Sunday Times Has Unseen Pre-9/11 Atta Video
The Sunday Times has gotten their hands on a “martyrdom video” made in Afghanistan in January 2000 by Mohammed Atta. (Hat tip: Bill Amos.)
LONDON - A previously unseen video made by Mohammed Atta, ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, has been obtained by a Britain’s The Sunday Times, the newspaper reported Saturday.
In editions available late Saturday, the paper said it had been handed the so-called martyrdom video, but did not reveal the source of the tape.
It reported that Atta was filmed reading a document marked in Arabic as a will as he sat beside fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah — who seized control of United Airlines flight 93, which crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pa.
The newspaper said that a timecode stamp on the videotape indicated it had been recorded on January 18, 2000 and the recording was made at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. There was no soundtrack, the newspaper said. It quoted an unnamed U.S. source as saying that attempts to lip read the tape to transcribe the content had been unsuccessful.
The recording could help resolve questions over Atta’s whereabouts in January 2000, after he fled his home in Hamburg, Germany.
Osama bin Laden is also shown on the hour-long video addressing supporters at a site in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the newspaper reported. It said a timecode stamp indicated the al-Qaida leader was speaking on January 8, 2000.