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CNN Live At Daybreak

Knowing the Terrorist: Al Qaeda's Guerrilla Fighting May Prove Troublesome For U.S.

Aired October 22, 2001 - 08:16   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: The Pentagon is calling the first commando raid in Afghanistan a success, but are the claims of success too premature given what we know about al Qaeda's gorilla fighting expertise.

Terrorism expert Peter Bergen is now -- here now to continue his series "Knowing the Terrorist". He joins me this morning from Washington.

Welcome back.

So Peter, on what basis is the Pentagon declaring this mission a success?

PETER BERGEN, CNN ANALYST: Well apparently, I mean the Pentagon is declaring the mission a success, but many claims on both sides are hard to immediately independently confirm. But Paula what I wanted to say about al Qaeda in terms of its abilities to shoot down helicopters, is that we know from the past the U.S. government itself in fact, that al Qaeda has quite a lot of expertise in shooting down helicopters.

And the government -- in the trial of the embassy bombers, part of the case from the embassy bombers trial, which is in Manhattan earlier this year, was that al Qaeda trained Somali clansmen how to use helicopters -- to shoot down helicopters.

The way to shoot down a helicopter is it's not -- you don't just aim the rocket propelled grenade at the helicopter. You have to hit the tail rotor to really bring it down. The U.S. government says that al Qaeda trained Somali clansmen to do that and that in 1993, some of those Klansmen may have been involved in the attacks on American troops that left 18 American soldiers dead.

Paula.

ZAHN: But we should clarify once again, that the Pentagon says it's an absolute lie that the Taliban has shot down these two helicopters.

Let's talk a little bit about the changing weather conditions in the weeks to come and how that might affect any special operations on the coalition front. BERGEN: Well the weather can be both your enemy and your friend in Afghanistan right now. In Kandahar in the south, I've been there in the winter and here we are in Kabul in the north, the winter there in December is -- the temperatures fall well below freezing most of the time.

There are heavy snows. On the other hand, when you go to Kandahar in the south, December is actually a rather pleasant month. The temperatures in Kandahar reach up to 80 degrees during the -- during the day and fall around freezing at night.

So the weather, at least in terms of taking Kabul if this operation continues, for quite some time, it kind of snows in mid November, and then increasingly very frigid weather by December Paula.

ZAHN: All right, let's move onto the CIA directive that was issued by President Bush essentially to directly target Osama bin Laden.

Any thoughts on that?

BERGEN: Well in a sense I don't think that's entirely new. I mean we know that there have been special operation forces for the last couple of years that have at least looked into trying to capture or kill bin Laden. The CIA has had a unit specifically devoted to bin Laden for the last four or five years -- a very unusual type unit Paula, set up specifically to target bin Laden himself.

So in a sense, I think that that is a -- I'm sure, you know, the U.S. government wants to be showing we're doing as much as possible, but I think in practice I don't see how that changes a great deal, accept that there is a quite a lot of money attached to that.

I think there's $1 billion attached to that development.

ZAHN: And what is your thought? Will anybody eventually get him?

BERGEN: Well you know, finding any one person is extremely difficult, particularly if they're trying to avoid you.

You may remember, of course, Eric Rudolph, who was behind the Centennial bombings in Atlanta allegedly. He's avoided U.S. law enforcement for the last five years. He's believed to be in West Virginia. Now that's right here in the United States.

Afghanistan is a country the size of Texas. Bin laden is determined to avoid being captured, at least for as long as possible, and he's surrounded by a lot of -- you know, obviously quite a good support structure.

So impossible to predict the future, but it seems to me that we'll been looking for several more months before we actually find him Paula.

ZAHN: Point well taken. Peter Bergen, it's always good to see you. Thanks so much.

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