"New" bin Laden video said to call for martyrdom

By Todd Eastham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden praises martyrdom as a weapon and a path to glory for Muslims in a video that CNN said on Saturday was intercepted before it was to appear on radical Islamist Web sites.

CNN, which noted it could not verify the authenticity of the 40-minute video and had translated it from Arabic into English, said on its Web site there was no indication of where or when the footage had been shot.

The news network said the video contained old clips but concluded it had been compiled in the last four weeks.

The environment in which bin Laden is shown speaking is similar to that on releases made before the September 11 suicide attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants in 2001.

Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs, said bin Laden appears in only a 50-second portion of the video in which he asserts the Prophet Mohammed had wanted to be a martyr.

"What is this status that the best of mankind wished for himself?" CNN said bin Laden asked rhetorically. "He wished to be a martyr. He himself said: 'By Him in whose hands my life is! I would love to attack and be martyred.'"

"This glorious prophet who was inspired by God summarized this entire life by these words. He wished upon himself this status. Happy is one who was chosen by God as a martyr," bin Laden said, according to the CNN translation of his remarks.

PRAISE FOR COMRADES