audio and video messages from Osama bin Laden since Sept. 11, 2001:
  • Sept. 6, 2007: Al-Qaida announces Osama bin Laden will release a new video in coming days to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. A photo of bin Laden in the announcement shows his beard, which in previous videos was mostly gray, was now entirely dark.
  • July 1, 2006: Bin Laden issues a 19-minute audiotape, posted on the Web, endorsing the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, and denouncing Iraqi Shiite leaders as traitors.
  • June 30, 2006: Bin Laden issued an audiotape praising al-Muhajer's predecessor, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who had been killed in a U.S. airstrike. The message, also 19 minutes, was packaged with an old still photo of bin Laden as well as images of al-Zarqawi taken from a previous video.
  • May 23, 2006: Bin Laden purportedly says in an Internet audio tape that Zacarias Moussaoui had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks.
  • April 23, 2006: In an audiotape on Arab TV, bin Laden says the West is at war with Islam and calls on his followers to go to Sudan to fight a proposed U.N. force.
  • Jan. 19, 2006: Bin Laden warns that his fighters are preparing new attacks in the United States but offers the American people a "long-term truce" without specifying the conditions, in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel.
  • Dec. 28, 2004: In an hourlong audiotape, he endorses al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and calls for a boycott of Iraqi elections.
  • Dec. 16, 2004: An audiotape posted on an Islamic Web site shows a man identified as bin Laden praising militants who attacked a U.S. consulate in Saudi Arabia earlier that month and calling on militants to stop the flow of oil to the West.
  • Oct. 29, 2004: Al-Jazeera airs a video of bin Laden saying the United States can avoid another Sept. 11 attack if it stops threatening the security of Muslims.
  • May 6, 2004: In an online audiotape released on Islamic forums, bin Laden offers rewards of gold for the killing of U.S. and U.N. officials in Iraq.
  • April 15, 2004: A man identifying himself as bin Laden offers a "truce" to European countries that do not attack Muslims, in an audiotape broadcast on Arab TV stations.
  • Jan. 4, 2004: A speaker thought to be bin Laden says on an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera that the U.S.-led war in Iraq is the beginning of the "occupation" of Persian Gulf states for their oil. He calls on Muslims to keep fighting a holy war in the Middle East.
  • Sept. 10, 2003: In the first video image of bin Laden in nearly two years, he is shown walking through rocky terrain with top deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. In an accompanying audiotape, a voice purporting to be bin Laden's praises the "great damage to the enemy" on Sept. 11 and mentions five hijackers by name.
  • April 7, 2003: In an audiotape obtained by The Associated Press in Pakistan, bin Laden exhorts Muslims to rise up against Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other governments it claims are "agents of America," and calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests. The CIA determines the 27-minute tape is likely authentic.
  • Feb. 13, 2003: An audiotape purported to be of bin Laden reads a poetic last will and testament in a recording first obtained by the British-based Islamic Al-Ansaar news agency. Bin Laden says he wants to die a martyr in a new attack against the U.S.
  • Feb. 11, 2003: Bin Laden tells his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans in an audiotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera. U.S. officials say they believe the tape to be authentic.
  • Nov. 12, 2002: Al-Jazeera broadcasts a brief audiotape in which a voice attributed to bin Laden threatens new terrorism against the U.S. and its allies, and calls the Bush administration "the biggest serial killers in this age." U.S. experts say the tape can't be authenticated because of its poor quality.

Dec. 13, 2001: U.S. Defense Department releases videotape of bin Laden in Afghanistan on Nov. 9, 2001, saying the destruction of the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded even his "optimistic" calculations.


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