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CNN Live At Daybreak

Abdullah Al Muhajir Being Held as Enemy Combatant For Alleged Plot

Aired June 11, 2002 - 06:02   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: Abdullah Al Muhajir is being held as an enemy combatant for his alleged plot to set off a radioactive dirty bomb in the United States, and now speculation falls on what role Pakistan may have played in the U.S. citizen's arrest.

CNN's Chris Burns is in Islamabad, and he joins us live by phone. Chris, what can you tell us this morning?

CHRIS BURNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, discretion is the word. We talked to government and military sources here on the Pakistani side and not willing to give any information, or saying that they know nothing about the case of Padilla or of the other suspect who supposedly was arrested here in Pakistan. U.S. sources extremely tight-lipped here.

Why all of this? Why the discretion? Why perhaps that the Pakistanis were not directly involved in this? Well, let's look back to the Daniel Pearl case, the U.S. journalist who was kidnapped and killed earlier this year.

I was here during that case. Officials on the U.S. and Pakistani side were extremely discreet, but they did admit off the record that there was a very important U.S. investigatory role there, FBI and other agents, helping to track down the suspects in the Daniel Pearl case through e-mail and other communication, that kind of expertise that the Americans offered and used in that case.

That is the kind of thing that the Pakistanis are not very proud to talk about in part, because there is a fairly strong part of the population that does have at least a tolerance for the militants, some of the militants here, militants who had been fighting in Kashmir, militants who had been fighting in Afghanistan that got support not only from the Pakistanis, but also even from the Americans during the 1980s during the war against the Soviets over there.

So if you look back at all of that history, and you see that it's very important, if not only for the Pakistanis, but also for the Americans, not to rock the boat too much here. Pervez Musharraf is a general, a non-elected president. He is trying to keep a handle on things here. He is also trying to quell the militants, has been trying to crack down on them since early this year, and that effort he is trying to continue with right now. At the same time, we have seen terror attacks. Just last month, that bus in Karachi killed -- a bomb that destroyed a bus killed a number of Frenchmen there. A church here in Islamabad was attacked back in March that killed an American woman and her daughter. So there are jitters over terror attacks; war jitters, of course, also in Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Apparently an effort not to want to rock the boat here, despite allowing U.S. authorities to try to pursue their investigation of militants here -- Carol.

COSTELLO: It just illustrates again what a difficult job Pervez Musharraf has.

BURNS: Well, absolutely. He is -- obviously he is not an elected official, but he does apparently have a wide support of much of the population. However, these militants have been operating here for decades. He is trying to get a handle on them. Even within his own government, the ISI, the Inter-Services Agency, that is their investigatory side, had long ties, at least on some levels, with these militants during the campaign in Afghanistan, during the effort in Kashmir. And that's something that he is trying to get a handle on, and the Americans do understand this, and they are not trying to make it any more difficult for Musharraf than it already is -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Chris Burns reporting live for us from Islamabad this morning. Thank you.

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