Osama bin Laden

The following selection is a transcription of a videotape of Osama bin Laden talking about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with several of his supporters, including an unidentified Saudi Arabian sheik (Shaykh), during an informal dinner in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in midNovember 2001. All members of the dinner party were aware that their comments were being taped. The videotape begins with the second half of bin Laden's dinner meeting with the sheik, followed by an earlier visit by Taliban (the religious government of Afghanistan) forces to a downed U.S. helicopter in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan, and ends with the beginning of bin Laden's meal with the sheik. U.S. government officials theorize that the original recording on the tape was the visit to the helicopter and that the camera operator began taping...