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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown

Saudi Arabia al Qaeda Leader Killed; American Paul Johnson Beheaded Today; New Report Uncovers Catholic Shielding Of Priests Accused Of Child Molestation

Aired June 18, 2004 - 22:00   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.


AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Evil in many forms seems to be the theme of the program tonight. We didn't plan it that way exactly but there's no doubt that's how it turned out. There is the evil you know about, the terrorists who murdered American Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia today and then there are evils of another time no less horrific.

The Arab world didn't invent evil after all. They didn't run the death camps of World War II. The Nazis did. And later in the program we'll be reminded of that evil just as we will also be reminded of our own domestic evil, the Klan, which operated so freely in Mississippi 40 years ago.

Each oddly believed they were doing God's work. Each contorted religion to suit their own evil ends. The names change over time, so do the locations, but the evil itself changes little and, sadly, we think you will be reminded of that too tonight.

The whip begins with the al Qaeda leader behind the murder killed shortly after Paul Johnson's body was found, Nic Robertson covering that thread of the story from London, so Nic start us with a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Saudi security sources telling us that the killing of Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the man behind Paul Johnson's murder, is a big blow for al Qaeda. Too soon to say whether this is the end of violent attacks against westerners but certainly the sources saying that they believe it could be many months before the possible -- before they can really judge if an al Qaeda cell can reemerge from this -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you.

A family shattered today, of course. CNN's Deborah Feyerick is in New Jersey where Paul Johnson's relatives are in seclusion tonight, Deb a quick headline.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a family devastated asking for privacy to grieve -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you. We grant that request.

What the murder may mean for U.S. and Saudi relations is another part of the story, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, Suzanne a headline. SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the beheading came on a day when the president was trying to project U.S. success in the war in Iraq before U.S. troops but instead more bad news.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you.

And in Iraq, religious divisions and how they may shape the country's future, wildcards tonight, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad, so Christiane a headline.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, foreign militants are blamed for a lot of the monstrous killings, not just of westerners but of Iraqis as well. It's the kind of thing people here really fear and don't want to see.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on a busy Friday night here, Philadelphia, Mississippi 40 years after one of the most infamous chapters in the civil rights struggle in the country. Will the killers ever face justice? Will the town every find peace?

And she would have been 75 years old last week, if she had survived the Nazi death camps. Anne Frank's father is making sure we don't forget her life in stills tonight.

And it is Friday, even though a difficult one. We'll have morning papers and maybe we'll throw in a tabloid or two, we'll see, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a gruesome promise kept. The beheading of Paul Johnson in a country that produced most of the 9/11 hijackers unfolded as the kidnappers had pledged. Their demands unmet, they executed their hostage ending a weeklong saga that was watched around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The day began with a deadline. It was 72 hours after al Qaeda militants had promised to murder Paul Johnson, the New Jersey born helicopter systems expert. As Saudi security forces pressed their house-to-house search in Riyadh, Johnson's Thai wife appeared on Arabic TV pleading for his life.

THANOM JOHNSON, WIFE OF PAUL JOHNSON: I don't know what I can do.

BROWN: From their home in New Jersey, Mr. Johnson's sister and son had done the same thing earlier this week.

PAUL JOHNSON III, JOHNSON'S SON: I plead with the Saudi government and the group of men that are holding my father to please let him return home safely. BROWN: Paul Johnson grew up in New Jersey, spent years working for Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor. He had worked in Saudi Arabia for a long time. But the pleas of family members thousands of miles apart and the urgings of both the Saudi and the U.S. governments went unheeded.

Just before nightfall outside Riyadh, Saudi (AUDIO GAP). They had put, they said, 15,000 officers into the search. The news was first announced on the Internet, an al Qaeda website belonging to the group calling itself the Fallujah Brigade of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Part of the text on the website read: "The infidel got his fair treatment" and it added "let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopters."

A few hours later, Saudi officials said their security police were engaged in a fierce firefight in a neighborhood not far from where the body was found and by the end of the night it was clear that the radical in charge of the kidnapping and the execution had himself been killed along with three others. All of the dead terrorists, Saudi police sources say, were on the country's list of most wanted men.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As we mentioned a moment ago, the family spoke to us the other day when the outcome was still in doubt. Today, of course, is another matter. Whatever hope they had a couple of days ago is long gone now.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has been covering that part of the story, Deb good evening.

FEYERICK: Good evening, Aaron.

Well, the family remains in seclusion, Johnson's mother, his sister, his son, his grandson all together tonight. They left the home where they had been staying in private to seek another location. Once word got out, a number of the media came to the home.

They're asking for privacy. They are devastated by the ordeal, the death of a man who chose not to live within the walls of the western compound but with the Muslim people whose culture he had embraced.

The head of the FBI in New Jersey met with the family this afternoon. He issued this statement on their behalf.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BILLY, FBI, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: They want to again thank everyone for the outpouring of support they have received. They are very, very thankful for this and they wanted me to emphasize their thanks. Secondly, they also want everyone to know that they understand the Saudi government and the United States government did everything they possibly could to rescue Paul under very difficult circumstances. They knew the odds were not in the favor of law enforcement.

They now hope that the investigation will continue to move forward and that justice will ultimately be served. They ask that I also let everyone know that Paul considered Saudi Arabia his home and he loved the people and their country.

They also know that this act of terrorism was committed by extremists and does not represent the Saudi Arabia that Paul often spoke and wrote about to his family and they also know that the vast majority of the citizens of Saudi Arabia also grieve with them at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, sources tell CNN that the remains of Paul Johnson are expected to be flown to Dover Air Force Base. An autopsy will be performed. Investigators interested to find out whether, in fact, Johnson was killed today, Friday, the day of the deadline or earlier, perhaps after that video was made -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you, Deborah Feyerick in New Jersey tonight.

As we reported earlier, soon after Mr. Johnson's body was found today, Saudi security specialists killed several suspected terrorists in Riyadh, one of them believed to be responsible for Mr. Johnson's murder and for other attacks on westerners as well.

Reporting that piece of the story, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Disguised and posing for the camera, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the man behind Paul Johnson's murder. Behind him a life apparently destined to reach this point. A high school dropout, seen here in a rare photo, was in his mid 30s.

NAWAF OBAID, SAUDI SECURITY ANALYST: All his life, especially since the age of 17, he's been in this jihad world. I mean he's gone from training to civil war to another civil war.

ROBERTSON: According to sources close to Saudi intelligence, al- Muqrin received most of his military training at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before going on to fight for radical Islamic groups in Algeria, Somalia and Bosnia. At one time, al-Muqrin spent two years in a Saudi jail after being arrested in Ethiopia but was released for good behavior.

OBAID: It's not hard for someone like him to make believe that he's actually a changed man and this is what he did and he did it, more importantly, not towards the government he did it towards his family and his family were -- apparently believed that he was a changed man. ROBERTSON: He became a key player in Saudi terror attacks with this bombing last November in Riyadh that killed 17 people, many of them Arabs from Lebanon and Egypt. By the next major attack, just last month, his followers had refined their tactics going door to door in a western workers' compound killing only the non-Muslims.

On websites like this one, al-Muqrin and his Fallujah brigades trumpeted their successes and provided instructions on how to kidnap and kill saying that in Saudi Arabia, Americans were the best targets.

But within hours of the announcement of Johnson's killing, confirmation that al-Muqrin and three key associates had been killed by Saudi authorities. The question now will Johnson's be the last violent death of a westerner in Saudi Arabia?

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On a day like this leaders are expected to deliver strong statements and today they did. The finer points of political fallout and whether Paul Johnson's murder will in some way drive a wedge between the United States and Saudi Arabia will be the subject for days ahead we suspect.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): President Bush's reaction to the beheading of American Paul Johnson was strong and swift.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The murder of Paul shows the evil nature of the enemy we face. These are barbaric people. There's no justification whatsoever for his murder.

MALVEAUX: Saudi officials joined in expressing their deep sorrow.

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER TO CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH: Over 15,000 security personnel from Saudi Arabia were involved. Thousands of locations were searched and leads pursued. We did everything we could to find him and we are deeply sorry that it was not enough.

MALVEAUX: The Bush administration believes terrorists are now targeting Americans and other westerners, not just in Iraq but now in Saudi Arabia. Thirty-five thousand Americans live in the kingdom and the State Department is urging them to get out. Late Friday it issued a more urgent travel warning for the region. Saudi officials express concern with the advice.

AL-JUBEIR: We believe that calls for withdrawing people from Saudi Arabia could inadvertently play into the hands of the terrorists, so we don't support moves like this but it's not our decision. This is a decision by the State Department. MALVEAUX: In the meantime, both U.S. and Saudi officials pledged continued cooperation in security, intelligence sharing and military operations.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: It will cause us and I am quite confident it will cause our Saudi colleagues to redouble our efforts to go after terrorists.

AL-JUBEIR: The American people must know that the Saudi people are with them just like the Saudi people know that the American people are with them. It is the two of us who are being murdered and slaughtered by these evil terrorists and it is the two of us working together who can crush them.

(END VIDEOATAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now, some members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, blame Saudi Arabia for not doing enough to crack down on terrorism but White House officials say since last May's terrorist attack in Riyadh, the Saudis have stepped up their efforts and the Bush administration says that it is satisfied that the Saudi government did everything it could to try to save Paul Johnson -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you, Suzanne Malveaux tonight.

Pulling the lens back a bit, today was one piece in an escalating campaign against westerners in Saudi Arabia. Despite the Saudi government's efforts to root out terrorism, and that can be debated, the same day Paul Johnson was kidnapped Islamic militants shot and killed Kenneth Scroggs (ph) another American in his garage in Riyadh.

Theodore Kottouf is the Former Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Before that -- or after that I believe he served as ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates. He joins us from Washington tonight, outside L.A., Brian Jenkins, who is a terrorism adviser to the Rand Corporation. We're please to have you both with us.

Mr. Ambassador, there is I think a feeling among some, if not many, that the Saudis to some degree are reaping what they sowed here that they have allowed the funding of terrorist groups. They have -- they're certainly aware of what's taught in their own schools. And now they, and I guess we, are paying the price. Is that all together fair?

THEODORE KOTTOUF, FMR. DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION, U.S. EMBASSY, SAUDI ARABIA: There is some truth in it. The fact is that the Saudi people are very, very conservative, Mr. Brown, and the whole debate right now is within the context of this extremely conservative form of Islam that is found in Saudi Arabia and which they have tried to export. So, the Saudi leadership is not without some culpability for what has happened and it's taken a long time to get to this point.

BROWN: Does the royal family worry that if it is too aggressive it could lose its grip on power? KOTTOUF: The royal family I think is worried, should be worried, because it has to weigh very carefully every move it makes. If it's too heavy handed, it's playing into the hands of the terrorist and, if it doesn't go after these fellows aggressively enough, they may become heroes, if you will.

I think it's fair to say in some of the poorer Saudi neighborhoods, and Americans need to know that a lot of Saudis are not rich, there is sympathy for some of these people who are doing these heinous acts.

I'm not suggesting that these people are willing to join them or they want to be ruled by them but the feeling is that we Muslims are being victimized by the west in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, and this is payback.

BROWN: Brian, a couple questions to you. Is it reasonable, as Nic Robertson in his reporting I think the fair way to put this is raised the question, is it a reasonable question to believe that the death of one terrorist or three terrorists in Saudi Arabia will somehow end the reign of these terrorist groups in that area?

BRIAN JENKINS, RAND CORPORATION TERRORISM EXPERT: No, I don't think that's correct. I think most informed observers, and the Saudis themselves, understand that this is going to continue, not for weeks, not for months but probably for years.

Even with the death of Mr. Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin today, the principal leader of this enterprise, the fact is that he is the third leader of this organization since mid-2003. There was one leader, a fellow named Al-Ayiri (ph) who was killed. He was replaced by another named Halid Haj (ph). He was killed and then al-Muqrin emerged himself.

There will be another leader who will emerge. There are still more recruits probably among the population of Saudi Arabia. Keep in mind the first bombing that took place was in 1995. In 1996, Osama bin Laden himself said that driving the enemy Americans out of Saudi Arabia is the number one priority, so this thing has been developing for ten years.

BROWN: Brian. Let me get -- I've got about a minute left here. If I can get both of you to weigh in on this I'd like to. The problem or a problem, I don't know the problem, a problem is that we kill one and three are born that there are not hundreds of these guys out in Saudi Arabia and around the Arab world. There are thousands of them. We probably realistically can't kill them all, so what do we do?

JENKINS: It's not an issue of simply outgunning them to be sure. All efforts have to be made to capture or kill these people. Al Qaeda and its successor organizations must be destroyed. But at the same time, this is a long term contest for the minds of the people, not simply outgunning them. We have to out mobilize them.

BROWN: And, Mr. Ambassador, are we winning or losing the battle for their minds? KOTTOUF: Well it's not really we who can win or lose the battle for their minds. It's the Saudi royal family. They are in a contest with these terrorists and with these pro-bin Laden groups in the kingdom to get people off the fence on their side.


Aired June 18, 2004 - 22:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
AARON BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening again everyone.
Evil in many forms seems to be the theme of the program tonight. We didn't plan it that way exactly but there's no doubt that's how it turned out. There is the evil you know about, the terrorists who murdered American Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia today and then there are evils of another time no less horrific.

The Arab world didn't invent evil after all. They didn't run the death camps of World War II. The Nazis did. And later in the program we'll be reminded of that evil just as we will also be reminded of our own domestic evil, the Klan, which operated so freely in Mississippi 40 years ago.

Each oddly believed they were doing God's work. Each contorted religion to suit their own evil ends. The names change over time, so do the locations, but the evil itself changes little and, sadly, we think you will be reminded of that too tonight.

The whip begins with the al Qaeda leader behind the murder killed shortly after Paul Johnson's body was found, Nic Robertson covering that thread of the story from London, so Nic start us with a headline.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, Saudi security sources telling us that the killing of Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the man behind Paul Johnson's murder, is a big blow for al Qaeda. Too soon to say whether this is the end of violent attacks against westerners but certainly the sources saying that they believe it could be many months before the possible -- before they can really judge if an al Qaeda cell can reemerge from this -- Aaron.

BROWN: Nic, thank you.

A family shattered today, of course. CNN's Deborah Feyerick is in New Jersey where Paul Johnson's relatives are in seclusion tonight, Deb a quick headline.

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, a family devastated asking for privacy to grieve -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you. We grant that request.

What the murder may mean for U.S. and Saudi relations is another part of the story, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux at the White House, Suzanne a headline. SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the beheading came on a day when the president was trying to project U.S. success in the war in Iraq before U.S. troops but instead more bad news.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you.

And in Iraq, religious divisions and how they may shape the country's future, wildcards tonight, Christiane Amanpour in Baghdad, so Christiane a headline.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTL. CORRESPONDENT: Aaron, foreign militants are blamed for a lot of the monstrous killings, not just of westerners but of Iraqis as well. It's the kind of thing people here really fear and don't want to see.

BROWN: Christiane, thank you. We'll get back to you and the rest shortly.

Also coming up on a busy Friday night here, Philadelphia, Mississippi 40 years after one of the most infamous chapters in the civil rights struggle in the country. Will the killers ever face justice? Will the town every find peace?

And she would have been 75 years old last week, if she had survived the Nazi death camps. Anne Frank's father is making sure we don't forget her life in stills tonight.

And it is Friday, even though a difficult one. We'll have morning papers and maybe we'll throw in a tabloid or two, we'll see, all that and more in the hour ahead.

We begin tonight with a gruesome promise kept. The beheading of Paul Johnson in a country that produced most of the 9/11 hijackers unfolded as the kidnappers had pledged. Their demands unmet, they executed their hostage ending a weeklong saga that was watched around the world.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): The day began with a deadline. It was 72 hours after al Qaeda militants had promised to murder Paul Johnson, the New Jersey born helicopter systems expert. As Saudi security forces pressed their house-to-house search in Riyadh, Johnson's Thai wife appeared on Arabic TV pleading for his life.

THANOM JOHNSON, WIFE OF PAUL JOHNSON: I don't know what I can do.

BROWN: From their home in New Jersey, Mr. Johnson's sister and son had done the same thing earlier this week.

PAUL JOHNSON III, JOHNSON'S SON: I plead with the Saudi government and the group of men that are holding my father to please let him return home safely. BROWN: Paul Johnson grew up in New Jersey, spent years working for Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor. He had worked in Saudi Arabia for a long time. But the pleas of family members thousands of miles apart and the urgings of both the Saudi and the U.S. governments went unheeded.

Just before nightfall outside Riyadh, Saudi (AUDIO GAP). They had put, they said, 15,000 officers into the search. The news was first announced on the Internet, an al Qaeda website belonging to the group calling itself the Fallujah Brigade of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Part of the text on the website read: "The infidel got his fair treatment" and it added "let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopters."

A few hours later, Saudi officials said their security police were engaged in a fierce firefight in a neighborhood not far from where the body was found and by the end of the night it was clear that the radical in charge of the kidnapping and the execution had himself been killed along with three others. All of the dead terrorists, Saudi police sources say, were on the country's list of most wanted men.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: As we mentioned a moment ago, the family spoke to us the other day when the outcome was still in doubt. Today, of course, is another matter. Whatever hope they had a couple of days ago is long gone now.

CNN's Deborah Feyerick has been covering that part of the story, Deb good evening.

FEYERICK: Good evening, Aaron.

Well, the family remains in seclusion, Johnson's mother, his sister, his son, his grandson all together tonight. They left the home where they had been staying in private to seek another location. Once word got out, a number of the media came to the home.

They're asking for privacy. They are devastated by the ordeal, the death of a man who chose not to live within the walls of the western compound but with the Muslim people whose culture he had embraced.

The head of the FBI in New Jersey met with the family this afternoon. He issued this statement on their behalf.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BILLY, FBI, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: They want to again thank everyone for the outpouring of support they have received. They are very, very thankful for this and they wanted me to emphasize their thanks. Secondly, they also want everyone to know that they understand the Saudi government and the United States government did everything they possibly could to rescue Paul under very difficult circumstances. They knew the odds were not in the favor of law enforcement.

They now hope that the investigation will continue to move forward and that justice will ultimately be served. They ask that I also let everyone know that Paul considered Saudi Arabia his home and he loved the people and their country.

They also know that this act of terrorism was committed by extremists and does not represent the Saudi Arabia that Paul often spoke and wrote about to his family and they also know that the vast majority of the citizens of Saudi Arabia also grieve with them at this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FEYERICK: Now, sources tell CNN that the remains of Paul Johnson are expected to be flown to Dover Air Force Base. An autopsy will be performed. Investigators interested to find out whether, in fact, Johnson was killed today, Friday, the day of the deadline or earlier, perhaps after that video was made -- Aaron.

BROWN: Deb, thank you, Deborah Feyerick in New Jersey tonight.

As we reported earlier, soon after Mr. Johnson's body was found today, Saudi security specialists killed several suspected terrorists in Riyadh, one of them believed to be responsible for Mr. Johnson's murder and for other attacks on westerners as well.

Reporting that piece of the story, CNN's Nic Robertson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON (voice-over): Disguised and posing for the camera, Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the man behind Paul Johnson's murder. Behind him a life apparently destined to reach this point. A high school dropout, seen here in a rare photo, was in his mid 30s.

NAWAF OBAID, SAUDI SECURITY ANALYST: All his life, especially since the age of 17, he's been in this jihad world. I mean he's gone from training to civil war to another civil war.

ROBERTSON: According to sources close to Saudi intelligence, al- Muqrin received most of his military training at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan before going on to fight for radical Islamic groups in Algeria, Somalia and Bosnia. At one time, al-Muqrin spent two years in a Saudi jail after being arrested in Ethiopia but was released for good behavior.

OBAID: It's not hard for someone like him to make believe that he's actually a changed man and this is what he did and he did it, more importantly, not towards the government he did it towards his family and his family were -- apparently believed that he was a changed man. ROBERTSON: He became a key player in Saudi terror attacks with this bombing last November in Riyadh that killed 17 people, many of them Arabs from Lebanon and Egypt. By the next major attack, just last month, his followers had refined their tactics going door to door in a western workers' compound killing only the non-Muslims.

On websites like this one, al-Muqrin and his Fallujah brigades trumpeted their successes and provided instructions on how to kidnap and kill saying that in Saudi Arabia, Americans were the best targets.

But within hours of the announcement of Johnson's killing, confirmation that al-Muqrin and three key associates had been killed by Saudi authorities. The question now will Johnson's be the last violent death of a westerner in Saudi Arabia?

Nic Robertson, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: On a day like this leaders are expected to deliver strong statements and today they did. The finer points of political fallout and whether Paul Johnson's murder will in some way drive a wedge between the United States and Saudi Arabia will be the subject for days ahead we suspect.

From the White House tonight, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): President Bush's reaction to the beheading of American Paul Johnson was strong and swift.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The murder of Paul shows the evil nature of the enemy we face. These are barbaric people. There's no justification whatsoever for his murder.

MALVEAUX: Saudi officials joined in expressing their deep sorrow.

ADEL AL-JUBEIR, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ADVISER TO CROWN PRINCE ABDULLAH: Over 15,000 security personnel from Saudi Arabia were involved. Thousands of locations were searched and leads pursued. We did everything we could to find him and we are deeply sorry that it was not enough.

MALVEAUX: The Bush administration believes terrorists are now targeting Americans and other westerners, not just in Iraq but now in Saudi Arabia. Thirty-five thousand Americans live in the kingdom and the State Department is urging them to get out. Late Friday it issued a more urgent travel warning for the region. Saudi officials express concern with the advice.

AL-JUBEIR: We believe that calls for withdrawing people from Saudi Arabia could inadvertently play into the hands of the terrorists, so we don't support moves like this but it's not our decision. This is a decision by the State Department. MALVEAUX: In the meantime, both U.S. and Saudi officials pledged continued cooperation in security, intelligence sharing and military operations.

COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: It will cause us and I am quite confident it will cause our Saudi colleagues to redouble our efforts to go after terrorists.

AL-JUBEIR: The American people must know that the Saudi people are with them just like the Saudi people know that the American people are with them. It is the two of us who are being murdered and slaughtered by these evil terrorists and it is the two of us working together who can crush them.

(END VIDEOATAPE)

MALVEAUX: Now, some members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, blame Saudi Arabia for not doing enough to crack down on terrorism but White House officials say since last May's terrorist attack in Riyadh, the Saudis have stepped up their efforts and the Bush administration says that it is satisfied that the Saudi government did everything it could to try to save Paul Johnson -- Aaron.

BROWN: Suzanne, thank you, Suzanne Malveaux tonight.

Pulling the lens back a bit, today was one piece in an escalating campaign against westerners in Saudi Arabia. Despite the Saudi government's efforts to root out terrorism, and that can be debated, the same day Paul Johnson was kidnapped Islamic militants shot and killed Kenneth Scroggs (ph) another American in his garage in Riyadh.

Theodore Kottouf is the Former Deputy Chief of Mission for the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia. Before that -- or after that I believe he served as ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates. He joins us from Washington tonight, outside L.A., Brian Jenkins, who is a terrorism adviser to the Rand Corporation. We're please to have you both with us.

Mr. Ambassador, there is I think a feeling among some, if not many, that the Saudis to some degree are reaping what they sowed here that they have allowed the funding of terrorist groups. They have -- they're certainly aware of what's taught in their own schools. And now they, and I guess we, are paying the price. Is that all together fair?

THEODORE KOTTOUF, FMR. DEPUTY CHIEF OF MISSION, U.S. EMBASSY, SAUDI ARABIA: There is some truth in it. The fact is that the Saudi people are very, very conservative, Mr. Brown, and the whole debate right now is within the context of this extremely conservative form of Islam that is found in Saudi Arabia and which they have tried to export. So, the Saudi leadership is not without some culpability for what has happened and it's taken a long time to get to this point.

BROWN: Does the royal family worry that if it is too aggressive it could lose its grip on power? KOTTOUF: The royal family I think is worried, should be worried, because it has to weigh very carefully every move it makes. If it's too heavy handed, it's playing into the hands of the terrorist and, if it doesn't go after these fellows aggressively enough, they may become heroes, if you will.

I think it's fair to say in some of the poorer Saudi neighborhoods, and Americans need to know that a lot of Saudis are not rich, there is sympathy for some of these people who are doing these heinous acts.

I'm not suggesting that these people are willing to join them or they want to be ruled by them but the feeling is that we Muslims are being victimized by the west in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Kashmir, and this is payback.

BROWN: Brian, a couple questions to you. Is it reasonable, as Nic Robertson in his reporting I think the fair way to put this is raised the question, is it a reasonable question to believe that the death of one terrorist or three terrorists in Saudi Arabia will somehow end the reign of these terrorist groups in that area?

BRIAN JENKINS, RAND CORPORATION TERRORISM EXPERT: No, I don't think that's correct. I think most informed observers, and the Saudis themselves, understand that this is going to continue, not for weeks, not for months but probably for years.

Even with the death of Mr. Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin today, the principal leader of this enterprise, the fact is that he is the third leader of this organization since mid-2003. There was one leader, a fellow named Al-Ayiri (ph) who was killed. He was replaced by another named Halid Haj (ph). He was killed and then al-Muqrin emerged himself.

There will be another leader who will emerge. There are still more recruits probably among the population of Saudi Arabia. Keep in mind the first bombing that took place was in 1995. In 1996, Osama bin Laden himself said that driving the enemy Americans out of Saudi Arabia is the number one priority, so this thing has been developing for ten years.

BROWN: Brian. Let me get -- I've got about a minute left here. If I can get both of you to weigh in on this I'd like to. The problem or a problem, I don't know the problem, a problem is that we kill one and three are born that there are not hundreds of these guys out in Saudi Arabia and around the Arab world. There are thousands of them. We probably realistically can't kill them all, so what do we do?

JENKINS: It's not an issue of simply outgunning them to be sure. All efforts have to be made to capture or kill these people. Al Qaeda and its successor organizations must be destroyed. But at the same time, this is a long term contest for the minds of the people, not simply outgunning them. We have to out mobilize them.

BROWN: And, Mr. Ambassador, are we winning or losing the battle for their minds? KOTTOUF: Well it's not really we who can win or lose the battle for their minds. It's the Saudi royal family. They are in a contest with these terrorists and with these pro-bin Laden groups in the kingdom to get people off the fence on their side.