CTV's Tom Kennedy reports from London on the man named by U.S. officials as the number one suspect in Tuesday's attacks - Osama bin Laden

The United States' prime suspect in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon says he had nothing to do with them.

"We have been blamed in the past, but we were not involved," Osama bin Laden said in a statement, issued from his hiding spot in Afghanistan five days after the attacks.

An angry U.S. President George Bush said if bin Laden thinks he can hide from reprisal attacks, he's "sorely mistaken."

Dave Walters, president of the international security firm Globe Risk Security, told CTV Newsnet that bin Laden probably knew what was going to happen on Sept. 11.

"It's almost like a spider's web, and his operation is at the centre of the web, pulling the strings, pulling the strands together," Walters said. "I think it's unlikely that he doesn't know what each team is doing."

This is not the first time bin Laden's name has been linked to a terrorist attack.

He has long been on The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Most Wanted List, described as "Leader of a terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda (The Base). He's wanted in connection with the 1988 bombings of the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya -- attacks which killed more than 200 people.

With the FBI's $5 million bounty hanging over his head, bin Laden dropped completely out of sight in August 1998, when the U.S. fired cruise missiles into eastern Afghanistan in retaliation of these attacks.