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CNN Live At Daybreak

Terror Threat; Al Qaeda Camps; Medicare Maze; The Wacky Web

Aired August 06, 2004 - 05:30   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 LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The Labor Department reports the July job numbers three hours from now. The unemployment rate is expected to hold at 5.6 percent. But the real story will be the number of jobs created last month.
And get ready for more pain at the pump. Oil prices shot to new highs again this morning on world markets. U.S. light crude in New York at $44.73 a barrel.

Chad, good morning again.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. And I just paid $1.68 a gallon yesterday.

LIN: And we have the cheapest gas in the country, Chad, in Georgia.

MYERS: It seems like gas has been going down and the barrels have been going up. So I'm just kind of waiting for this delayed reaction of the prices start going back up again.

Hey, good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: All right, thanks -- Chad.

MYERS: It's warming up.

LIN: And new information this morning about a string of terrorist-related arrests. From stateside to Saudi Arabia, police are globally rounding up would-be terrorists.

We have a series of reports for you this morning beginning with CNN's Justice correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Law enforcement sources say they believe one of the men arrested this week in Britain personally conducted some of the surveillance of potential terror targets in the United States.

Esa al-Hindi is described as a senior al Qaeda operative. Sources tell CNN he was on the ground in New York City in early 2001 and one source says law enforcement has definitively placed him in three of the buildings that were surveilled, the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup Building and the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey.

EVAN KOHLMANN, GLOBALTERRORALERT.COM: He's someone with military experience. He's someone who's perfectly fluent in English, in Urdu, in Arabic. He's a transnational al Qaeda operative who has his fingers in many pots.

ARENA: U.S. officials say al-Hindi can currently be described as al Qaeda's chief of operations in the U.K. They say he moved operational information between key components of al Qaeda in Britain, Pakistan and the United States.

Terrorism experts say al-Hindi is a Muslim convert and former commander of an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Investigators believe he was plotting to attack London's Heathrow Airport based in part on intelligence from Pakistan.

KOHLMANN: I think it's an ominous sign. Whenever there's an attack of this scale going on in London, it's not just a British thing. It's a U.S. thing too because most of the time when al Qaeda strikes, it tends to strike in multiple, simultaneous attacks.

ARENA: Al-Hindi's arrest and others in Pakistan, including that of alleged al Qaeda computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan have led to multiple intelligence leads. Especially troubling government officials say alleged al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan recently contacted an individual or individuals in the United States.

JAMES COMEY, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have, as we've said before, reason to believe that we are in a very serious threat environment and we're working like crazy to try and make sure that threat does not come to fruition.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Kelli just mentioned a possible connection to terror cells inside of Pakistan. And now we're learning that there may be reactivated training camps for al Qaeda along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

So we're going to check in with CNN's Ash-Har Quraishi. He's live in Islamabad.

Ash-Har, there's been pressure by American officials on the Pakistani government to crack down and do something about it, break up these cells in those lawless tribal territories.

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN ISLAMABAD BUREAU CHIEF: That's right, Carol. Pakistani officials here, however, are publicly denying the presence of these terrorist camps in the southwest of Pakistan. We're told by U.S. officials that they believe there may be reactivated training camps in an area southwest and west of the southwestern city of Quetta (ph).

Now right now officials are not acknowledging that there are any camps there, although they say that they have been working very hard to break up clusters of suspected al Qaeda fighters that have been hiding in the northwest of Pakistan over the last year or so.

Now they hadn't gone into those areas ever before, and it's been a very tough fight for them. Just in March, over 100 people were killed, suspected al Qaeda fighters, local tribesmen harboring them, and over 70 paramilitary and military forces from the Pakistan side. So it's been a tough fight. It's been a fight that the Pakistani army says that it will continue to do. It's been carrying out sweep and search operations over the last year, an intensified hunt over the last few months. So there has been a presence they say of these suspected al Qaeda fighters.

Now what exactly can be done about these new rejuvenated terrorist training camps? As we're told by U.S. officials, that's unclear. So far they're not acknowledging them -- Carol.

LIN: Ash-Har, because, frankly, what are the consequences of President Musharraf moving his army into these tribal territories? There's local pressure there. It's enough to (ph) pressure?

QURAISHI: Well there has been a lot of opposition, absolutely. A lot of -- yes, absolutely, a lot of opposition to this. There has been the religious rite and the political movements here. They have been against this from the beginning, saying that this is something that they should not be doing.

This is an area that used to be semi-autonomous, had a very high amount of freedom there. But there's also intelligence that's telling us that many of these al Qaeda militants that have been hiding in those areas are feeling the pressure. And they are pushing forward, moving to areas like central Punjab (ph), in the center of the country, where we have seen many of the arrests over the last few weeks taking place.

We know that this computer expert was caught in the city of Lahore. We also know that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the man tied to those U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania, was also caught in a city in Gradrob (ph), which is also in central Punjab. So there is a sense that there is a movement of these al Qaeda operatives also possibly to these other cities, while of course there is U.S. intelligence indicating that there may be rejuvenation of some of the camps on the border areas as well -- Carol.

LIN: Ash-Har, thank you very much.

Well at least for now there will be one less al Qaeda member in those training fields. Muslim cleric Faris al-Zahrani, believed to be a senior al Qaeda leader, was arrested in the Saudi Arabian town of Abhar near the border with Yemen. Saudi officials say al-Zahrani gave religious cover to al Qaeda activities.

And from southwestern Saudi Arabia to upstate New York where the imam and the founder of a mosque have been arrested in Albany. The two men are charged with trying to launder terrorist money. An undercover FBI informant told the men the money was from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile to be used against Pakistan's U.N. ambassador.

The increasing number of recent arrests across the world is uncovering more of the al Qaeda terror network.

Our senior international editor Eli Flournoy joins us now this morning.

Eli, what are the network's coverage plans in terms of how to attack this story?

ELI FLOURNOY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Well we're following several leads, got some very interesting information developing in Pakistan, in Britain and in the United States. Of course that seems to be the trail of the information, arrests made in Pakistan, leading to intelligence information given to the British, arrests made there, as we have reported on already.

So Maria Ressa is investigating right now in Pakistan the connections between these recent arrests. And these people all seem to be tying back into Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, if you remember, is the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Also believed to be one of the actual killers of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Danny Pearl.

So how these guys -- there he is on the screen, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at the time of his arrest in Pakistan.

How do all these people connect back to him? And since he is in custody now and has been for some time, how is it that the al Qaeda cell or cells in Pakistan, how are they functioning in his absence? And what is the status of how do all these al Qaeda members connect? And is there a change in the ability of Pakistani intelligence to go after these al Qaeda cells and provide real intelligence to Britain and the United States?

LIN: Right. Pakistani intelligence, it's not like the CIA's relationship to the Bush administration to the White House. Pakistani intelligence, historically, has stood on its own, had its own power base, and in fact, helped the Taliban establish itself in Afghanistan. Why would we trust -- why would the United States trust information from Pakistani intelligence?

FLOURNOY: Well there's a lot of skepticism about you know what is the status of Pakistani intelligence now? Has President Musharraf been able to make a clean sweep of intelligence, as you say, connected previously to the Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers within the Pakistani intelligence? But a lot of these recent arrests are leading, at least U.S. intelligence and British intelligence officials, to be very supportive of the efforts in Pakistan and to believe that they are making very credible advancements in the war on terror in Pakistan. So it remains to be seen.

These recent arrests, the British and the Americans are crediting the intelligence from these arrests in Pakistan with breaking up what they believe to be legitimate, you know, targets...

LIN: Right. All right. FLOURNOY: ... in Britain and the United States.

LIN: Very interesting. We'll look forward to Maria's reporting later today.

FLOURNOY: All right.

LIN: Thanks, Eli.

Well for more on the round up of terror suspects around the world, including the link to the U.S. terror alert, you just can log on to our Web site, CNN.com.

Well they were created to help, but for some people they seem to be causing more confusion than anything else. Five minutes from now, how Medicare cards are playing out in the health care industry.

And in 13 minutes, our Jeanne Moos takes us inside the box. We're going to see how Internet savvy voters view the presidential candidates.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Hey, it's time to check our "Web Clicks" this morning. These are the stories on our Web site that are getting your attention. The top three in fact, so we're going to go to CNN.com right now.

And up first we're going to show you this story about this Alabama man, a 74-year-old is executed. James Barney Hubbard died of lethal injection. He was convicted of killing a 62-year-old woman, Lillian Montgomery, of Tuscaloosa, after they made friends and then apparently this was after he was released from prison after serving 19 years for a different killing back in 1957.

Also, some veterans are coming out and criticizing John Kerry. They're actually saying that he lied about his Vietnam War record, but the Kerry campaign is coming out and saying that none of these people featured in this new television ad actually served with John Kerry in the two patrol boats that he led during the war.

And in Chicago, an American man is actually arrested on charges that he plotted to blow up a federal courthouse with a truck bomb made from fertilizer. Yes, that sounds pretty familiar, because apparently he had bought like 500 pounds of what he was told was ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which is the same kind of fertilizer used to attack Oklahoma City's federal building back in 1995.

Those are the top three stories on our Web site.

Your news, money, weather, sports, it is now 44 minutes past the hour, almost quarter till and here is what's new this morning.

Prosecutors win an extension in filing charges against Mark Hacking. A judge rules Hacking can be held without charges until Monday in his wife's death. Crews are still searching a landfill for Lori Hacking's body.

And the Bush administration says North Korea is working on a new ballistic missile (UNINTELLIGIBLE) at least designed to deliver nuclear warheads. The U.S. says North Korea is testing the new system by proxy in Iran.

And in money, good news for people wanting to buy a house, interest rates on 30-year mortgages fell below 6 percent again this week. The rate average, 5.99 percent for the week.

And in culture, the Queen of Talk, Oprah Winfrey, signs a three- year contract extension that will keep her talk show on the air until 2011. That's going to be Oprah Winfrey's 25th year in syndication.

And in sports, the Fab 5 of women's U.S. soccer is back together again. They're going to try to capture the gold at the Summer Olympics in Athens.

And in weather, good morning again -- Chad.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: All right, thanks, Chad.

Do you have trouble with those Medicare drug card discount programs? The program was designed to help seniors or people on fixed income save money on prescription drugs. But saving money might cost you a bit of frustration.

Here's CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LILLIE SIMMONS, MEDICARE RECIPIENT: It hadn't answered any of my questions.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sometimes Lillie Simmons feels like she's slowly going insane. In the past two months, she has spent hours trying to figure out which of the more than two dozen Medicare discount cards will help reduce her $600-a-month prescription drug bill the most.

SIMMONS: Anything is easier than what this has been. And today is the perfect sample of it.

COHEN: Today, once again, she's on the government's Web site.

SIMMONS: Now I'm on Medicare.gov.

COHEN: She says the site is too confusing. She can't figure out how to get a list to compare discounted prices for the drugs she takes. She tries several other sites. SIMMONS: None of these tells you what card is right for you.

COHEN: Mrs. Simmons, who is 69, is comfortable with computers. She and her husband, Jay (ph), run their own business, a lawn care service. And she often uses the Internet and e-mail. Yet she's stumped by this challenge. The government agency that administers the card says help is a phone call away.

DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID ADMINISTRATOR: And it really is just as simple as calling 1-800-MEDICARE.

SIMMONS: It just rang and rang, and then got a busy signal.

COHEN: Mrs. Simmons, in fact, has tried to call the 800 number several times.

SIMMONS: Oh, I got somebody.

COHEN: Today, though, is her lucky day. She reaches an operator, but after a 35-minute conversation, feels she's no closer to an answer.

Medicare officials told us that, in three weeks, Mrs. Simmons will receive a list of the five or so cards that will save her the most money for her particular medications. But there's a catch. She has to stay with the card she chooses for the entire year, even though her doctor might change her medicines, and the card is free to change its prices every week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are held hostage. So I don't like that.

COHEN: And that's just one reason why none of the seniors we met at this center have signed up for the card and why, at this geriatrics practice of 500 patients, only one has applied.

DR. ERIC DE JONGE, GERIATRICIAN: It used to be simple. It is just way too complicated right now.

VICKI GOTTLICH, CENTER FOR MEDICARE ADVOCACY: We're hearing from a lot of people who are saying the discount isn't worth it.

COHEN: Still, the government says 20,000 people a day are signing up.

MCCLELLAN: With the drug card, you can reduce your cost for brand name drugs by 15 percent or 20 percent or more, generic drugs by 30 to 60 percent or more.

COHEN: But Lillie Simmons doubts whether she'll end up seeing that kind of savings. The process, she says, is simply too complicated.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Auburn, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: We've got some other "Health Headlines" this morning.

There may be another good reason for low carb fans to load up on proteins. A new study finds women eating a high carb diet full of sugar and starch are more likely to get breast cancer. Fluctuating insulin levels are suspected of contributing to the risk. Of course more research needs to be done.

And a warning, if you are taking the new anti-inflammatory drugs Remicade or Enbrel (ph), the CDC says the class of drugs known as TNF- blockers can increase your risk of contracting tuberculosis. The medications are mostly or commonly used to treat arthritis or Crohn's disease.

And early treatment of certain brain lesions can halt or even reverse Alzheimer's disease. Doctors have long known the lesions, called plaque, accumulate in those parts of the brain affecting memory. Now researchers say a new study provides the best evidence so far that targeting the plaque can actually stop the disease.

For more information or, frankly, any other stories, but in particular in health news, you just can go to our Web site at CNN.com/health.

Now the World Wide Web, it's become a playground for political satire. Up next, how the Internet savvy are lashing out at presidential pundits.

Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: It's not often I get to sit up here with Chad Myers.

MYERS: I know, I don't get to come down here very often.

LIN: I feel the warmth after your hurricane coverage.

MYERS: Well it was warm out there.

LIN: Yes.

MYERS: But that little umbrella. People were complaining I had a little umbrella.

LIN: Yes.

MYERS: Yes.

LIN: They want you with a big umbrella?

MYERS: A big one.

LIN: Yes, well.

MYERS: But I thought that maybe I would get more lightning strikes with a big one, so I got a little one. LIN: Smart man.

Hey, speaking of lightning strikes...

MYERS: Did you hear this yesterday?

LIN: You know I heard about it this morning, and I wish I had seen it, but you know we get up early here on this show.

MYERS: Bushisms, that's going to be in the Webster Dictionary when George W. finally gets out of office.

LIN: You know say what you mean, mean what you say. But in this case,...

MYERS: Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LETTERMAN, TALK SHOW HOST: And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's a moment with George W. Bush. Watch and enjoy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Oh man! Oh man!

MYERS: Yes, knew what he meant, but...

LIN: Yes, well the White House actually had a response to this. They had to say something, you know. From the White House, Scott McClellan, the spokesperson there, he says, "...just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."

MYERS: Wow!

LIN: But in a political year, you know, that's fodder for the Kerry campaign.

MYERS: He's Mr. Pres.

LIN: Yes, Mr. Pres.

Anyway, have you had your fill of negative campaign news?

MYERS: You know I saw the one I think we're about to go take a look at this here.

LIN: Yes. All right.

MYERS: Yes, this is pretty good.

LIN: Well wait until you see what's available on the Web. MYERS: Yes.

LIN: Jeanne Moos is talking about how, you know, people are talking about being plain spoken. This is what she found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the story of how a subservient chicken begat the subservient president, but there's nothing subservient about the candidate bashing that goes on on the Web.

John Kerry is portrayed as Frankenstein, his face morphs out of a cicada, while President Bush is portrayed as a bumpkin.

WILL FERRELL (ph), ACTOR: Oh my God!

MOOS: Will Farrell donated his time to an anti-Bush group.

FERRELL: Ever since I took office, well things have been really, really bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cut.

FERRELL: That seemed like a good one. I'm getting my grove on.

MOOS: And if you think the president looks bad,...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They call him Flipper, Flipper.

JOEL STEIN, STAFF WRITER, "TIME": How are people still doing dancing baby jokes? It's 2004. That should be illegal.

MOOS: Maybe it should be illegal to use John Kerry's head to shoot down incoming flip-flops.

(on camera): The one thing that's interesting about it is that they can be so much meaner on the Web.

STEIN: That is true.

MOOS (voice-over): You couldn't get away with this in a TV spot, the two Johns getting it on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get it on.

MOOS: Many of these are just an individual's attempt at humor and persuasion. Take the subservient president. It's a parody of Burger King's subservient chicken. But instead of typing in orders like touch your toes, you tell the subservient president to say invade North Korea, and a guy in a Bush mask presses the nuclear button. Write foreign policy, he plays the cowboy. Ask for a magic trick, and he turns Osama into Saddam. If you type club the director, you'll glimpse Steve Anderson, the interactive media professor who dreamed up the Web site.

Though some Web campaign videos may be low brow...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call me the triple purple hard president.

MOOS: ... they make TV ads seem subservient. This president is no chicken. Mention Michael Moore and he flips the bird. This is take no prisoners politicking.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired August 6, 2004 - 05:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: The Labor Department reports the July job numbers three hours from now. The unemployment rate is expected to hold at 5.6 percent. But the real story will be the number of jobs created last month.
And get ready for more pain at the pump. Oil prices shot to new highs again this morning on world markets. U.S. light crude in New York at $44.73 a barrel.

Chad, good morning again.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. And I just paid $1.68 a gallon yesterday.

LIN: And we have the cheapest gas in the country, Chad, in Georgia.

MYERS: It seems like gas has been going down and the barrels have been going up. So I'm just kind of waiting for this delayed reaction of the prices start going back up again.

Hey, good morning.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: All right, thanks -- Chad.

MYERS: It's warming up.

LIN: And new information this morning about a string of terrorist-related arrests. From stateside to Saudi Arabia, police are globally rounding up would-be terrorists.

We have a series of reports for you this morning beginning with CNN's Justice correspondent Kelli Arena.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KELLI ARENA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Law enforcement sources say they believe one of the men arrested this week in Britain personally conducted some of the surveillance of potential terror targets in the United States.

Esa al-Hindi is described as a senior al Qaeda operative. Sources tell CNN he was on the ground in New York City in early 2001 and one source says law enforcement has definitively placed him in three of the buildings that were surveilled, the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup Building and the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey.

EVAN KOHLMANN, GLOBALTERRORALERT.COM: He's someone with military experience. He's someone who's perfectly fluent in English, in Urdu, in Arabic. He's a transnational al Qaeda operative who has his fingers in many pots.

ARENA: U.S. officials say al-Hindi can currently be described as al Qaeda's chief of operations in the U.K. They say he moved operational information between key components of al Qaeda in Britain, Pakistan and the United States.

Terrorism experts say al-Hindi is a Muslim convert and former commander of an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. Investigators believe he was plotting to attack London's Heathrow Airport based in part on intelligence from Pakistan.

KOHLMANN: I think it's an ominous sign. Whenever there's an attack of this scale going on in London, it's not just a British thing. It's a U.S. thing too because most of the time when al Qaeda strikes, it tends to strike in multiple, simultaneous attacks.

ARENA: Al-Hindi's arrest and others in Pakistan, including that of alleged al Qaeda computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan have led to multiple intelligence leads. Especially troubling government officials say alleged al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan recently contacted an individual or individuals in the United States.

JAMES COMEY, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: We have, as we've said before, reason to believe that we are in a very serious threat environment and we're working like crazy to try and make sure that threat does not come to fruition.

Kelli Arena, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: Kelli just mentioned a possible connection to terror cells inside of Pakistan. And now we're learning that there may be reactivated training camps for al Qaeda along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

So we're going to check in with CNN's Ash-Har Quraishi. He's live in Islamabad.

Ash-Har, there's been pressure by American officials on the Pakistani government to crack down and do something about it, break up these cells in those lawless tribal territories.

ASH-HAR QURAISHI, CNN ISLAMABAD BUREAU CHIEF: That's right, Carol. Pakistani officials here, however, are publicly denying the presence of these terrorist camps in the southwest of Pakistan. We're told by U.S. officials that they believe there may be reactivated training camps in an area southwest and west of the southwestern city of Quetta (ph).

Now right now officials are not acknowledging that there are any camps there, although they say that they have been working very hard to break up clusters of suspected al Qaeda fighters that have been hiding in the northwest of Pakistan over the last year or so.

Now they hadn't gone into those areas ever before, and it's been a very tough fight for them. Just in March, over 100 people were killed, suspected al Qaeda fighters, local tribesmen harboring them, and over 70 paramilitary and military forces from the Pakistan side. So it's been a tough fight. It's been a fight that the Pakistani army says that it will continue to do. It's been carrying out sweep and search operations over the last year, an intensified hunt over the last few months. So there has been a presence they say of these suspected al Qaeda fighters.

Now what exactly can be done about these new rejuvenated terrorist training camps? As we're told by U.S. officials, that's unclear. So far they're not acknowledging them -- Carol.

LIN: Ash-Har, because, frankly, what are the consequences of President Musharraf moving his army into these tribal territories? There's local pressure there. It's enough to (ph) pressure?

QURAISHI: Well there has been a lot of opposition, absolutely. A lot of -- yes, absolutely, a lot of opposition to this. There has been the religious rite and the political movements here. They have been against this from the beginning, saying that this is something that they should not be doing.

This is an area that used to be semi-autonomous, had a very high amount of freedom there. But there's also intelligence that's telling us that many of these al Qaeda militants that have been hiding in those areas are feeling the pressure. And they are pushing forward, moving to areas like central Punjab (ph), in the center of the country, where we have seen many of the arrests over the last few weeks taking place.

We know that this computer expert was caught in the city of Lahore. We also know that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the man tied to those U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania, was also caught in a city in Gradrob (ph), which is also in central Punjab. So there is a sense that there is a movement of these al Qaeda operatives also possibly to these other cities, while of course there is U.S. intelligence indicating that there may be rejuvenation of some of the camps on the border areas as well -- Carol.

LIN: Ash-Har, thank you very much.

Well at least for now there will be one less al Qaeda member in those training fields. Muslim cleric Faris al-Zahrani, believed to be a senior al Qaeda leader, was arrested in the Saudi Arabian town of Abhar near the border with Yemen. Saudi officials say al-Zahrani gave religious cover to al Qaeda activities.

And from southwestern Saudi Arabia to upstate New York where the imam and the founder of a mosque have been arrested in Albany. The two men are charged with trying to launder terrorist money. An undercover FBI informant told the men the money was from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile to be used against Pakistan's U.N. ambassador.

The increasing number of recent arrests across the world is uncovering more of the al Qaeda terror network.

Our senior international editor Eli Flournoy joins us now this morning.

Eli, what are the network's coverage plans in terms of how to attack this story?

ELI FLOURNOY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL EDITOR: Well we're following several leads, got some very interesting information developing in Pakistan, in Britain and in the United States. Of course that seems to be the trail of the information, arrests made in Pakistan, leading to intelligence information given to the British, arrests made there, as we have reported on already.

So Maria Ressa is investigating right now in Pakistan the connections between these recent arrests. And these people all seem to be tying back into Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, if you remember, is the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Also believed to be one of the actual killers of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Danny Pearl.

So how these guys -- there he is on the screen, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed at the time of his arrest in Pakistan.

How do all these people connect back to him? And since he is in custody now and has been for some time, how is it that the al Qaeda cell or cells in Pakistan, how are they functioning in his absence? And what is the status of how do all these al Qaeda members connect? And is there a change in the ability of Pakistani intelligence to go after these al Qaeda cells and provide real intelligence to Britain and the United States?

LIN: Right. Pakistani intelligence, it's not like the CIA's relationship to the Bush administration to the White House. Pakistani intelligence, historically, has stood on its own, had its own power base, and in fact, helped the Taliban establish itself in Afghanistan. Why would we trust -- why would the United States trust information from Pakistani intelligence?

FLOURNOY: Well there's a lot of skepticism about you know what is the status of Pakistani intelligence now? Has President Musharraf been able to make a clean sweep of intelligence, as you say, connected previously to the Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers within the Pakistani intelligence? But a lot of these recent arrests are leading, at least U.S. intelligence and British intelligence officials, to be very supportive of the efforts in Pakistan and to believe that they are making very credible advancements in the war on terror in Pakistan. So it remains to be seen.

These recent arrests, the British and the Americans are crediting the intelligence from these arrests in Pakistan with breaking up what they believe to be legitimate, you know, targets...

LIN: Right. All right. FLOURNOY: ... in Britain and the United States.

LIN: Very interesting. We'll look forward to Maria's reporting later today.

FLOURNOY: All right.

LIN: Thanks, Eli.

Well for more on the round up of terror suspects around the world, including the link to the U.S. terror alert, you just can log on to our Web site, CNN.com.

Well they were created to help, but for some people they seem to be causing more confusion than anything else. Five minutes from now, how Medicare cards are playing out in the health care industry.

And in 13 minutes, our Jeanne Moos takes us inside the box. We're going to see how Internet savvy voters view the presidential candidates.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: Hey, it's time to check our "Web Clicks" this morning. These are the stories on our Web site that are getting your attention. The top three in fact, so we're going to go to CNN.com right now.

And up first we're going to show you this story about this Alabama man, a 74-year-old is executed. James Barney Hubbard died of lethal injection. He was convicted of killing a 62-year-old woman, Lillian Montgomery, of Tuscaloosa, after they made friends and then apparently this was after he was released from prison after serving 19 years for a different killing back in 1957.

Also, some veterans are coming out and criticizing John Kerry. They're actually saying that he lied about his Vietnam War record, but the Kerry campaign is coming out and saying that none of these people featured in this new television ad actually served with John Kerry in the two patrol boats that he led during the war.

And in Chicago, an American man is actually arrested on charges that he plotted to blow up a federal courthouse with a truck bomb made from fertilizer. Yes, that sounds pretty familiar, because apparently he had bought like 500 pounds of what he was told was ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which is the same kind of fertilizer used to attack Oklahoma City's federal building back in 1995.

Those are the top three stories on our Web site.

Your news, money, weather, sports, it is now 44 minutes past the hour, almost quarter till and here is what's new this morning.

Prosecutors win an extension in filing charges against Mark Hacking. A judge rules Hacking can be held without charges until Monday in his wife's death. Crews are still searching a landfill for Lori Hacking's body.

And the Bush administration says North Korea is working on a new ballistic missile (UNINTELLIGIBLE) at least designed to deliver nuclear warheads. The U.S. says North Korea is testing the new system by proxy in Iran.

And in money, good news for people wanting to buy a house, interest rates on 30-year mortgages fell below 6 percent again this week. The rate average, 5.99 percent for the week.

And in culture, the Queen of Talk, Oprah Winfrey, signs a three- year contract extension that will keep her talk show on the air until 2011. That's going to be Oprah Winfrey's 25th year in syndication.

And in sports, the Fab 5 of women's U.S. soccer is back together again. They're going to try to capture the gold at the Summer Olympics in Athens.

And in weather, good morning again -- Chad.

MYERS: Good morning, Carol.

(WEATHER REPORT)

LIN: All right, thanks, Chad.

Do you have trouble with those Medicare drug card discount programs? The program was designed to help seniors or people on fixed income save money on prescription drugs. But saving money might cost you a bit of frustration.

Here's CNN's medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LILLIE SIMMONS, MEDICARE RECIPIENT: It hadn't answered any of my questions.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sometimes Lillie Simmons feels like she's slowly going insane. In the past two months, she has spent hours trying to figure out which of the more than two dozen Medicare discount cards will help reduce her $600-a-month prescription drug bill the most.

SIMMONS: Anything is easier than what this has been. And today is the perfect sample of it.

COHEN: Today, once again, she's on the government's Web site.

SIMMONS: Now I'm on Medicare.gov.

COHEN: She says the site is too confusing. She can't figure out how to get a list to compare discounted prices for the drugs she takes. She tries several other sites. SIMMONS: None of these tells you what card is right for you.

COHEN: Mrs. Simmons, who is 69, is comfortable with computers. She and her husband, Jay (ph), run their own business, a lawn care service. And she often uses the Internet and e-mail. Yet she's stumped by this challenge. The government agency that administers the card says help is a phone call away.

DR. MARK MCCLELLAN, MEDICARE AND MEDICAID ADMINISTRATOR: And it really is just as simple as calling 1-800-MEDICARE.

SIMMONS: It just rang and rang, and then got a busy signal.

COHEN: Mrs. Simmons, in fact, has tried to call the 800 number several times.

SIMMONS: Oh, I got somebody.

COHEN: Today, though, is her lucky day. She reaches an operator, but after a 35-minute conversation, feels she's no closer to an answer.

Medicare officials told us that, in three weeks, Mrs. Simmons will receive a list of the five or so cards that will save her the most money for her particular medications. But there's a catch. She has to stay with the card she chooses for the entire year, even though her doctor might change her medicines, and the card is free to change its prices every week.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are held hostage. So I don't like that.

COHEN: And that's just one reason why none of the seniors we met at this center have signed up for the card and why, at this geriatrics practice of 500 patients, only one has applied.

DR. ERIC DE JONGE, GERIATRICIAN: It used to be simple. It is just way too complicated right now.

VICKI GOTTLICH, CENTER FOR MEDICARE ADVOCACY: We're hearing from a lot of people who are saying the discount isn't worth it.

COHEN: Still, the government says 20,000 people a day are signing up.

MCCLELLAN: With the drug card, you can reduce your cost for brand name drugs by 15 percent or 20 percent or more, generic drugs by 30 to 60 percent or more.

COHEN: But Lillie Simmons doubts whether she'll end up seeing that kind of savings. The process, she says, is simply too complicated.

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Auburn, Georgia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LIN: We've got some other "Health Headlines" this morning.

There may be another good reason for low carb fans to load up on proteins. A new study finds women eating a high carb diet full of sugar and starch are more likely to get breast cancer. Fluctuating insulin levels are suspected of contributing to the risk. Of course more research needs to be done.

And a warning, if you are taking the new anti-inflammatory drugs Remicade or Enbrel (ph), the CDC says the class of drugs known as TNF- blockers can increase your risk of contracting tuberculosis. The medications are mostly or commonly used to treat arthritis or Crohn's disease.

And early treatment of certain brain lesions can halt or even reverse Alzheimer's disease. Doctors have long known the lesions, called plaque, accumulate in those parts of the brain affecting memory. Now researchers say a new study provides the best evidence so far that targeting the plaque can actually stop the disease.

For more information or, frankly, any other stories, but in particular in health news, you just can go to our Web site at CNN.com/health.

Now the World Wide Web, it's become a playground for political satire. Up next, how the Internet savvy are lashing out at presidential pundits.

Stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

LIN: It's not often I get to sit up here with Chad Myers.

MYERS: I know, I don't get to come down here very often.

LIN: I feel the warmth after your hurricane coverage.

MYERS: Well it was warm out there.

LIN: Yes.

MYERS: But that little umbrella. People were complaining I had a little umbrella.

LIN: Yes.

MYERS: Yes.

LIN: They want you with a big umbrella?

MYERS: A big one.

LIN: Yes, well.

MYERS: But I thought that maybe I would get more lightning strikes with a big one, so I got a little one. LIN: Smart man.

Hey, speaking of lightning strikes...

MYERS: Did you hear this yesterday?

LIN: You know I heard about it this morning, and I wish I had seen it, but you know we get up early here on this show.

MYERS: Bushisms, that's going to be in the Webster Dictionary when George W. finally gets out of office.

LIN: You know say what you mean, mean what you say. But in this case,...

MYERS: Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID LETTERMAN, TALK SHOW HOST: And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's a moment with George W. Bush. Watch and enjoy.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIN: Oh man! Oh man!

MYERS: Yes, knew what he meant, but...

LIN: Yes, well the White House actually had a response to this. They had to say something, you know. From the White House, Scott McClellan, the spokesperson there, he says, "...just shows even the most straightforward and plain-spoken people misspeak."

MYERS: Wow!

LIN: But in a political year, you know, that's fodder for the Kerry campaign.

MYERS: He's Mr. Pres.

LIN: Yes, Mr. Pres.

Anyway, have you had your fill of negative campaign news?

MYERS: You know I saw the one I think we're about to go take a look at this here.

LIN: Yes. All right.

MYERS: Yes, this is pretty good.

LIN: Well wait until you see what's available on the Web. MYERS: Yes.

LIN: Jeanne Moos is talking about how, you know, people are talking about being plain spoken. This is what she found.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the story of how a subservient chicken begat the subservient president, but there's nothing subservient about the candidate bashing that goes on on the Web.

John Kerry is portrayed as Frankenstein, his face morphs out of a cicada, while President Bush is portrayed as a bumpkin.

WILL FERRELL (ph), ACTOR: Oh my God!

MOOS: Will Farrell donated his time to an anti-Bush group.

FERRELL: Ever since I took office, well things have been really, really bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cut.

FERRELL: That seemed like a good one. I'm getting my grove on.

MOOS: And if you think the president looks bad,...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They call him Flipper, Flipper.

JOEL STEIN, STAFF WRITER, "TIME": How are people still doing dancing baby jokes? It's 2004. That should be illegal.

MOOS: Maybe it should be illegal to use John Kerry's head to shoot down incoming flip-flops.

(on camera): The one thing that's interesting about it is that they can be so much meaner on the Web.

STEIN: That is true.

MOOS (voice-over): You couldn't get away with this in a TV spot, the two Johns getting it on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's get it on.

MOOS: Many of these are just an individual's attempt at humor and persuasion. Take the subservient president. It's a parody of Burger King's subservient chicken. But instead of typing in orders like touch your toes, you tell the subservient president to say invade North Korea, and a guy in a Bush mask presses the nuclear button. Write foreign policy, he plays the cowboy. Ask for a magic trick, and he turns Osama into Saddam. If you type club the director, you'll glimpse Steve Anderson, the interactive media professor who dreamed up the Web site.

Though some Web campaign videos may be low brow...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Call me the triple purple hard president.

MOOS: ... they make TV ads seem subservient. This president is no chicken. Mention Michael Moore and he flips the bird. This is take no prisoners politicking.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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