DENVER – The release of a 2004 interview with former 1960s radical William Ayers, in which he compared U.S. government actions to the Sept. 11 attacks, drew renewed attention Tuesday to his association with Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Ayers, already the subject of anti-Obama ads, was featured anew by Fox News for the comments, which the network released from an interview four years ago by one of its correspondents.

“I think every American that I know was weeping over the next several weeks, and devastated and shocked. Was that an act of pure terror? It absolutely was. And there are many other acts of terror carried out by our government, even recently, that, that are comparable,” he said.

The remarks were made public on the Fox News Web site, culled from an interview conducted in May 2004 by Fox correspondent James Rosen in connection with his book “The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate,” published by Doubleday in May.

Obama has condemned the activities of Ayers, who was a founder of the Weather Underground organization that took responsibility for a series of bombings four decades ago, including nonfatal blasts at the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. Obama has noted that by the time he met him, Ayers was a professor of education at the University of Illinois.

“Sen. Obama has repeatedly denounced the detestable crimes committed 40 years and has denounced his deplorable comments,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said Tuesday.

Obama and Ayers both served in the 1990s on a school reform board in Chicago. The University of Illinois at Chicago released documents Tuesday about Obama's work for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an effort that Ayers was instrumental in starting. Obama served as chairman during the 1990s and both attended some board meetings with Ayers in 1995, but the papers offered few details of their work together.

Obama and Ayers also served on the board of the Woods Fund, a Chicago-based charity that develops community groups to help the poor. Obama left the board in December 2002.

The minutes of the Annenberg Challenge meetings show that during a June 1995 meeting, Ayers was credited with having “worked diligently” to support the effort. More than a year later, Obama pushed the group to be bolder in its reforms.

“At the end of five years, will we have broken the mold? Not much seems to be bubbling up that is inspiring or substantive,” October 1996 minutes say, paraphrasing Obama.

Associated Press writers Deanna Bellandi and John O'Connor in Chicago contributed to this report.