Osama Bin Laden to Issue Video on 9/11 Anniversary

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By Jeff Bliss

Sept. 6 (Bloomberg) -- Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden will issue a video message to the American people on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a Washington- based terrorist-watchdog group.

The Site Intelligence Group showed an image of bin Laden sporting a full, dark beard that it said was from the new video and was found on radical Islamic Web sites.

Site was founded in 2002 to monitor and infiltrate terrorist groups, according to Source Watch, a project of the Madison, Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy.

There have been no confirmed sightings of bin Laden since he escaped U.S.-led forces in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in December 2001. Mansour Dadullah, a Taliban commander in Afghanistan, said in a video last month that bin Laden is "extremely healthy and active.''

The Bush administration said in its latest National Intelligence Estimate last month that al-Qaeda, the group that carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, is regaining strength in Pakistan and honing its tactics in Iraq.

The State Department is offering as much as $25 million for information leading to bin Laden's capture.

Al-Qaeda's media production group, as-Sahab, announced the new video in an online statement, said IntelCenter, an organization based in Alexandria, Virginia, that monitors extremist Web sites.