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Bin Laden Names Hijackers On Tape

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 20, 2001 / 9:25 PM EST / CBS

Osama bin Laden names some of the Sept. 11 hijackers and commends them to Allah, according to a more thorough translation by one of the experts hired by the government to review a videotape of the suspected terrorist.

A more leisurely review of the tape released by the government last week came up with "a whole bunch of names," translator George Michael said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. He would identify only three: Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Wail Alshehri.

Alshehri was on American Airlines flight 11, one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York; Alhamzi and Alhamzi were on American Airlines flight 77, which hit the Pentagon.

"You'll have to talk to the Pentagon about the rest," Michael said.

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Michael, one of two translators hired by the government, says he handed the more detailed transcript to the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke said Thursday night that she was unaware of a new translation, but added it was not surprising to find more information with a more in-depth study of the conversation, considering the poor quality of the sound on the tape.

Osama bin Laden:
In His Own Words

View the complete videotape

of Osama bin Laden released by the Pentagon

Read the official transcript of comments by bin Laden and others on the tape

Get the legal view of the tape as evidence for a trial, in an analysis by CBSNews.com Legal Consultant Andrew Cohen.

White House officials did not immediately comment on the reports.

Despite an exhaustive search by U.S. and allied troops, bin Laden remains at large.

The latest intelligence reports indicate close associates of bin Laden believe he is still alive and on the move somewhere in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Pentagon released the first transcript last week, offering a chilling glimpse of terrorist planning as bin Laden told his aides and clerics that the deaths and destruction achieved by the Sept. 11 attacks exceeded his "most optimistic" expectations.

Bin Lden appeared calm and at times amused as he talked about the attacks on the hour-long tape dated Nov. 9 that the Bush administration said was found in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden's voice was difficult to hear on the videotape, and government-hired translators at several points wrote "inaudible" when they didn't agree on an interpretation or when they couldn't make out the words.

The first government translation disclosed that bin Laden mentioned Mohamed Atta, the suspected ringleader of the terrorists.

Another Tape

In another videotape, Osama bin Laden declares "the battle has been moved inside America, and we shall continue until we win this battle, or die in the cause and meet our maker," according to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The International Herald Tribune reports this came during an "interview" in October with the al-Jazeera Gulf television network, but never aired because bin Laden ignores the reporter's questions and instead dictates both the questions and answers.

It was recorded earlier than the "home movie" the Bush administration has, probably October 20, and reportedly circulated among members of the al-Qaida.

According to Blair, bin Laden also says "the bad terror is what America and Israel are practicing against our people, and what we are practicing is the good terror that will stop them doing what they are doing."

"Not everybody knew (...inaudible...). Mohammad (Atta) from the Egyptian family (meaning the al-Qaida Egyptian group), was in charge of the group," bin Laden said on the tape, according to the government.

In the more thorough version, Michael said, bin Laden names several other hijackers and says: "may God accept their action," according to the English translation. Bin Laden used "Allah," the Arabic word for God.

References bin Laden made in the original transcription of the tape released last week already tied him to the attacks but naming and blessing several hijackers suggests an intimacy that would reinforce U.S. claims of his deep involvement in the planning.

The names only emerged now, Michael said, because the first translation was rushed in 12 hours, in a room in the Pentagon. It took four days to complete the fuller transcript in the comfort of his own office, Michael said.

"We did the first translation under a tight time frame," he said.

Michael, who is originally Lebanes, translated the tape with Kassem Wahba, an Egyptian. Both men had difficulties with the Saudi dialect bin Laden and his guest use in the tape, Michael said.

Attempts to reach Wahba were unsuccessful.

Some passages remain a mystery, Michael said: Bin Laden's Saudi guest names the person who smuggled him from Saudi Arabia into Afghanistan.

Michael and Wahba were unable to make out the name, and Michael said that if anyone was able to identify the name, it would be a Saudi.

Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi who listened to the tape, told the AP that the visitor attaches the words "jalad alhayaa" — a name for the Saudi religious police — to the smuggler's name.

Al-Ahmed, who directs a Washington think-tank, said the government has asked him for his own completed translation. Any connection between bin Laden and a Saudi official would probably embarrass the Saudi government.

In the first, rushed translation the Pentagon published last week, bin Laden tells his guest that 15 of the hijackers knew they were on a "martyrdom operation," but only learned of the details shortly before boarding their planes. Bin Laden also said the casualties were greater than his original estimates.

The guests discussing the Sept. 11 attacks with bin Laden have been variously identified as Sheik Ali bin Said al-Ghandi, a Saudi Arabian Islamic cleric known for anti-Western views and Khaled al-Harbi, a legless Saudi veteran of battles in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

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