Al Qaeda has released a new video which includes approximately ten minutes of footage showing 9/11 hijacker Ahmed al-Ghamdi reciting his last will and testament. Ghamdi was one of the muscle hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which was the second plane to strike the World Trade Center. The last wills of several other hijackers have been released previously, and more can probably be expected in future years.
In all, this video is nearly 1 1/2 hours, most of which is uninteresting. There is substantial footage of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden’s deputy. There also are a few clips of Osama bin Laden speaking about Palestine, which he says is a “great opportunity for mujahadeen who have been fighting in Iraq,” speaking as though Al Qaeda has been doing well in Iraq lately (that is actually not the case, with foreign mujahadeen leaving in large numbers). The video also includes some old clips of Abdullah Azzam, who along with Bin Laden, established the Maktab al-Khidamat (Services Office) in 1984 for supporting the mujahadeen during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.
The video was released several days late, after technical problems with online forums and sites that Al Qaeda uses. This may mean that the organization Al Qaeda had previously with creating and disseminating videos and other material has been disrupted in some way. Adam Gadahn, a U.S. born Al Qaeda operative, has played a key role in the organizations media operations. There are unconfirmed reports that he was killed in a missile strike in North Waziristan, located in Pakistan along the Afghanistan border.