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CNN Live At Daybreak

"Time's" Michael Elliot Speaks Road Map of Afghanistan

Aired November 05, 2001 - 06:22   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.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Want to bring you up to date on the latest on America's war on terror. And understanding the link between the Taliban and al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden can read like a house of mirrors or a maze, you never really know where all the doors seem to lead. This may help, and today we have this week's "Time Magazine." You're getting a look at it here. Michael Elliot from the magazine inked out a road map, but instead of lines, it's in words.

Let's take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL ELLIOT, "TIME MAGAZINE" : Al Qaeda is a network of terrorists which is headquartered in Afghanistan and whose nominal leader is Osama bin Laden. It has its roots in the fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan that started in 1979. Those who had gathered in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union had to decide what to do next. There was a very significant debate. And what they decided to do was to maintain the organization that they had built up against the Soviet Union and to use it to fight for a purer version of Islam.

We've discovered that a very extreme form of Islamic ideology, and I'm using the word ideology properly here because this is not necessarily a religious thing, called Takfir wal Hijra. This is at the heart of many of the key operatives of al Qaeda. This is a very, very radical form of political Islamic thought. The Takfiris blend into their host communities, they'll eat during Ramadan, they'll drink alcohol, they'll date women and that, of course, makes them extraordinarily difficult to find.

Passage through the camps is the only common thing that all members of the terrorist network have in common. And once people have passed through the camps, if the word goes out from Afghanistan here's the operation, he's in charge, you met him last year, as it were, everyone says, OK, fine, I remember him. He was in the camps, that's enough, that's established his credibility with me.

If there is one big lesson that people have learned -- should have learned since September the 11th it's this and it's an absolutely crucial point, we live in a world of globalization, we live in a world where goods and services, but much more importantly, where people can move all over the world with remarkable ease, with an ease and a freedom that's never been known before in human history. What we don't have are the criminal justice and law enforcement mechanisms on an international basis that are appropriate to a world of globalization in which people freely move from one country to another.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: And we'll hear from Michael Elliot a little bit later this morning. He'll be a guest in the 9:00 a.m. Eastern hour with Miles O'Brien and Paula Zahn.

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