Posted on 08/05/2002 5:45:58 PM PDT by knighthawk
Birmingham Sunday Mercury:
An al-Qaida recruitment video showing the chilling "last will and testament" of one of the September 11 hijackers is being openly sold at Birmingham's Central Mosque.
The hour-long film contains the only testimony of the hijackers, explaining their motives for the US attacks, and erases any doubt that Osama bin Laden was behind the atrocities.
Recorded six months before the atrocity, the tape shows Ahmed al-Haznawi - who was on United Airlines flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania - issuing a chilling warning.
He tells Americans to "start digging their own graves because a thousand bin Ladens are preparing to kill them." Subtitles read "Dig your graves" and "Make your coffins".
Appearing in a camouflage jacket topped by a chequered Arab scarf, the 22 year-old Saudi gesticulates angrily, pledging to give his life to martyrdom and vowing to send a "bloodied message" to Americans by "attacking them in their heartland".
In the background there is a picture of the burning World Trade Center, which appears to have been digitally super-imposed after the tape, titled 'The Wills of the New York and Washington Battle Martyrs', was recorded.
It also includes speeches by Osama bin Laden - in which he mentions nuclear weapons - interspersed by pictures of men galloping across a desert, waving Kalashnikovs.
A 10-minute excerpt was broadcast in April by cable TV channel Al Jazeera, which edited out vociferous tirades against Saudi Arabia.
But the Sunday Mercury has viewed the full hour-long version - purchased for £5 at Birmingham Central Mosque - which shows al-Haznawi extolling the virtues of Jihad and martyrdom.
While being careful not to reveal the exact details of the September 11 operation, he boasts of having killed Americans outside their homeland.
In an ominous tone, al-Haznawi continues: "The time of humiliation and subjugation is over. It is time to kill Americans in their own homeland."
Ahmed al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi, who left his home in Saudi Arabia to fight with al-Qaida, is believed to have passed through Britain on his way to Dubai before becoming one of the four hijackers on UA flight 93.
After the US anthrax scares following September 11, it was revealed that al-Haznawi had been admitted to a Florida hospital in late March 2001 with symptoms consistent with exposure to anthrax.
According to the Birmingham-based Islamic press agency Al Ansaar, which authenticated the tape for the Sunday Mercury, the Haznawi footage is believed to have been shot in the Afghan city of Kandahar on March 6, 2001.
An undercover reporter bought the English-subtitled tape for just £5 from a young turbaned vendor selling his wares from a car boot in Birmingham Central Mosque after the busy Friday afternoon prayers.
Other stalls at the small market were selling Islamic literature. He told our reporter that the VHS tape had come from Pakistan and that he was expecting more.
When asked if the mosque authorities knew what he was selling, he replied: "I am not doing anything illegal and I have paid to pitch my stall here. That is all they are concerned about."
Birmingham, home to Britain's second biggest Muslim population, has proved to be fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalists preying on the city's disaffected Muslim youth.
In the past, tens of young Birmingham Muslims are believed to have travelled to Afghanistan to enrol at al-Qaida training camps while others have seen action in Kashmir, Chechnya and Bosnia.
Birmingham Labour MP Sion Simon last night said: "I am sure the vast majority of the Muslim population in the city would find the contents of the video to be distasteful and worrying.
"I hope that the Sunday Mercury will now present its evidence to the relevant authorities so that they can assess the legalities of distributing such inflammatory material."
A spokesman for West Midlands Police said it would examine the video and speak to the mosque authorities.
It was still funny. :-)
OMG! ROFLMAO! Too funny.
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