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American Morning

Bin Laden and Followers Believed Trapped in Mountains of Tora Bora; Tape U.S. Released Yesterday Looks Very Much Like Amateur Home Video

Aired December 14, 2001 - 07:00   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.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Right now we're going to begin on the war front. Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda followers are believed trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. U.S. and opposition forces are said to be closing in on all sides and U.S. war planes are hitting hard from above.

Our Brent Sadler is in Tora Bora with a battlefield update -- Brent, what's the latest?

BRENT SADLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

Yes, indeed, it looks like that's exactly the case, really concentrated heavy U.S. air power being used against those mountains behind you. Let me just take a look with the camera here, the live shot, and go to those ridges over there and you'll take a look at the smoke hanging over those ridges. And that's where the firepower has been most intense today from repeated air strikes against al Qaeda positions in there, with reports, as you say, that the amount of area that al Qaeda can operate is being reduced by the hour.

We've seen wave after wave of war planes come in. If you take a look at video taken throughout the day, palls of smoke, mushroom clouds, tremendous explosions, some single bombs, some pattern bombs, really shaking through the valleys and the most spectacular show of U.S. air power we've seen in two weeks of bombing here.

Now, also this day the Eastern Alliance Afghan forces opened up some access for the media and CNN, along with other organizations, were taken to a forward position to show how the Eastern Alliance had supposedly retaken area that had been in dispute with firefights a couple of days ago. And it proved to be not the case, because al Qaeda, even after all the heavy bombing that I've just been talking about, not just today but for the past two weeks, al Qaeda was still able to shoot at those journalists who had gone to visit that forward position.

Now, shortly after al Qaeda had opened up, CNN's Ben Wedeman, my Arabic speaking colleague, managed to get hold of a radio and if we can bring that video up we can show Ben Wedeman talking directly by radio to al Qaeda terrorists a short distance away.

And Ben Wedeman asks them, first of all, about their surrender, whether or not there was a possibility of them surrendering. The al Qaeda voice at the other end of the radio said that was all lies. Ben Wedeman also asked whether or not they were going to be leaving the area and the al Qaeda voice at the other end said no, we are doing fine. Asked about Osama bin Laden's whereabouts, the radio then went dead.

So some very important intriguing responses from al Qaeda there, those comments coming a short time after journalists came under fire and, indeed, after all this day of continuous and sustained bombing by U.S. war planes.

Back to you, Paula.

ZAHN: Brent, let's talk a little bit about the weather that is expected to head into the area today, reports of a severe weather system, a cold weather system moving in there and the fear that perhaps Osama bin Laden, if he's presumed to be there, and his followers, will retreat to the hills.

How much will that complicate the mission we're talking about here?

SADLER: Well, Paula, I can tell you that behind me, you can't see it so well now, but in daylight, certainly the snow line had dropped. There was a heavy snowfall. A bitter wind was blowing through here and poor visibility. The poor visibility, in actual fact, probably helps special force operations, which we understand from various sources here and in the United States are active in the hunt for bin Laden, are active in trying to pinpoint targets for U.S. war planes to hit.

So the weather certainly has an impact on that. We understand from Pakistan radio, a report we picked up here a couple of hours ago, that according to Pakistani news reports, a couple of dozen or so Arabs, it's described, former al Qaeda or rather al Qaeda operatives, have been picked up on the Pakistani side.

We must remember, of course, that Pakistan, the border, is behind the highest peaks on those mountains and there was always a concern that al Qaeda and possibly bin Laden himself might be able to escape across that border into Pakistan.

But Pakistan, we know, sent helicopter gunships and troop reinforcements about a week ago to make sure that entire area was bottled up -- Paula.

ZAHN: Brent Sadler, thanks so much for the update.

So, the question this morning is does the U.S. have Osama bin Laden where it wants him?

Let's turn now to CNN military analyst General Wesley Clark in Little Rock, Arkansas this morning.

Thanks for joining us this morning, sir.

So what do you make of these reports that Osama bin Laden might, in fact, be surrounded by Alliance forces and U.S. special forces?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), FORMER NATO SUPREME COMMANDER: Paula, it sounds very encouraging. And I say that not only because of the reports, but also because the administration itself has been very, very careful to downplay expectations throughout this conflict. And they're now beginning to say that they're increasingly confident that he's there. They must have pretty good evidence. There must be pretty good indicators that he really is there.

So now it's a matter of a little cooperation from the weather, some good work by the Pakistanis, some alert aircraft overhead and some brave men on the ground closing in on him.

ZAHN: Well, we know we've got the brave men on the ground. Let's go back to the first issue raised, which is the cooperation of the weather. And it would appear from what Brent Sadler just had to say that the severe winter storm system is heading into the area of Tora Bora. What are your concerns about that?

CLARK: Well, I think it could help and hurt. It could make it much harder for Osama bin Laden to escape over the mountain ridges, for example. But if the visibility is so severe that it shuts down our ability to use our thermal imaging devices, it restricts our ability to engage at long range, then it might prolong the fight.

As long as we're in there and we're up close and as long as we've got support from the Pakistanis, he's not going to get away. But it could prolong it.

ZAHN: You say as long as the U.S. has the support of Pakistan. Do you have any doubts about that this morning?

CLARK: No, I don't have any doubts about the intent to support, but any time you're in a fight like this there are many possible things that can go wrong. I mean we've seen this in military operation after military operation. It's a matter of alertness. It's a matter of individual soldier discipline. It's a matter of skill of small unit commanders and where they position their forces. It's a matter of the reliability of the command.

And we've heard reports that some two dozen al Qaeda fighters have been picked up, but of course there's no reports that others may have not been picked up. We have no way of knowing that.

And so we just have to be cautious in our expectations. It certainly sounds encouraging. It sounds like everything is going the right way but I know our men and women there and our commanders and our leaders understand that it's not over till it's over.

ZAHN: I think one of the most interesting pieces of information to have come to us is from our own reporter Ben Wedeman. I don't know whether you just caught Brent Sadler's report, but we just showed the video of a conversation that correspondent Ben Wedeman had on a radio, a two way radio, with someone that makes up the al Qaeda forces, obviously not saying anything about surrender. The radio actually went dead when Ben asked him about whether Osama bin Laden was there. Give us your insights into the significance of this conversation with a reporter on the front lines? What does that mean?

CLARK: Well, I think these guys are desperate to get their message out. They know they're surrounded. They know they're nearly finished and they're trying to keep up their own morale and trying to make a picture of a heroic last stand. Of course, it isn't. These people have done a despicable deed and they've enslaved a nation to boot. And now they must be very surprised that the Afghans whom they had under their thumb have turned so vigorously against them.

And I have to say I'm very, very proud of the work of the men in the special forces who have encouraged and led and worked with the various Pashtun tribesmen in the area and really helped to orchestrate all of this, because it shows, it shows the special forces doing exactly what they should be doing. And no doubt those al Qaeda fighters are desperate. They're surprised. They're very, very depressed and they're trying to put the best face on things in their final hours, it would seem.

ZAHN: General Clark, always good of you to join us at this hour.

CLARK: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thanks again for your time this morning.

Unlike the propaganda tapes we had seen in recent months from Osama bin Laden, the tape the U.S. released yesterday looks very much like an amateur home video. It is hard to hear. The images are shaky and dark. But the translation is chilling.

CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor has some of the most revealing moments.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Recorded in early November, the tape shows Osama bin Laden with Shaykh Suleyman (ph), a visitor from Saudi Arabia. Over dinner they laugh and celebrate the attacks, with bin Laden saying the death toll far exceeded his fondest hopes.

OSAMA BIN LADEN, AL QAEDA LEADER: We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

ENSOR: The complete collapse of the towers was something not even bin Laden, who once worked in his family's construction business, could predict. Repeatedly on the tape, bin Laden makes clear he helped organize the attacks. He names Mohammed Atta as being in charge of the hijackers and says many of them did not know until moments before that they would die on that day.

BIN LADEN: The brothers who conducted the operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation and we asked each of them to go to America but they didn't know anything about the operation, not even one letter. But they were trained and we did not reveal the operation to them until they are there and just before they boarded the planes.

ENSOR: Throughout the tape, bin Laden and his guests and others are clearly in a jovial mood, praising Allah and talking about the joy they and others felt when they heard that their plot had succeeded so dramatically. Bin Laden speaks explicitly of knowing in advance when the attacks would come.

BIN LADEN: We were at (UNINTELLIGIBLE) when the event took place. We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on.

ENSOR: There is also a chilling suggestion that additional attacks may be planned, but it comes from bin Laden's friend, Shaykh Suleyman.

SHAYKH: No doubt it is a clear victory. Allah has bestowed on us... honor on us... and he will give us blessing and more victory during this holy month of Ramadan. And this is what everyone is hoping for. Thank Allah America came out of its caves. We hit her the first hit and the next one will hit her with the hands of the believers, the good believers, the strong believers.

ENSOR (on camera): U.S. officials also point to bin Laden, saying that not even his spokesman, his close aide, knew that the attacks were coming until after he'd heard about it on the radio. That underscores, officials say, how compartmentalized information has been in al Qaeda and thus what a difficult intelligence target it has been, until now.

David Ensor, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: Still to come, more on the bin Laden tape. Hear with New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has to say about it live, coming up next. Also ahead in a magazine near you, a new ad campaign focused on bin Laden. That actually hits stores shelves soon. And a little bit later on, Miles O'Brien will show us how U.S. forces are finding those caves in Afghanistan. The cutting edge technology, as CNN continues. Stay with us.

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