Al-Qaeda will continue its media offensive by releasing a second tape of its spiritual leader, Osama bin Laden, in less than a week, according to a banner on a website linked with al-Qaeda in the past.

Scheduled to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, it will feature bin Laden presenting the last testament of one of the hijackers.

The new tape will come just three days after bin Laden has made his first appearance in a video tape in nearly three years, in which he called democracy "bankrupt" and invited Americans to embrace Islam.

Analysts have said bin Laden's reappearance after a long break was a taunt to the US, but also an attempt to re-assert his authority over the movement, which has grown increasingly decentralised in recent years.

Bin Laden is thought to be hiding on the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, but has so far eluded all efforts to capture him, prompting the US to double the bounty on his head to USD 50 M in July.

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