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CNN Live At Daybreak
Finding or Catching Bin Laden Will Be Difficult
Aired November 15, 2001 - 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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Seizing upon the military success in Afghanistan, the U.S. commander there is preparing a new plan for tracking down Osama bin Laden, the leaders of the al Qaeda terrorist network and their supporters. But how will the hunt for bin Laden end?
CNN's David Mattingly lays out how difficult that operation could be.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The occupation of Kabul and other Afghan cities offers new opportunities in finding Osama bin Laden, combining spy technology now with face to face investigations. There's the interrogation of civilians. Suspected Taliban collaborators, the search for physical evidence could pinpoint safe houses and hiding places.
U.S. forces also gained access to area airfields, possible staging areas for unmanned intelligence gathering aircraft.
GEN. DAVID GRANGE (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This allows us to provide 24-hour surveillance over areas of interest that we're trying to gather intelligence, for instance, on a location on the al Qaeda terrorist leader as an example, without endangering pilots.
MATTINGLY: Such information could be vital if bin Laden and his al Qaeda supporters attempt to vanish into the forbidden Afghan landscape into rugged mountains in a seemingly vast network of caves and tunnels. Some developed for military use over years of warfare, deep inside mountains, capable of housing troops, storing ammunition, weapons and fuel.
Some, experts believe, with ventilation systems, places bin Laden could remain well secured and well armed.
GRANGE: And even though we have -- we have advanced our bunker busting capability of our warheads from airstrikes or missiles, some of them are so deep that you still can't get to them. So there's going to be some complexes that if you know they're someone in it, you have to go in and get them out or just kill them by other means.
MATTINGLY: U.S. forces will rely on what's called MASINT, Measurement And Signatures Intelligence. Information from aerial and satellite surveillance that measures surface structures, even shadows, to detect activity and determine targets.
MASINT can measure heat and other admissions making caves easier to spot as the weather gets colder, helping troops figure out which are occupied and what's inside.
GRANGE: It's just another means to give you some indicators on the intelligence picture. When you combine that with human intelligence and signal intercept, you know, signal intelligence, you really can put together a pretty good picture.
MATTINGLY (on camera): But such technological advantages, so far, have failed to pinpoint bin Laden. Experts say he only travels at night, never stays in one location and no longer uses radio or satellite telephones that could give away his position. More and more, success relies on the human element, physically tracking him down, which remains the biggest challenge.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think the ability to get inside his network is actually zilch, because the people around bin Laden have known each other for years. They've fought together for a long time. It's not -- it's not easy to penetrate. It's not easy to put a spy inside that network.
MATTINGLY (voice-over): But bin Laden does want to be heard. Taped video statements to the Al Jazeera network are delivered by a string of couriers, so secretive, it could be impossible for intelligence operatives to retrace their steps.
The only outside contact has been with a Pakistani journalist.
HAMAD MIR, PAKISTANI JOURNALIST: He was much confident and he was very relaxed.
MATTINGLY: A case of extraordinary access.
BERGEN: They showed quite a lot of confidence. He was allowing somebody from outside the inner circle to come in and actually see him. There's a rather negative that you can read into the fact that he allowed this interview to happen. I think that he, bin Laden, has sort of decided to die in this present conflict. In fact, he's made statements sort of to that effect.
MATTINGLY: But when and where. There is some speculation bin Laden has left the country, but Pakistani officials believe bin Laden is on the run still in Afghanistan, possibly near the city of Kandahar. And at this stage, it's the question of how the hunt for bin Laden might end that worries observers most.
BERGEN: At a certain point, inevitably, he will be caught. The question is at what kind of timeframe that is and does he have some kind of Nazi surprise in store for whatever kind of Northern Alliance U.S. ground forces go after him.
MATTINGLY: That surprise could be a weapon of mass destruction. Chemical, biological or nuclear nature that bin Laden now claims to possess. David Mattingly, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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