Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden was shown in an undated videotape excerpt aired today, hailing the major blow the September 11th attacks had dealt to the US economy.
"Losses on the Wall Street market reached 16 per cent and they said this number was a record since the market opened," bin Laden said in the videotape aired by the Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC).
The station said evidence on the videotape showed it had been taped in the first half of December. It did not say how it obtained the footage. In none of the comments aired did bin Laden specifically take responsibility for ordering the attacks.
"More than 1 trillion in losses resulted from these successful and blessed attacks and may God bless these martyrs and welcome them to paradise," said bin Laden, apparently referring to the suicide hijackers.
Washington blames bin Laden and his al Qaeda network for the suicide airliner attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,000 people. It still unclear whether bin Laden is alive or dead after the US military campaign in Afghanistan.