Islamist “brothers” are ready to die for jihad, Osama bin Laden told a group of American recruits in Afghanistan just six months before the 9/11 attacks, according to testimony Thursday at a terror-conspiracy trial in Manhattan.
“Just know that we have brothers willing to carry their souls in their hands,” bin Laden told recruits, witness Sahim Alwan testified in the federal trial of an accused high-level al Qaeda spokesman.
Asked by a prosecutor Thursday what he believed bin Laden meant these “brothers” were willing to do, Alwan answered, “To die.”
Alwan, 41, is one of the “Lackawanna Six” — a half-dozen Yemeni-Americans from the Buffalo area who were convicted in 2003 of providing material support to al Qaeda by attending bin Laden’s al-Farooq terrorist training camp near Kandahar in spring 2001.
Alwan, who is free after serving a 9¹/₂-year federal sentence, described bin Laden’s ominous words — delivered to recruits at a safe house en route to the camp — during the second day of testimony against Kuwaiti-born Iman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith.
It was the most damaging testimony yet against Abu Ghaith, who is married to bin Laden’s eldest daughter, Fatima.
Alwan identified Abu Ghaith from a decade-old photograph as having also addressed recruits at bin Laden’s camp. But the testimony also gave an eerie glimpse of bin Laden on the cusp of the terror attacks.
“I heard something is going to happen,” Alwan recalled mentioning to bin Laden, referring to camp-wide rumors of an imminent major terror attack.
“There have been threats made back and forth,” bin Laden cryptically replied, according to Alwan.
His testimony continues Friday.