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CNN Live At Daybreak

Searchers May be Closing Noose on Osama Bin Laden

Aired March 07, 2003 - 05:03   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.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get right to those intriguing overnight reports now that searchers may be closing the noose on Osama bin Laden.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor has been talking with his sources. He brings us these details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An aggressive search for Osama bin Laden is under way, U.S. officials say, as they and Pakistani officials race to take advantage of new leads. The new information is pointing to this part of northwest Pakistan and just across the border in Afghanistan, narrowing the search, officials say, to a few Pakistani provinces and a small area along the Afghan side of the border. The area where bin Laden could be may include Waziristan. It certainly includes the tribal areas to its north. Despite reports to the contrary, officials say, they can rule out the southwest, shown here in green, the Baluchistan province of Pakistan.

The new leads are coming from the materials seized Saturday with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, his laptop, cell phones and address book. The president called him the mastermind of September 11.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed conceived and planned the hijackings and directed the actions of the hijackers. We believe his capture will further disrupt the terror network and their planning for additional attacks.

ENSOR: Wherever he is, officials say bin Laden must know he has never been in such danger since he escaped the closing noose in Tora Bora in December of 2001.

(on camera): And officials confirm Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is now talking and providing his interrogators with information that is of some use.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: We should also let you know Pakistan's information minister today is denying that there is any special operation under way to find the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

In an interview with CNN, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says bin Laden is most likely in a remote area of Pakistan. He says al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed disclosed some information about bin Laden last week. But the reliability of that information is in question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTAN: The whereabouts, no, we didn't, he didn't give us any detail. About his being alive, about his contact, he has been, in fact, giving varying statements. He's switched from one statement to the other. But this is a preliminary investigation. I think more will follow when a detailed investigation is done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: U.S. intelligence officials are following up on numerous leads now from materials obtained when Mohammed was captured.

Let's take a quick look now at Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group. Bin Laden calls himself the Emir General of al Qaeda, the organization he founded in the late '80s. The U.S. has a $25 million reward for his capture. Wanted along with bin Laden, Ayman el- Zawahri, his second in command, and Saif al-Adel. That is the al Qaeda's chief of security. Among the al Qaeda leadership who have been captured, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief of operations, Abu Zubaydah, field commander and Ramzi Binalshibh, of al Qaeda's operations. Military chief Mohammed Atef was killed shortly after U.S. troops moved into Afghanistan.

We want to take you overseas now to where the spotlight is focusing on the hunt for bin Laden. Parts of Pakistan near the Afghan border are like the old wild west, lawless and dangerous.

Our Ash-Har Quraishi is in Islamabad now, where he joins us by video phone -- Ash-Har, what exactly are we learning right now about the search for the terrorist leader?

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, contrary to some of the reports that we are hearing, the government officials here in Pakistan are denying that there's any special operation going on hunting for bin Laden. They say that they have not pinpointed him to any region in Pakistan. They are saying that they have heightened alerts with their intelligence agencies here. They say that they are monitoring not only the tribal areas, but the cities, as well. They say they're not ruling anything out.

Now, I spoke to senior government officials today and senior intelligence officials who say that this information that they have focused that hunt is not accurate. They say that there has been a concentration that they understand on the Afghan side of the border near Spin Bolduk and also across the border from Baluchistan, which is the southwestern province in Pakistan.

They say that there is no coordination between those U.S. soldiers and the Pakistani intelligence forces here on this side. But they're also saying that right now it's obviously too (AUDIO GAP). They say there's, as you mentioned, inconsistent reports from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They say that they're still looking, they still have no clue as to where Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

One official actually suggested this may be some way to flush out bin Laden. If he thinks that authorities are looking in one place when they actually believe he's in another place, he may come out of hiding -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Ash-Har, tell us a little bit more, if you could, about the terrain. We've been calling it, you know, much like the wild, wild west. How difficult is it for them to get around in their search efforts?

QURAISHI: Well, if they're concentrating on that western border of Pakistan, well, then up north in the northwest, we've got the northwestern frontier province going down into Baluchistan. Now, both those provinces along the border with Afghanistan have rolling mountains up and along them. So it's very difficult terrain.

But just to give you a sense of the demographics now, in the tribal belt, which is not in the Baluchistan province, we have much more densely populated areas. We have the more ethnically Pashtun speaking Pakistanis. And in the Baluchistan province, it's very scarcely populated and those are Baluchi speaking people.

Now, there have traditionally been some differences between al Qaeda operatives, between the ethnically Pashtun Taliban in Baluchistan with Afghanistan, which suggests that if it's possible, he would be hiding in the northwest frontier province, where there may be some (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But he'd have to be traveling with quite a few people and there would have to be a lot of support from the villagers there not to give up his location -- Heidi.

COLLINS: All right, interesting. I'm sure we will hear a lot more about this in the days to come.

Ash-Har Quraishi live from Islamabad.

Thank you very much.

And, of course, we will update you any time there's a development in this story. You can get the very latest, all of the details, on your computer by just clicking onto our Web site. That address is cnn.com and the AOL keyword is CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired March 7, 2003 - 05:03   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get right to those intriguing overnight reports now that searchers may be closing the noose on Osama bin Laden.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor has been talking with his sources. He brings us these details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): An aggressive search for Osama bin Laden is under way, U.S. officials say, as they and Pakistani officials race to take advantage of new leads. The new information is pointing to this part of northwest Pakistan and just across the border in Afghanistan, narrowing the search, officials say, to a few Pakistani provinces and a small area along the Afghan side of the border. The area where bin Laden could be may include Waziristan. It certainly includes the tribal areas to its north. Despite reports to the contrary, officials say, they can rule out the southwest, shown here in green, the Baluchistan province of Pakistan.

The new leads are coming from the materials seized Saturday with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, his laptop, cell phones and address book. The president called him the mastermind of September 11.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed conceived and planned the hijackings and directed the actions of the hijackers. We believe his capture will further disrupt the terror network and their planning for additional attacks.

ENSOR: Wherever he is, officials say bin Laden must know he has never been in such danger since he escaped the closing noose in Tora Bora in December of 2001.

(on camera): And officials confirm Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is now talking and providing his interrogators with information that is of some use.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COLLINS: We should also let you know Pakistan's information minister today is denying that there is any special operation under way to find the terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

In an interview with CNN, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says bin Laden is most likely in a remote area of Pakistan. He says al Qaeda operative Khalid Shaikh Mohammed disclosed some information about bin Laden last week. But the reliability of that information is in question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PAKISTAN: The whereabouts, no, we didn't, he didn't give us any detail. About his being alive, about his contact, he has been, in fact, giving varying statements. He's switched from one statement to the other. But this is a preliminary investigation. I think more will follow when a detailed investigation is done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: U.S. intelligence officials are following up on numerous leads now from materials obtained when Mohammed was captured.

Let's take a quick look now at Osama bin Laden and his terrorist group. Bin Laden calls himself the Emir General of al Qaeda, the organization he founded in the late '80s. The U.S. has a $25 million reward for his capture. Wanted along with bin Laden, Ayman el- Zawahri, his second in command, and Saif al-Adel. That is the al Qaeda's chief of security. Among the al Qaeda leadership who have been captured, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, chief of operations, Abu Zubaydah, field commander and Ramzi Binalshibh, of al Qaeda's operations. Military chief Mohammed Atef was killed shortly after U.S. troops moved into Afghanistan.

We want to take you overseas now to where the spotlight is focusing on the hunt for bin Laden. Parts of Pakistan near the Afghan border are like the old wild west, lawless and dangerous.

Our Ash-Har Quraishi is in Islamabad now, where he joins us by video phone -- Ash-Har, what exactly are we learning right now about the search for the terrorist leader?

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Heidi, contrary to some of the reports that we are hearing, the government officials here in Pakistan are denying that there's any special operation going on hunting for bin Laden. They say that they have not pinpointed him to any region in Pakistan. They are saying that they have heightened alerts with their intelligence agencies here. They say that they are monitoring not only the tribal areas, but the cities, as well. They say they're not ruling anything out.

Now, I spoke to senior government officials today and senior intelligence officials who say that this information that they have focused that hunt is not accurate. They say that there has been a concentration that they understand on the Afghan side of the border near Spin Bolduk and also across the border from Baluchistan, which is the southwestern province in Pakistan.

They say that there is no coordination between those U.S. soldiers and the Pakistani intelligence forces here on this side. But they're also saying that right now it's obviously too (AUDIO GAP). They say there's, as you mentioned, inconsistent reports from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They say that they're still looking, they still have no clue as to where Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

One official actually suggested this may be some way to flush out bin Laden. If he thinks that authorities are looking in one place when they actually believe he's in another place, he may come out of hiding -- Heidi.

COLLINS: Ash-Har, tell us a little bit more, if you could, about the terrain. We've been calling it, you know, much like the wild, wild west. How difficult is it for them to get around in their search efforts?

QURAISHI: Well, if they're concentrating on that western border of Pakistan, well, then up north in the northwest, we've got the northwestern frontier province going down into Baluchistan. Now, both those provinces along the border with Afghanistan have rolling mountains up and along them. So it's very difficult terrain.

But just to give you a sense of the demographics now, in the tribal belt, which is not in the Baluchistan province, we have much more densely populated areas. We have the more ethnically Pashtun speaking Pakistanis. And in the Baluchistan province, it's very scarcely populated and those are Baluchi speaking people.

Now, there have traditionally been some differences between al Qaeda operatives, between the ethnically Pashtun Taliban in Baluchistan with Afghanistan, which suggests that if it's possible, he would be hiding in the northwest frontier province, where there may be some (UNINTELLIGIBLE). But he'd have to be traveling with quite a few people and there would have to be a lot of support from the villagers there not to give up his location -- Heidi.

COLLINS: All right, interesting. I'm sure we will hear a lot more about this in the days to come.

Ash-Har Quraishi live from Islamabad.

Thank you very much.

And, of course, we will update you any time there's a development in this story. You can get the very latest, all of the details, on your computer by just clicking onto our Web site. That address is cnn.com and the AOL keyword is CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com