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CNN Live Today

State Department Issues Reward for Arrest of Bin Laden's Lieutenant

Aired June 05, 2002 - 10:04   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well an old name has emerged with new prominence in the terror investigation. The State Department is issuing a reward of up to $25 million for the arrest of a man said to be a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, also a conspirator in the September 11 attacks.

More now from our Maria Ressa.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. investigators say this man, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti lieutenant of Osama bin Laden's, is one of the key planners of the September 11 attacks. Long on the FBI's most wanted list for his role in the 1995 plot to bomb U.S. airliners in Asia, Pakistani investigators say he is the uncle of Ramsey Yousef, the mastermind of that plot. Both men were key figures in the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Although they failed to bring the building down then, they didn't stop trying.

Two years later, Yousef had another plan, outlined in this 1995 Philippine intelligence report obtained by CNN. "He will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters. There will be no bomb... it is simply a suicidal mission." Other targets named, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

The information is from Abdul Hakeem Murad, who said he did structural studies for Yousef of the World Trade Center. He is also a pilot trained in four U.S. flight schools, among the first recruited for that suicide mission. He wasn't the last. Arrested by Philippine police in 1995, Murad about other friends training in U.S. flight schools from the transcripts of this interrogation obtained by CNN.

All this information and more, says the Philippine president at that time, was handed over to the FBI.

(on camera): Could U.S. authorities have done more to prevent September 11 with the information from the Philippine authorities?

FIDEL RAMOS, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE PHILIPPINES: Yes, I think they should have done (ph) some more. RESSA (voice-over): The FBI did investigate the flight schools named in the documents but said it found no evidence of other planned attacks. Still Philippine intelligence sources tell CNN the 1995 Yousef plot may have been the blueprint for the September 11 attacks. More so if one of the leaders then, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was a key planner for September 11.

(on camera): He is not the only link between that 1995 plot and September 11. Another man involved then, Hambali, is now al Qaeda's main operator in Southeast Asia. He was videotaped meeting with two of the September 11 hijackers in Malaysia in 2000. More evidence investigators here say that al Qaeda operatives may take years to work out the kinks of a plan until it finally succeeds.

Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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