Sept. 11 (Bloomberg) -- A new video, purportedly including a message from Osama bin Laden, praises a Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker as al-Qaeda marked the sixth anniversary of the attacks.

Bin Laden reads an introduction in the 47-minute video dedicated to Abu Musab Waleed al-Shehri, according to the Virginia-based IntelCenter, an organization that monitors extremist Web sites. The video is titled ``The Wills of the Heroes of the Raids on New York and Washington.''

Saudi-born al-Shehri was identified by the U.S. 9/11 Commission as a ``muscle hijacker'' for his role in helping take over one of the airliners on Sept. 11.

Bin Laden said al-Shehri ``personally penetrated the most extreme degrees of danger and is a rarity among men: one of the 19 champions,'' according to IntelCenter.

A U.S. intelligence official said preliminary audio analysis indicates the voice on the video is bin Laden's. More analysis will be done to confirm that, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There have been no confirmed sightings of bin Laden since he escaped U.S.-led forces in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan in December 2001. He has recorded several purported video and audio tapes from his presumed hiding places on the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

`Ritual'

Today's tape ``is a public message dedicated to the movement and to its religious logic,'' Anne Giudicelli, a former French diplomat who now runs Paris-based risk consultancy Terrorisc said. ``It's like a ritual to maintain the memory of 9/11 and to glorify its example for prospective jihadis and martyrs,'' she said in a telephone interview.

Frances Townsend, the White House homeland security adviser, said the video was a distraction. ``This is a day here in the U.S. where we're remembering the victims, their families and the heroic first responders,'' she said during an interview this morning on Fox News' ``Fox & Friends.''

``This is not a day to divert our attention to this tape,'' Townsend said.

Al-Qaeda's al-Sahab media arm released a video on Sept. 7 in which bin Laden focused on everyday issues. Experts said that footage was relatively recent as bin Laden made references to the May election victory of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Gordon Brown's installation as U.K. prime minister in June.

``This latest one could be several years old for all we know,'' Giudicelli said.

`Embarrassment' for U.S.

``It's an embarrassment,'' for the U.S., said Bob Ayers, a security expert at the Chatham House international affairs institute. ``Bin Laden is still alive, he's still out there, he's still making speeches and the U.S. doesn't have a clue where he is,'' Ayers said today in a telephone interview.

Bin Laden is ``still the ideological and spiritual focus for this movement,'' Ayers said. To people who embrace radical Islam he is the poster-child, like Che Guevara used to be; for those confronting radical Islam he is like Hitler used to be, Ayers said.

In the Sept. 7 video, bin Laden spoke about ``the reeling of many of you under the burden of interest-related debts, insane taxes and real estate mortgages, global warming and its woes,'' Sajjan M. Gohel, Director of International Security at the London-based Asia Pacific Foundation, said.

``Bin Laden appeared to have a trimmed and dyed beard, which ran to counter reports that he is gravely ill from kidney disease, or holed up in a cave and cut off from the outside world,'' Gohel said in an e-mailed statement.

Before that, bin Laden last appeared in a video in October 2004; his previous last audiotape was in June 2006. The latest video is the 75th released in 2007 by al-Sahab, IntelCenter said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Michael Heath in Sydney at mheath1@bloomberg.net; Camilla Hall in London at chall24@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 11, 2007 11:31 EDT