Bin Laden praises USS Cole bombers

Videotape of bin Laden's remarks was broadcast Thursday on Arabic television

Family gathers for marriage of bin Laden's son

AFGHANISTAN (CNN) -- Suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden praised the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in remarks videotaped earlier this week.

"In Aden, the young men rose up for holy war and destroyed a (ship) of injustice," bin Laden said at a celebration of the marriage of his son.

The remarks of the exiled Saudi millionaire were recorded on videotape and broadcast Thursday on the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera.

RESOURCE Translation of bin Laden poem     GALLERIES Images from memorial services USS Cole wounded return home     INTERACTIVE See a 3-dimensional image of the USS Cole Get the plugin Leaders' reactions to the attack on the USS Cole Animation of a transport ship conducting a recovery procedure at sea     MESSAGE BOARD USS Cole attack

He spoke of the ship as having sailed "to its doom" along a course of "false arrogance, self-conceit and strength."

Bin Laden, suspected of masterminding the Cole bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured 39, and several other attacks against U.S. installations and Americans around the world, also read a poem he wrote for children of the Intifada.

Shouts of "Allahu Akbar," or "God is Great," punctuated his reading.

Al-Jazeera said bin Laden's mother, two brothers and a sister had flown to Afghanistan for the gathering to celebrate last month's marriage of his son, Mohammed, in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. They arrived on an Afghan plane that was returning from Saudi Arabia, it said.

Bin Laden was shown sitting next to Mohammed, who was flanked by his new father-in-law, Abu Hafas al-Masri, an Egyptian who fought with the elder bin Laden in the 1980s against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Several members of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia and hundreds of armed Arab fighters attended the reception.

Arabic TV showed the poem bin Laden read at his son's wedding

The Taliban have refused to surrender bin Laden to the United States, despite U.N. sanctions imposed last month. The Taliban say Washington has not provided proof of his guilt and that it is against Afghan tradition to hand over a guest to his enemies.

One of bin Laden's sons, Hamza, no older than 10, recited a poem questioning the reasons behind the United States' pursuit of his father.

Bin Laden was indicted by U.S. prosecutors as the ringleader of twin bomb attacks on U.S. embassies in eastern Africa in 1998. Four of his former associates are on trial now in New York for those attacks, which killed 224 people and injured more than 4,000 others.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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