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CNN Live At Daybreak
Handwritten Letter Attributed to Bin Laden Calls for Holy War
Aired November 02, 2001 - 07:20 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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A letter said to be from Osama bin Laden condemns Pakistan's support of the U.S. war on terrorism and it calls on Muslims worldwide to unite. The letter, dated November 1, was hand delivered to the offices of the Arab network Al Jazeera. There's been no confirmation of its authenticity, but Al Jazeera has received other communications from bin Laden and it says the signature appears to be authentic.
CNN Terrorism Expert Peter Bergen joins us from Washington with some insight. Peter, good to see you again.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Good to see you, Miles.
O'BRIEN: What's your best take on this? Is this an authentic letter? Could this have been written, perhaps, before September 11?
BERGEN: Well, if the letter is authentic, which in my opinion it may well be, the signature on that letter matches other letters that bin Laden has publicly released. Of course, you can always fake something that's been publicly released. But I have letters in my possession, including one from 1998, which references the Indian nuclear explosion and calls on Pakistan to get its own nuclear weapon. And if you look at that letter, the signature on that letter appears to be pretty similar to the letter that we're seeing that was released yesterday, Miles.
So I think, of course, it's always easy to fake something, but the rhetoric in the letter that was released yesterday matches previous bin Laden rhetoric and the signature appears to be authentic -- Miles.
O'BRIEN: The excerpt which has struck a lot of people is this one. "The world has split into two parts, the part under the banner of the cross, as the head of the infidels, Bush, has said. And the other part stands onto the banner of Islam."
Clearly seeming to call for a holy war here. That, I suppose, is not a surprise to the likes of you.
BERGEN: Well, I mean the interesting thing is that he seems to have turned against Pakistan, which for a long time, of course, Pakistan has been somewhat instrumental in the rise of the Taliban that protects bin Laden and so the fact that he's turning against the Pakistani government because of its cooperation with the U.S.-led coalition is, I think, news in itself, Miles.
O'BRIEN: Is it possible this could be aimed at people who are perhaps on the conservative side of Islam in Pakistan but nevertheless still supporters of Musharraf and may perhaps tilt them in the other direction?
BERGEN: Well, I mean that may well be its intent. One thing that surprised me, Miles, in a way is that the demonstrations that we've seen in Pakistan, while there have been demonstrations, you aren't seeing hundreds of thousands or millions of people taking to the streets in support of bin Laden, which may be his aim.
The demonstrations have been relatively small and I think if his aim has been to stir up tremendous anti-American feeling in Pakistan, I don't think that has happened yet, Miles.
O'BRIEN: All right, to what extent is there a message in the medium here? We've had two previous communiques on videotape. In this case it's handwritten. What should we read into that, if you will?
BERGEN: My personal opinion is if you -- a handwritten letter is just, if you're very concerned about his security, which presumably he is right now, handwriting a letter and taking it by courier just means that you've got far less people involved. To shoot a videotape you've got to involve somebody to shoot it and you've got -- it may say, in fact, that he's somewhat compromised or sort of on the run, if you will.
That's assuming the letter is authentic, which, of course, we're not, we can't directly confirm. But it does seem to fit with his other communications, Miles.
O'BRIEN: What's your best inkling? Is he alive and still in hiding, do you think?
BERGEN: You know, one thing that struck me, Miles, about the videotaped statements that were made by his spokesman, Abu Rhat some time ago, is he didn't say the obvious thing, which is Osama bin Laden is alive and well.
We have had indications, you know, in terms of Al Jazeera and CNN submitting questions to bin Laden that may sort of imply that he's still alive. You can't submit questions to somebody who's dead, obviously. I mean, you know, in the end it's anybody's guess. But I think this letter goes some way to confirming the fact that he's alive.
O'BRIEN: Peter Bergen is one of our terrorism experts. We appreciate you being with us this morning, Peter.
BERGEN: Thank you, Miles.
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