Bin Laden taunts U.S. on 9/11 anniversary

NEW YORK — Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden eulogized one of the September 11 hijackers in a video released on Tuesday's sixth anniversary of the attacks that still traumatize the United States.

As Americans remembered the almost 3,000 people killed, attempted bomb attacks and security alerts kept the world on terrorist alert. A powerful bomb was disarmed in Ankara and German police launched a major operation at a U.S. military base after receiving threats.

The al-Qaida leader was seen in a still image on the new video in which he gives a commentary praising hijacker Walid al-Shehri, according to IntelCenter, a U.S.-based monitoring group that obtained an early copy of the video.

In the audio, bin Laden describes Al-Shehri as "a young man who personally penetrated the most extreme degrees of danger and is a rarity among men: one of the 19 champions (may Allah have mercy on them all)," according to IntelCenter.

There were 19 hijackers on four planes. Al-Shehri was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet to crash into the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.

IntelCenter said the video, which lasts 47 minutes, is titled: "The Wills of the Heroes of the Raids on New York and Washington, The Will of the Martyr (As We See Him) Abu Mus'ab Walid al-Shehri, With a Foreword by Sheikh Osama bin Laden."

In a tape released on Friday, bin Laden mocked the United States as "weak" and threatened to escalate the war in Iraq.

News of the latest video emerged before the United States was to hold ceremonies to remember the dead from New York's Twin Towers, the U.S. Defense Department headquarters in Washington and a hijacked plane that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

Also on the anniversary, Turkish police defused a powerful bomb hidden under a bus in central Ankara where a link to September 11 was immediately made.

The Turkish capital's governor, Kemal Onal, said the bomb was hidden under a bus in a car park. "The meticulous work of the police averted a possible catastrophe," he told journalists.

German police launched a major operation at the Spangdahlem U.S. military airport after U.S. forces received threats by telephone, police said.

The base received an anonymous call on Monday but a police spokesman said it was possible it was a hoax.