Bin Laden tells US it can avoid attack

OSAMA BIN LADEN said in a video aired yesterday that the United States can avoid another September 11 attack if it stops threatening the security of Muslims.

Reading a statement, the al-Qaida leader refrained from directly threatening new attacks, although he said “there are still reasons to repeat what happened”.

“Your security is not in the hands of Kerry, Bush or al-Qaida. Your security is in your own hands,” bin Laden said, referring to the president and his Democratic opponent. “Each state that does not mess with our security, has naturally guaranteed its own security.”

Admitting for the first time that he ordered the September 11 attacks, bin Laden said he did so because of injustices against the Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel and the United States.

It was the first footage in more than a year of the fugitive al-Qaida leader, thought to be hiding in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The video, broadcast on Al-Jazeera television, showed bin Laden with a long grey beard, wearing traditional white robes, a turban and a golden cloak, standing behind a table and in front of a brown curtain.

The Bush administration said yesterday it believes the videotape was authentic and had been made recently. It said there was no plan to raise the nation’s threat level for now.

Bin Laden said he wanted to explain why he ordered the suicide airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon so Americans would know how to avoid “another disaster”.