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CNN Live Today

More on Training Tapes and What They Reveal

Aired August 21, 2002 - 12:08   ET

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

CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: Now, an exclusive look at the training of Al Qaeda operatives. In the latest in our CNN series, "Terror on Tape," these tapes, brought back from Afghanistan by CNN's Nic Robertson, show some of what goes on inside the camps of the Al Qaeda terror network.
Joining us now with more on these training tapes and what they reveal, CNN's Mike Boettcher.

Mike, a fascinating collection, and today, we have been able to see several terror training exercises. One in particular let's start off with. This is the video of an ambush training exercise. As you take a look at this, can you give us an idea. What was this something for more specific, or is this just an example of more basic general practice?

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Carol, it was something more specific than just training or an exercise, it was the actual rehearsal for an actual plan to abduct an American diplomat in the Middle East, we are told. Here, you see gunmen coming up to the side of the car, pulling the men out. They will take him across. It's executed very well, according to experts. They say this is textbook. There is a motorcycle behind that will take one of the men involved in the kidnapping, and then they make their getaway.

Now, this matches exactly this little manual we have right here, which is actually a diary of a high-ranking Al Qaeda official that we have recovered by CNN's Ingrid Arnessen (ph) in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the fall of the city.

Here you see the cars, the motorcycles. There are diagrams, and it discusses the name and the specific tactics to be used in that kidnapping. So it was more, according to our experts, we have consulted more than just a plain practice, it was a rehearsal for a real event -- Carol.

LIN: What happened to that real event, Mike?

BOETTCHER: We don't know, we don't know. The coalition intelligence sources were aware of it, and perhaps were able to stop it. But it did not happen, we know that.

LIN: All right. We've got some videotape literally of a bridge that appears to be built in the middle of the desert. Why would they go this trouble?

BOETTCHER: Let's take a look at this. You'll see it explode with high level explosives. Al Qaeda was practicing with their own formulas of different explosives, trying to make higher grades of explosives. And this wasn't just any old bridge. We do not know the exact bridge here they were trying to model. Let's look at the document we have here. This comes as well from the same documents recovered from Kabul, and you will see that same bridge diagramed here on those documents that you saw blown up there.

Now, this indicates the way they take the training from the text book and take it out into the field and really practice this. The experts we showed this to were very, very impressed with their level of expertise -- Carol.

LIN: Level of expertise, and also their ability to make these very specific training videos. There is one where a man is demonstrating how to operate and how to position one's self with a surface-to-air missile demonstration. Have you seen anything like this before on a training video?

BOETTCHER: No, the experts I have shown have not seen either. It is of great concern to them. This is a man who by his accent is Sudanese. He is holding an SA-7, which is a Russian surface-to-air missile.

Now, let's go to the documents again, more documents we found in Kabul, and you can see here the instruction manual for Al Qaeda on how to handle a surface-to-air missile. In this case, it's not an SA-7, but a U.S.-built model. But again, they had constructed a manual and did a videotape that was to be sent out obviously. It was an instructional videotape, soup to nuts, on how to handle an SA-7 and how to shoot down an aircraft. They wouldn't produce that, unless they have that. And as a matter of fact, Saudi authorities have picked up one man suspected of being an Al Qaeda suspect, who had in his possession an SA-7 missile -- Carol.

LIN: Mike, can you tell us about who the trainer's are, and where they got their training?

BOETTCHER: Well, it's interesting, the experts I've spoke to said, the training of Al Qaeda mirrors exactly U.S. special forces doctrine. You begin with individual training: a person learning to shoot a gun, then you have combined training or several people that learned to shoot a weapon are shooting it together, and then you go to what is called multi-echelon training, where groups learning different things, learning how to drive a getaway car, how to shoot a weapon, how to shoot an RPG come together and train together, and then the fourth and final thing is the war game or the rehearsal for an actual attack, and that's what are you seeing there.

Here, they are firing, this would be the second phase, the group training phase. Here, they are firing recoil-less rifles or RPGs. That would be group training, and then they would go to multi-echelon training, with people who fire pistols and maybe surface-to-air missiles. So a lot of what you're seeing on this tape is textbook of U.S. doctrine, and they would have learned that from the Afghan war against the Soviet Union, because they were trained by people on contract to the CIA. LIN: My goodness. Thank you very much, Mike Boettcher, for that report.

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