Moussaoui prosecution begins crash course on al-Qaida

The US jury that will decide the fate of confessed terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui is getting a crash course in the history of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network from the government’s first witness.

For Moussaoui, who readily acknowledges his allegiance to bin Laden and al-Qaida, the testimony of FBI agent Michael Anticev seemed to provide a trip down memory lane.

He smiled yesterday when prosecutors in Alexandria, Virginia, played a 1998 ABC television interview of Osama bin Laden as part of Anticev’s testimony.

He smiled again after the jury was shown portions of an al-Qaida training tape that showed the bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port in 2000.

Anticev, who was resuming testimony today, explained the roots of al-Qaida, going back to its founding in the late 1980s in Afghanistan in resistance to the Soviet occupation of the country.

His testimony touched on some of the names and faces that will be a part of Moussaoui’s death-penalty trial over the next one to three months, including September 11 attack mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.