Return to Transcripts main page

American Morning

Where is Bin Laden and When Might U.S. Grab Him?; Two Cars of Convoy Carrying Western Journalists Reportedly Attacked on Way to Kabul

Aired November 19, 2001 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Zeroing in on Osama bin Laden. The White House says it's just a matter of time before they finally locate the terrorist mastermind. Outnumbered and surrounded, a desperate situation. The Taliban weigh their options. Will they surrender their final northern stronghold? The September 11 attacks that didn't happen. A CNN exclusive report on the phone call that was intercepted and thwarted an international act of terror.

Good morning. Thanks so much for being with us this morning as we open a brand new week here. It's Monday, November 19. from New York, I'm Paula Zahn.

Here are some of the big questions we're going to try to answer in this hour. Who stopped the next terrorist attack? September 11 apparently was intended to be much worse. CNN's Mike Boettcher will tell you what we've learned. Is bin Laden trapped? U.S. officials express confidence they are tightening the noose around bin Laden and al Qaeda. Our military analysts will walk us through the situation on the ground. And which war lord will win? The spoil seekers are moving fast to fill the power vacuum left by the Taliban. We will profile the key tribal leaders.

First, though, the latest headlines. For that we turn to Bill Hemmer, who joins us in Atlanta with our war alert -- Bill.

BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Paula, good morning on this Monday as we begin a new week.

We're working on a developing story right now. Reports that a convoy with international journalists in it was stopped on its way to Kabul from Jalalabad. A driver and a translator in that convoy allowed to flee. They're telling us, though, that an eight car convoy carrying about some Western journalists was stopped by a group of armed men about 16 miles from the capital city. The fate of four identified people believed to be journalists unclear at this time. Six of the cars turned around, headed back to Jalalabad. We'll bring you more as we get it throughout the morning here.

Also, though, the political confusion in Afghanistan, with Taliban control under sharp attack. One example, the northern city of Konduz. Taliban troops there surrounded by Alliance forces, the Alliance trying to negotiate a surrender. And intense air strikes are hitting the Taliban front lines in that city.

In the stronghold of Kandahar in the south, an intense struggle under way for political control. Pashtun tribal leaders negotiating with associates of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. The talks take place against an ultimatum from Pashtun leaders to the Taliban. They say surrender or die.

Two signs of life under Taliban control changing now. TV and the movies are back in a very limited way. In Kabul, a movie was threaded up for a small crowd yesterday. Under Taliban rule, movie theaters were forbidden. Also, local TV news made a comeback, as well. Kabul Television fired up its transmitter for the first time in nearly five years.

CNN has learned that Jordan thwarted a terrorist attack on its territory timed to coincide with the attacks of 9-11. Sources close to Jordanian intelligence say three men were arrested after a key phone call was intercepted. It included the phrase "big wedding," al Qaeda code words for launching an attack. The targets were two hotels in the resort area of Petra (ph), south of Amman in Jordan.

Secretary of State Colin Powell travels to the University of Louisville later this morning promoting what he calls a "vision of hope" for the Middle East. It's being billed as a major speech, but it will cover some familiar ground. Powell says he will call for an end to violence by the Palestinians before that peace process again can be restarted in the Middle East.

A search and rescue operation under way in the Persian Gulf for two missing U.S. sailors. They were inspecting a ship looking for smuggled oil from Iraq when it sank over the weekend. U.S. officials say there was no hostile encounter. Three members of the ship's crew are missing, one is dead. Six other U.S. sailors, though, were rescued in that incident.

Back in this country, two Senate office buildings reopen next hour after being tested for anthrax. The Russell and the Dirksen Senate Office Buildings closed this weekend. A letter similar to the anthrax laced one sent to Senator Tom Daschle was found Friday. This time the letter was addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Also, President Bush out to Reagan National Airport today to sign an aviation security bill into law. It calls for hiring federal workers as airport screeners, more armed air marshals on board flights and stronger cockpit doors on board planes. The new law comes just as the holiday travel season gets under way. It is the week of Thanksgiving, a critical time for that.

More coming up shortly -- Paula back to you now in New York.

ZAHN: Thanks, Bill.

Objective number one from the very beginning has been getting Osama bin Laden. Where is he and when might the U.S. grab him?

Let's check in with CNN's Kathleen Koch at the Pentagon with the very latest on the hunt for him -- Kathleen, good morning.

KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

What's happening essentially in Afghanistan right now is a process of elimination. As more and more areas slip from the Taliban control more and more U.S. special forces are able to go in and scour those regions cave by cave, bunker by bunker, searching, of course, not only for the so far elusive Osama bin Laden, but for other al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.

Now, intense bombing still continues around the city of Konduz. Also, U.S. bombers and fighter jets are targeting some very suspicious bunkers that are south and southeast of Kabul.

On the ground intelligence successes continue coming as informants and captured al Qaeda safe houses reveal virtually a treasure trove of intelligence information on bin Laden, his potential whereabouts and on his entire al Qaeda network.

Still, the Pentagon says the road ahead is long.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WOLFOWITZ, DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: It's important to remain focused and to recognize that it is, even though there have been very significant successes on the ground, there is a great deal of work that remains to be done. And our major mission, which is getting the al Qaeda terrorists and getting the senior Taliban leadership, is there's a lot of work still to do.

So I think a lot of military history teaches the lesson don't lose your focus just when you're starting to win it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOCH: As to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts, the U.S. military continues to believe that he does remain in Afghanistan. They would not, though, confirm reports such as that in the "Times" of London over the weekend that British defense sources said the Allies had narrowed bin Laden's location to a 30 square mile area. The Bush administration describes bin Laden as a man on the run who has fewer and fewer places to hide. And despite some early reluctance at the Pentagon to make bin Laden's capture a central focus of this campaign, the optimism does seem to be growing that it is more and more likely that he will be found and he will be captured -- Paula.

ZAHN: And, Kathleen, is the expectation that, in fact, it will be U.S. special forces or British special forces that will ultimately get him or is there any hope that the Northern Alliance can help do that?

KOCH: Paula, I think the greatest likelihood at this point is it will probably be a combination of the three. At this point, though, the United States is not picky. Whoever gets him, it will be just fine with them.

ZAHN: All right, Kathleen Koch, thanks so much for that update.

We now have an exclusive CNN report this morning that the terrorism of September 11 could have been international and even more devastating than it was.

CNN has learned that a couple of terrorist attacks in the Middle East were stopped by Jordanian security. The attacks reportedly were to coincide with the September 11 attacks in the States. CNN's Mike Boettcher is working this story from CNN Center in Atlanta -- Mike, what is the very latest on this? Good morning.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Paula, there is the visible war which is being fought with bombs and bullets in Afghanistan. Then there is the invisible war where the lethal weapon is information. That war is being fought in the shadows, but it is every bit as important as that visible war we see every morning on television.

Now, CNN has learned that some of the best information in that war has been provided by Jordan, that according to anti-terror coalition sources. For example, a few days before the September 11 attack, Jordanian intelligence officials intercepted this message. Let's take a look at it.

It says, "Remember your bayat. Don't forget the time of the big wedding." A bayat is the oath of allegiance that an al Qaeda member gives to Osama bin Laden. The big wedding was believed to be, by intelligence analysts, the code for an imminent attack.

Now, the interception of that message led to three arrests. Those men gave up information that they were plotting to blow up two hotels, resort hotels in the desert city of Petra. That is a 2,000- year-old city in southern Jordan, a beautiful city located in that south Jordan desert.

The information was passed on to Western intelligence agencies but the intelligence gathered by Jordan did not point to any further targets such as the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.

Jordan officials now believe the big wedding plot was meant to coincide with the September 11 attacks against the U.S. A similar plan to launch simultaneous attacks against Jordan and the United States was broken up before the millennium, if you'll recall. A month later, coalition intelligence sources say Jordan uncovered a second plot, this time to blow up embassies in Beirut. Those embassies, according to officials in the coalition intelligence effort, were the Jordanian Embassy, the U.S. Embassy and the British Embassy in Beirut.

Now, the late King Hussein, more than 10 years ago, started Jordan's intelligence effort. He was the first world leader to recognize that a loose band of militant Islamic militants was beginning to organize into an organization that would become a household name, al Qaeda. Since his death, his son, King Abdullah, has continued directing a vigorous intelligence effort, to the point that Jordan has become a key figure in the anti-terror coalition. Now, what Jordan saw in 1989 were many Arab men, veterans in the Soviet Afghan war, who were returning home with very militant ideas and plans for operations of their own. It was then that Jordan decided to begin a plan of infiltration of al Qaeda, a strategy that is still paying off to this day.

So that plot, it looks like, Paula, was meant to coincide with the September 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was against two hotels in the resort destination of Petra in southern Jordan -- Paula.

ZAHN: And wasn't there, Mike, even another plot that was uncovered some time last summer that would have left the king and his family in peril when they were on a boat someplace in the Mediterranean?

BOETTCHER: Correct. There was another plot. They haven't identified which members of the family it was, but they were on a yacht in the Mediterranean. They broke that up, as well. Frankly, Jordanian intelligence, according to sources inside the coalition effort, has provided a lot of key information over the last 12 years that has stopped numerous attacks.

ZAHN: Mike Boettcher, thank you very much.

We want to bring you up to the date on that piece of news we shared with you at the very top of the hour. A driver and a translator who were allowed to flee from Kabul on Monday said that two cars of a convoy carrying Western journalists was attacked on its way to Kabul. The fate of four people, all of the journalists, was unclear at that time.

Let's now check in with Christiane Amanpour for an update to see if she has a better idea of what's happened to these journalists -- Christiane, are you with me?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Paula.

As you could imagine, we, the journalists here in Kabul, have desperately been trying to track down any information about any possible harm that may have come to some colleagues. We understand now that a journalist traveling in a convoy towards Kabul from Jalalabad saw the car in front being stopped at some kind of a checkpoint and the journalists inside, about four or five Western journalists, being taken out and led away, at which point the journalists who witnessed this in the car behind turned around and went back to Jalalabad. And still, we are trying to get confirmation and details and try to, really try to find out what's going on.

This is a very insecure and difficult place right now for journalists to cover, as the military situation progresses so fast and there's so many changing allegiances and different tribes and factions taking over in various parts of the country.

The fighting does continue, clearly, up in the north, in the Konduz area, where the United States has continued again bombing the front lines of the Taliban, who are also backed by Pakistanis, Chechens and Arab mercenaries. We understand there's been heavy bombing up there and also that has prompted people to flee from the city of that area.

Refugees coming out of Konduz are saying that they are concerned that some of this aerial bombardment may be hampering their flight out and, indeed, injuring people. But we simply have no independent confirmation of that. But there is a major battle going on up there and again today the Northern Alliance deputy foreign minister says that he is sending a delegation into Konduz to try to negotiate a surrender from the Taliban.

Again, we don't have any details on whether that's happened or whether, indeed, it's been successful.

Now, in the south of this country, in Kandahar, another focus, because that's the seat of power, of what used to be power of the Taliban and Mullah Omar. There, CNN sources are saying that a tribal leader who used to be with Mullah Omar as a close associate has now turned against him and is fighting against the Taliban control of Kandahar.

Beyond that, we don't have any more credible details.

Here in Kabul, U.N. and other international officials are desperately trying to get some sort of a political track on the road and they've been meeting with all sorts of officials from the Northern Alliance and other factions. They're desperate to get this meeting together to impose some kind of political calm and order on the situation here.

We understand after meeting with the U.S. representative, the Northern Alliance has said now that they will agree to a meeting in a neutral site outside of Afghanistan to try to move the political process ahead. But it's slow going and the political track lagging way behind the military reality on the ground -- Paula.

ZAHN: Christiane, any better sense of when that meeting might take place that includes members of the Northern Alliance?

AMANPOUR: No, it will include members of the Northern Alliance, for sure, and obviously what they want to do is get as many leaders of the other factions and ethnic groups together, as well, because the U.N. envisions a two year interim transitional government before being able to set up a proper leadership here. And so they want a broad- based government to take place here. What they don't want is for any one faction to gain control and descend this country into the same sort of anarchy and fighting and real chaos that it has experienced over the last decade, at least.

ZAHN: Christiane Amanpour, thanks so much.

We'll be checking in with you throughout the morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com