Counterterrorism Blog

In late 2001 or early 2002, the U.S. government was able to recover a video recording from a suspected Al-Qaida facility in Afghanistan. The video, which contains no sound, is divided into two principle sections: first, a speech given by Bin Laden on January 8, 2000 at the Tarnak Farms complex to an elite gathering of top Al-Qaida leaders——including both Saif al-Adel and Fahid Msalam (both indicted in U.S. federal court for their roles in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s reported successor at the head of Al-Qaida’s international terrorist operations, Abu Faraj al-Liby. Also in the audience for Bin Laden’s speech were a number of key 9/11 organizers and hijackers—including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Mohammed Atta, and Ziad Jarrah. During the second portion of the video, filmed on January 18, 2000, Jarrah and Atta are subsequently recorded reading what appear to be suicide wills. The two men sit side-by-side in a room, presumably also located at the Tarnak Farms complex. The following slides contain still images taken from that video, juxtaposed alongside other known photos of these individuals, for the purpose of identification and comparison.