U.S. RELEASES VIDEOTAPE OF OSAMA BIN LADEN
December 13, 2001

The U. S. government released today a copy of a videotape of Osama bin Laden obtained by U.S. forces in Jalalabad, Afghanistan in late November.

The video was filmed by unknown persons.

“There was no doubt of bin Laden’s responsibility for the September 11 attacks before the tape was discovered,” said Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

The release of the tape was made after balancing the concerns about any additional pain that could be caused by its release against the value of having the world fully appreciate what we are up against in the war against terrorism.

The tape was released with an English translation and English subtitling, prepared independently by George Michael, translator, Diplomatic Language Services; and Dr. Kassem M. Wahba, Arabic language program coordinator, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. They collaborated on their translation and compared it with translations done by the U.S. government for consistency. There were no inconsistencies in the translations.

The English translation is on the Web at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf