Official Says Tape Is Bin Laden ‘Confession’

In the first official Egyptian reaction, the police minister said a videotape in which Osama bin Laden is shown rejoicing over the Sept. 11 attacks amounts to a “complete confession.”

“This tape is a clear and complete implication of Osama bin Laden, contrary to what he had said earlier about having nothing to do with the attacks,” Interior Minister Habib Adli, in charge of Egyptian civilian security forces, was quoted as telling the weekly magazine Al Mussawar.

Many in the Middle East doubted the authenticity of Bin Laden’s tape, released by the Pentagon on Dec. 13.

But Egyptian security forces “consider it a clear confession of Bin Laden’s responsibility in all that happened. . . . It is a complete confession that implicates him,” Adli said.