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CNN Live At Daybreak
Al Qaeda Still Operating, But Where?
Aired March 12, 2002 - 05:33 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Six months after the devastating terrorist attacks against the United States, Osama bin Laden's whereabouts are still unknown. Many members of his terrorist organization have also escaped capture.
Our National Correspondent, Mike Boettcher, has this al Qaeda update.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From earth orbit, a before-and-after glimpse, a complex of al Qaeda training camps before September 11 and the same camps after U.S. bombs left them pockmarked, virtually erased.
ADM. THOMAS WILSON, DIA DIRECTOR: What was removed in Afghanistan from al Qaeda, in my view, was the elimination of their Fort Bragg or their Fort Erwin National Training Center.
BOETTCHER: Documents left behind after the rapid Taliban-al Qaeda retreat, provide clues to the intentions of those who escaped. In a small, green book, notes of a student terrorist: "To work in the cities, you need small, separate groups, whose members do not exceed four. It is preferable that these members be from the cities, because moving in the cities, you need individuals who are accustomed to this type of life, because cities are loaded with government spies."
But what cities in what countries? U.S. officials have been consistent in their warnings.
ROBERT MUELLER, FBI DIRECTOR: We believe that we are still targeted, that there are al Qaeda associate individuals around the world, some in the United States, that are intent on committing terrorist acts within the country.
BOETTCHER: Depriving al Qaeda of its Afghan sanctuaries disrupted its operations, but the group is far from completely defeated. Evidence points to al Qaeda reconstituting itself, replacing fallen leaders, while fragmenting into smaller groups that will be difficult to track, forming what are known as sleeper cells.
STEVE POMERANTZ, FORMER FBI COUNTERTERRORISM CHIEF: When we talk about sleeper cells, we are talking about people who have infiltrated surreptitiously, who are attempting to blend in, who are evading detection the best way they can.
BOETTCHER (on camera): With the help of three sources from different anti-terror coalition intelligence services, and a high- ranking member of Afghanistan's new intelligence agency, CNN has been able to piece together the routes al Qaeda followed into a world of potential targets.
(voice-over): Several hundred at least slipped through the most guarded and well known route, east towards Pakistan. But many fled through two secret back doors, west to Iran, according to our sources, a (UNINTELLIGIBLE) shipment point, not condoned by the elected Iranian government but facilitated by Iran's more radical revolutionary guard.
Some al Qaeda remain there; others moved on to Lebanon. An unknown number remain there, according to intelligence sources, in areas controlled by the Hezbollah, a group the U.S. designates as terrorists. Others dispersed east and west, destinations unknown.
Another back door opens south. In the weeks before September 11 and for a few days immediately following, approximately 1,000 al Qaeda operatives, using false identification, made their way from Afghanistan to the tiny Indian Ocean islands of the Seychelles, and the Federal Islamic Republic of the Comoros, where they again dispersed east and west.
One al Qaeda cell was broken up in Singapore, when its surveillance video of potential U.S. targets there was found by U.S. forces in an abandoned house in Afghanistan. And allegedly, suicide bomber, Richard Reid, was foiled in mid-flight. But many more cells remain hidden.
What are their capabilities? Extensive, according to terrorism analysts. Al Qaeda's 10 volume encyclopedia of jihad taught them assassination, bomb making and surveillance techniques. And CNN has obtained portions of a recent edition to Al Qaeda's body of knowledge, and 11th volume devoted solely to manufacturing chemical and biological weapons from ingredients readily available to the public.
In an abandoned Kabul, Afghanistan home used by al Qaeda's top bomb maker, CNN discovered more disturbing material, a document titled "Superbomb," a discussion of the process of making a nuclear device, but no evidence they ever succeeded.
DAVID ALBRIGHT, NUCLEAR PHYSICIST: The program appears to have existed for a long time, and that's one of the things that has to give you pause is that they have been thinking about this a long time.
BOETTCHER: The battle against al Qaeda still rages in Afghanistan, but the biggest threat lies elsewhere, virtually invisible opponents, well trained, well equipped and well motivated by a leader who himself has disappeared: Osama bin Laden. His face not seen since his last interview, when he vowed to press his battle inside America until victory or until death.
Mike Boettcher, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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