Al Qaida chief's tapes of terror

:: Just three months after the September 11 2001 terror attacks in the United States bin Laden issued a statement by video talking about the massacres.

:: Looking gaunt and dressed in a green camouflage jacket with a sub machine gun propped up beside him, he said the atrocities against the US were 'blessed attacks'.

:: He said: "Our terrorism is against America. Our terrorism is a blessed terrorism to prevent the unjust person from committing injustice and to stop American support for Israel, which kills our sons."

:: Excerpts of the tape, which was 33 minutes long, were first broadcast by al Jazeera on Boxing Day 2001.

:: The tape arrived at al Jazeera by air courier from Pakistan but the sender was anonymous and the entire recording was aired on December 27, 2001.

:: The tape was filled with Islamic parables and ended with a poem dedicated to the hijackers – several of them by name, tribal affiliation or hometown.

:: In April 2002, after the war in Afghanistan, bin Laden released a video revealing he was alive and well, talking with one of his deputies.

:: The same video "released again by al Jazeera " also showed an apparent last message of one of the September 11 suicide bombers.

:: When Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saw the video he dismissed it, saying it was "nothing to write home about".

:: In September 2002, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, lieutenants of bin Laden, told the al Jazeera network that al Qaida had planned to strike nuclear plants rather than the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

:: On February 5, 2003, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed Saddam Hussein’s top intelligence officials held secret talks with bin Laden.

:: On February 11, 2003, bin Laden releases yet another tape, voicing solidarity with the Iraqi people.