Bin Laden Tape: No Moussaoui-9/11 Link

An Internet audio tape attributed to Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that Zacarias Moussaoui — the only person convicted in the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks — had nothing to do with the operation.

"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11," the voice, apparently of bin Laden, said.

"I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers, and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001.

The al Qaeda chief said the Sept. 11 hijackers were divided into two groups, "pilots and assistants."

"Since Zacarias Moussaoui was still learning how to fly, he wasn't No. 20 in the group, as your government has claimed," bin Laden apparently said on the tape, the authenticity of which has not been completely verified. "It knows this very well," he added.

The tape said Moussaoui was not a security risk for al Qaeda, because he did not have knowledge of the plot. CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan reports that what differentiates this tape from past audio tapes of bin Laden is his tone.

In the new tape, Logan says, bin Laden is very direct. The message is much shorter than usual and he opens in an almost American way by saying, "I'm going to be short with this message," Logan reports.

"Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events (of Sept. 11, 2001), and if he had known something — even very little — about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," the tape said.

Reportedly, bin Laden also said Moussaoui's confession that he helped plan the attacks was "void," calling it the result of "pressures exercised against him during four and a half years" in U.S. prison.

It was not clear which confession bin Laden was referring to by Moussaoui, who frequently trumpeted his claim that he was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But his defense lawyers cast doubt on his claims, saying he only wanted to be sentenced to death to become a martyr.

Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent and an admitted al Qaeda member, was sentenced to life in prison earlier this month after a jury ruled that he was responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. U.S. Judge Leonie Brinkema sent Moussaoui to prison for life, to "die with a whimper," for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Moussaoui declared: "God save Osama bin Laden, you will never get him."

Brinkema and the unrepentant Moussaoui capped the two-month trial with an intense exchange that will mark the defendant's last public words before his incarceration.

But bin Laden on the tape called Moussaoui's connection "false" and the result of years of pressure put on him, Logan reports.

Edward MacMahon, one of the lawyers who defended Moussaoui during his death penalty trial, said bin Laden wouldn't have made the best witness for his client, even with his statements that Moussaoui had no role in the attacks.

"I'm not commenting on the credibility of Osama bin Laden," MacMahon said. "I never believed there was any evidence to support Moussaoui's story (that he was the 20th highjacker), and that's what I told the jury."

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said U.S. intelligence was aware of the bin Laden message. One of the officials said there was no reason to doubt its authenticity.

That official said the message is part of bin Laden's continuing effort to demonstrate he is a relevant extremist leader, who is knowledgeable of current events.

The official said the message was made for propaganda purposes, and it does not contain any threats.

The audio message, which is less than five minutes long, was transmitted with a still photo of bin Laden.

The tape is the third by bin Laden this year. In a tape aired on Arab television in March, he denounced the United States and Europe for cutting off funds to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, accusing them of leading a "Zionist" war on Islam, and urged followers to fight any U.N. peacekeeping force in Sudan.

In January, bin Laden said in an audiotape that al Qaeda was preparing new attacks in the United States but offered a truce — though his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri later issued a video saying Washington had refused to take the offer.

The January message was bin Laden's first in over a year, his longest period of silence since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.

His deputy al-Zawahri releases messages more frequently, appearing in videotapes, while bin Laden has not appeared in a video since October 2004.