U.K. Web site posts 9/11 hijackers smiling and joking on video

By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, smiles and jokes with another hijacker before the two turn serious and speak intently to a camera in a video posted Sunday on a British newspaper's Web site.
The Sunday Times said the video, which was dated Jan. 18, 2000 — about a year and a half before the attacks against the United States — was made in
Afghanistan for release after the men's deaths.
For more than 30 minutes, the video shows Atta, who flew one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, and Ziad Jarrah, who piloted United Airlines flight 93 that crashed into a Pennsylvania field, both alone and together.
The newspaper said the hourlong video was made at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. It includes images of Osama bin Laden speaking to supporters in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A time stamp indicated that footage was shot on Jan. 8, 2000.
It has no sound, and the newspaper quoted a "U.S. source" who was not identified as saying that lip readers had been unable to decipher what the men were saying.
At times in the video, the two men look relaxed, laughing and chatting together before they grow serious and speak directly into the camera. At one point, they lean over a document the newspaper identifies as a will, studying it intently and sometimes pointing to specific sections and commenting to one another.
The Sunday Times said it had obtained the video "through a previously tested channel" but gave no further details. FULL STORY