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Terror on Tape: Closer Look at What's on the Tapes in Total

Aired August 23, 2002 - 10:00   ET

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

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Up first here on CNN, terrorism experts say the collection of Al Qaeda tapes obtained by CNN show the group's global reach. We have been reviewing more than 60 tapes for you this week. It's part of our series "Terror on Tape." The Al Qaeda video library has wide cross-section of material showing separate video recordings of militants training and in combat in countries throughout Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
We want to get a closer look at what's on the tapes in total and what they say about Osama bin Laden the man and what clues they may provide to Al Qaeda's future plans. For that, we bring in our national correspondent Mike Boettcher.

Mike, Good morning.

MIKE BOETTCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The collection of the tapes show that Al Qaeda wanted to keep an institutional memory of what they've been up to for many, many years. It also shows that post the Afghan coalition efforts, that they wanted to be able for their operatives to carry out their attacks throughout the world, even though they did not have a base, and that is exactly what is occurring.

Al Qaeda operatives that were in Afghanistan have moved to other countries around world, their home countries, and have formed alliances, forming so-called supercells to allow them to attack low and medium sized targets, and as well, at the same time, the main Al Qaeda organization still trying to carry out those big attacks. One example would be the Morocco cell, which was planning to attack U.S. and British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar. That was broken up by coalition intelligence agencies, but that group has received $300,000.

So you see Al Qaeda training and putting that training on tape to distribute worldwide to their various operatives. So without a base, they can continue on planning their terrorist activity -- Daryn.

KAGAN: All right, Mike Boettcher, thank you so much.

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