NEW YORK, Sept 11: The New York Times said on Saturday that its page-one story published on Friday about a new video in which Osama bin Laden's top deputy warned Al Qaeda was planning new strikes against the United States had wrongly used the transcript from an old video.

In an unusual two paragraph "editors note", the newspaper, which suffered a major plagiarism scandal that led to resignations of its top editors last year, noted that the Washington-datelined story had quoted Ayman al Zawahiri as saying on the tape: "Bush, reinforce your security measures" and "The Islamic nation which sent you the New York and Washington brigades has taken the firm decision to send you successive brigades to sow death and aspire to paradise."

In fact, the Times said on Saturday, the two quotations from Zawahiri came from an earlier tape that was first broadcast on Feb 24. The original article said the tape had been broadcast on the Al Jazeera television on Thursday.

But, the newspaper explained, the transcript of the February tape "was consulted in error", yielding the article headlined "In Tape, Top Aide to Bin Laden Vows New Strikes at US".

The Times went on to note that "the recording issued this week did include other threats against Americans, warning that 'the era of security is over'" and that "they will no longer be safe while their government does not stop committing its crimes against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine".-Reuters