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INSIGHT
INSIGHT
Aired October 14, 2002 - 17:00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JONATHAN MANN, CNN ANCHOR: Paradise Lost. Twin bombings in Bali take nearly 200 lives and trigger new anxieties in Indonesia. Is Asia ready for al Qaeda?
Hello and welcome.
The target was in Indonesia. The victims seem to have been predominantly Australians. And both the Indonesian and Australian governments are blaming al Qaeda for the attack.
Indonesia has long been warned that it needs to do more against Islamist extremist groups. Now it's had the worst terrorist attack in its history. But the Bali bombing follows other attacks in Yemen and Kuwait. The problem is not Indonesia's alone.
On our program today, al Qaeda, rising from the east.
First though, a look at the hour's top stories.
The Arab language broadcaster Al-Jazeera has released a statement it says is from Osama bin Laden. The letter praises attackers for last week's strikes on United States marines in Kuwait and a French oil tanker off Yemen.
It reads in part, "We congratulate the Islamic nation on the bold, heroic jihad operations that her children carried out. The Mujahideen in Yemen against the crusaders oil tanker and in Kuwait against the enemy troops and the American occupation."
Al-Jazeera says the statement bears a signature believed to be bin Laden's.
Kuwait's defense minister says it's still too early to tell if an attack Monday on United States forces is terrorist related. Gunshots from two civilian vehicles were fired at a United States military unit during training exercises in the northern part of Kuwait.
United States officials say there was no return fire and no one was hurt.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erakat says Israel's Prime Min. Ariel Sharon is sounding like a broken record. After Mr. Sharon's call for Palestinians to replace their current leadership with, in his words, a government of peace.
But Erakat says Israel's prime minister isn't serious about peace, particularly in light of recent killings of Palestinians. Mr. Sharon spoke Monday at the opening of the Knesset's winter session before leaving for talks in Washington.
Ivory Coast television reports say the army has recaptured the town of Daloa one day after it was taken by rebels. The capture of Daloa was seen as a major rebel victory. News of its return to government control follows word that rebels suspended work aimed at reaching a cease fire.
Earlier, the rebels called off peace talks after hearing that Angolan troops had arrived in Abidjan to help government forces. Rebels say if the Angolans leave, they'll consider a ceasefire.
Kenya's ruling party has chosen a candidate for presidential elections causing some Kenyan leaders to quit their posts. Critics say President Daniel arap Moi is trying to handpick his successor after 24 years in power. Mr. Moi's party approved Uhuru Kenyatta for December's election. Six ministers or assistant ministers have resigned in protest, many from Mr. Moi's own political party.
Asia has no shortage of religious extremists. One group that operates in Indonesia and several other countries is know as the Jemaah Islamiah, the Islamic Group. But the government of Indonesia has been reluctant to admit that terrorists are active in the country, and it's never taken particularly strong measures against them.
Now, after Bali and twin bomb attacks on United States and Philippine consulates elsewhere in the country, things are expected to change.
CNN's Maria Ressa begins our coverage.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The worst terrorist attack since September 11, now linked by Indonesia's defense minister to al Qaeda, it caps weeks of scattered attacks around the world, Jakarta, the Philippines, Kuwait and Yemen, as well as taped statements by al Qaeda's top two leaders, threatening global economic interests.
Terrorism experts say these show al Qaeda's evolving tactics, smaller, less sophisticated attacks but just as deadly.
The Bali blast happened on the second anniversary of the bombing of the USS Cole. There were three coordinated simultaneous attacks, just as taught in al Qaeda's training manual. The bombs targeted the United States and Philippine consulates and Bali's economic lifeline, tourism.
ROHAN GUNARATNA, AL-QAEDA EXPERT: The attack in Bali has all the hallmarks of an al Qaeda attack, especially attack conducted by its Southeast Asian network Jemaah Islamiah.
RESSA: Jemaah Islamiah, or JI, plotted but did not carryout truck bomb attacks against United States embassies and other Western interests in Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Its leader, Abu Bakar Baasyir, is wanted by Singapore and Malaysia but he lives freely in Indonesia and denies any links to JI or al Qaeda. Officials in Singapore say his deputy, Riduan Isamuddin, aka Hambali, is a long-time al Qaeda operative.
In 1995, he worked closely with this man, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, a bin Laden lieutenant who admitted planning the September 11 attacks.
Intelligence officials in the region say the Bali blasts has Hambali's fingerprints. Authorities say Hambali carried out a similar series of simultaneous bomb attacks in the region in December 2000. Asian intelligence sources tell CNN Hambali continues to operate in Indonesia.
(on camera): On Monday, the United States asked its citizens to leave Indonesia and began to evacuate non-essential embassy staff and their dependents.
The focus now is on what Indonesia will do next to begin to dismantle al Qaeda's network in Southeast Asia.
Maria Ressa, CNN, Jakarta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: A short time ago, we got back in touch with Maria Ressa to talk more about the links between al Qaeda and groups like Jemaah Islamiah.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RESSA: What al Qaeda has done is, in different parts of the world, it's actually gone and co-opted regional homegrown movements.
So, for example, in Russia, Chechnya, you know, you have Osama bin Laden tapping the feelings of marganilization of Muslims around the world, telling them basically I'm going to help you and you help me, and we have a common enemy in the United States.
That's what's happened, and yes, many radical Islamic groups in the region do believe and espouse the idea -- that kind of anti-Western idea, partly because in Indonesia, this country has the world's largest Muslim population. Many of the people here do think the United States has had a flawed policy against them in the Middle East, against Palestinians.
Muslims here see the United States not as the one lone superpower, that the United States should be much more evenhanded in how it deals with that conflict. So, Osama bin Laden, and al Qaeda in relation to it, is gaining allies through just that route.
MANN: Your report quoted one analyst who said that the Jemaah Islamiah was, I think his phrase was, al Qaeda's Southeast Asian network, suggesting really it was almost like a branch operation, that there was a very direct line of command and control. Is that your sense?
RESSA: Absolutely. Al Qaeda's franchised terrorism in Southeast Asia, in other parts of the world, and we have very clear, concrete links of this.
Remember that al Qaeda actually moved out to Southeast Asia in 1988, when Osama bin Laden sent his brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, to begin the legal front, setting up charities, Islamic NGO's, in the Philippines. That was the target.
And then a terrorist cell busted in 1995 in the Philippines, Ramzi Yousef is the name that is familiar, the guy behind the -- the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. But what's little known then is that another man, the actual man behind that terrorist cell, a guy named Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, was setting up a network here.
Then Khalid Shaikh Mohammad today has gone up in al Qaeda's organization. He is the man that United States authorities and, by his own admission, is the key planner for the September 11 attacks. So we see concrete links.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Until Saturday, Indonesia could deny it had a problem, but no longer.
A short time ago, we got in touch with CNN's Mike Chinoy in Kuta Beach, the scene of the attack.
He said it has been transformed by Saturday's bombings.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MIKE CHINOY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): John, I am about 50 meters from where the bomb went off. This is a main tourist strip in Kuta, and normally at this hour, late at night, it would be packed with holiday- makers.
Now it is eerie and it's deserted. A number of people during the course of the day brought wreaths and lit candles and created a kind of makeshift shrine to the very many people who died here.
There are heavily armed Indonesian police-keeping guards. There are small groups of onlookers, both foreigners and locals, coming to stare at the scene of astonishing destruction. People here have really been profoundly shocked, as one British man who has lived here for almost a decade said to me, this is Bali. Things like this aren't supposed to happen here.
A few kilometers from here, a little while ago, I went by a disco, a nightclub, one of the other very popular places here. They put a barricade on the road in front of it to prevent any cars that might have explosives from coming up. And it was only the staff there. There were simply no guests.
MANN: Is there any suggestion, any guess at all that you're hearing about why that particular place might have been chosen for this attack?
CHINOY: Well, there is lots of speculation and (AUDIO GAP) one of the most popular hangouts in this very popular tourist strip, and on a Saturday night, on a weekend, when there were lots of -- more overseas visitors than usual because there had been a weekend rugby sports tournament here, it was guaranteed to be packed with hundreds of holiday- makers.
So there has been speculation about whether there was a deliberate attempt to target Australians because they were the largest number of -- the nationality that suffered the most.
But in fact (AUDIO GAP) all Australians, so it would be natural that they would be in the largest numbers here.
The main thing is that this was a soft target. There was no expectation here that anything like this would happen. And it was lots and lots of Westerns who were very vulnerable because there was no security, no consciousness, that this would be an issue, because Bali, unlike the rest of Indonesia, has been very peaceful.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Mike Chinoy.
We have to take a break. When we come back, the man behind Jemaah Islamiah.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation, and it practices a particularly tolerant, diverse and open faith, incorporating elements of Hinduism and other creeds.
But there are extremists in Indonesia, and as we've heard, many Indonesian Muslims have grown more radical in the last year, galvanized by the United States-led war in Afghanistan and the global war on terror.
Welcome back.
Indonesia is so vast, so hard to police, and so difficult for its own government to control, that it's looked to outsiders like an obvious place for terror groups to do business.
Many people believe Jemaah Islamiah is one such group. It's reputed leader is a wanted man, though he's not wanted in Indonesia.
CNN's Maria Ressa once again on Abu Bakar Baasyir.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RESSA (voice-over): This has been called the hub of a militant network that connects al Qaeda operatives arrested in Southeast Asia. At its center, 64-year-old Abu Bakar Baasyir.
Imprisoned by President Suharto in the 70's, he fled to Malaysia in the 80's, returning to Indonesia after the fall of Suharto in 1998.
He setup this Islamic boarding school where he passes on his radical ideas to hundreds of young Indonesians, telling them democracy and Islam are fundamentally opposed, that Islam is now under attack worldwide, and they must fight back, like Osama bin laden.
ABU BAKAR BAASYIR, INDONESIAN CLERIC (through translator): The fact is, America's anti-terror campaign conceals the hidden agenda of a war against Islam, a crusade. America and Israel are behind this. The Jews are the ones who actually control America.
RESSA: Signs around the school reflect that. On this board, "America and Jews are terrorists," " no prestige without jihad," images of machine guns lining the corridors.
But Baasyir does more than just teach. Singapore and Malaysia say he is al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Southeast Asia.
Hundreds of intelligence documents obtained by CNN from Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia tell how Baasyir helped plot attacks on United States and Western interests in Singapore, carried out bomb attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines, and organized armed Muslim movements in the region to work together on bigger terrorist plots.
This document says Baasyir told a Malaysian man, now under arrest in Singapore, to hatch a plan to assassinate Megawati, referring to Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri. The plan was later shelved.
Holding the Quran, Baasyir dismisses these charges.
BAASYIR (through translator): These accusations are baseless and are proven. The fact is that the government did not charge me with anything after I was questioned.
RESSA: Under pressure from its neighbors, Indonesia did question Baasyir in January.
A senior intelligence official tells CNN he admits attending key planning meetings in Malaysia and to knowing some men who were arrested, but he denied carrying out any terrorist plans.
RIZAL MALLARANGENIG, POLITICAL ANALYST: This is the three key questions, because democracy should be able -- you punish people because of their actions, not because of their association.
RESSA: According to an Indonesia intelligence official, under questioning Baasyir compared himself to a craftsman. He said, "I make many knives and I sell many knives, but I am not responsible for what happens to them."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Abu Bakar Baasyir held a news conference Sunday to deny any role in the Bali bombing. And he said no Indonesia group could be responsible.
From the size of the explosion, he said, it must have been done by foreigners and most likely, he said, by America.
Joining us now to talk more about what's going on in Indonesia is Angel Rabasa, a senior policy analyst at the Rand Corporation and a scholar of Indonesia affairs.
Thanks so much for being with us.
Let me ask you, first of all, a question that's on the minds of a lot of people who know Indonesia but who know Bali. Why Bali? Why would that be the target?
ANGEL RABASA, RAND CORPORATION: Well, the fact that Bali was chosen for this attack is, you know, very revealing.
Bali is a Hindu-majority island. It is 95 percent Hindu in a country that is 90 percent Muslim, so that by carrying out this horrendous terrorist attack and essentially destroying the economy of Bali, which is based on tourism, the people who have been harmed in Indonesia are not Muslims, but Hindus.
The other thing is that Bali is a stronghold of President Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party, and this is a secular party that stands in the way of the objective of some of these militant Islamic groups of turning Indonesia into an Islamic state.
So by striking at Bali, they do three things. First, they attack the West. I mean, the vast majority of the people who were killed in the attack were Australians, Britons, and other non-Indonesians. They damaged the economy of Bali. They damaged the Indonesia government by carrying out this great attack on their watch, so to speak.
So Bali is, I think, it shows that the groups, that the persons who carried out this attack, chose it very carefully, to maximize certain political goals.
MANN: Now, you call them the persons who carried out this attack. Others have come forward, prominent people within the cabinets of the governments of Australia and Indonesia, to say that it's clear it's al Qaeda. Some people are suggesting that it might be Jemaah Islamiah, and the impression I'm getting from the people I'm hearing from is that it doesn't really matter, because both of those groups in Indonesia are essentially one and the same. Who is most likely to have been responsible, to you mind?
RABASA: That's exactly correct.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack, but the modus operandi makes it very clear that this was carried out either by al Qaeda or by groups associated with al Qaeda.
It's very interesting that the type of bomb -- this is a car bomb that was used -- is very similar to the means that were to be used in the planned attack against the American embassy in Singapore. Now, this attack was foiled when the Singaporean authorities arrested about 15 members of a cell in Singapore, but the means were about the same, a truck bomb.
Now, this is not something that could have been carried out by local Indonesia groups. It requires much more sophistication. And therefore it conveys the impression that this was carried out by a regional and not only an Indonesia group, but probably with of course the cooperation of Indonesian militant organizations.
MANN: What does the government there have to do now? They haven't taken steps yet; taking steps against Muslim organizations in a country with the fragile dynamics of Indonesia won't be easy. What do you expect we will see?
RABASA: The Indonesian government is in a very difficult situation.
President Megawati, as I mentioned before, is a secular political leader who is, however, dependent on Muslim political parties for her parliamentary majority. There is a presidential election coming up in the 2004, and the government has been very reluctant to crackdown on these groups for fear of eliminating certain sectors of Muslim public opinion.
Now, behind the scenes, they have cooperated very closely with the United States and with regional countries. They recently handed over a senior al Qaeda operative, Omar al-Farooq (ph), to the United States, but publicly they have been very reluctant to crackdown because of this political vulnerabilities.
I think that this attack has changed the political dynamics in Indonesia in an important way. It is a challenge to the Indonesia government. If the Indonesian government does not respond forcefully to this type of challenge, things could only get worse for them.
MANN: Angel Rabasa, on that note, I'm afraid we're going to have to take a break, but we thank you very much for being with us.
RABASA: You're welcome.
MANN: When we come back, al Qaeda beyond Indonesia.
Stay with us for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MANN: Even before the Bali attack, United States officials were worried about al Qaeda's possible resurgence. An FBI warning last week led to increased security at sensitive sites across the United States, including New York, and a debate over whether to increase the nation's benchmark for danger, the terror alert status.
Welcome back.
The status was left unchanged because no specific threats emerged. Instead of waiting, though, United States officials are now worried al Qaeda's influence may be growing.
Here's CNN's senior international correspondent Sheila MacVicar.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN SR. INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In just over a week, there have been three attacks, all linked to al Qaeda.
Last week, United States marines training in Kuwait were attacked by gunmen. One marine died. Kuwait's government called it a terrorist act. The gunman went to bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan.
Investigators studying the explosion that rolled the French oil tanker Limburg off the coast of Yemen have found debris they say came from a small explosives-laden boat.
On Monday, France's president called that blast an act of terror and linked it to the bomb in Bali.
"The threat of terrorism," he said, "remains universally present."
And a letter said to be signed by Osama bin Laden posted to an Arabic-language Web site linked to al Qaeda on Monday seemed to claim responsibility of the attacks in Kuwait and Yemen, saying that they were timed to coincide with the anniversary of the beginning of what it called the Crusader's War.
SEN. RICHARD SHELBY (R) ALABAMA : These could be the precursor of other things to come against our interests in the world, perhaps in the United States. We've been much aware of this for a long time.
MACVICAR: United States officials say that this tape from bin Laden's lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawaahiri, and another with the voice of Osama bin Laden, both released in the past 10 days, may have been meant as calls to arms.
Al Qaeda detainees in Guantanamo and elsewhere have told United States officials that they interpreted the tapes as a sign of coming attacks, even that an attack plan had been approved.
(on camera): United States administration officials and intelligence experts in Europe and elsewhere say these attacks, as devastating as they are, may be merely warnings.
Al Qaeda, they say, may be preparing a massive attack.
Sheila MacVicar, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MANN: Joining us now to talk about all of this is Magnus Ranstorp, a scholar of terrorism at the University of St. Andrews.
Thanks so much for being with us.
There have been so many different attacks, so many different kinds of attacks, some of them seem more familiar in their technique to the kinds of things al Qaeda has done than others. Are these all clearly identifiable with al Qaeda, or are we seeing a lot of want-to-be's jump up in different parts of the world?
MAGNUS RANSTORP, ST. ANDREWS UNIVERSITY: Well, it's very difficult to assess the exact nature of the linkage of al Qaeda.
We have to also understand that al Qaeda is both an organization and a movement. It's an intellectual enterprise set in motion by bin Laden and al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan.
There are a lot of constituent groups working in the service of al Qaeda. We don't know exactly how that fits in. The investigation will tell the story eventually.
But certainly we are entering into a phase where al Qaeda is hitting economic targets, trying to undermine the travel, also the insurance industry, on a massive scale. We're seeing independent attacks against tourist targets from Jobe and Tunisia to Bali. We're seeing attacks on tankers, and I think there's a special danger to shipping from al Qaeda.
And this is something that, over the long term, I think will have a strategic effect, economically and is in alignment with al Qaeda strategy of trying to ferment economic turmoil in the lead up to the war against Iraq, but also trying to create instability in certain countries and certainly undermining the economies of certain local countries, like Indonesia, like in Bali.
So this is a portent of what is to come.
MANN: The United States is preparing to lead, if necessary, and that's the United States phrase, a war against Iraq. It is still trying to lead a war against terror. Are either of those two campaigns pushing any of this ahead, intensifying it, do you think?
RANSTORP: Well, certainly we know that the United States has been waging a secret intelligence war against finding some of the key operational planners, like Hambali in Southeast Asia, like Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, like the Ramzi bin Alships (ph) who was caught very recently, and trying to find them is a key objective of United States intelligence.
In the meantime, each constituent ally of the war on terrorism is trying, through policing methods, to unearth al Qaeda. It's a long process. It's going to take a long time, and this is going to be complicated, of course, by anti-American sentiments all around the world, where we may face spontaneous and even more organized attacks against the United States interest and even Western interests extending all around the world.
MANN: Magnus Ranstorp, thanks so much for being with us once again.
That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. The news continues.
END
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