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American Morning

Abu Zubaydah Has Emerged as Key Al Qaeda Figure

Aired February 15, 2002 - 07:10   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: We're going to move on to the issue of terror now. Abu Zubaydah has emerged as a key al Qaeda figure. He is said to be chief of operations for the terror network and may now be organizing terror sleeper cells to carry out yet new attacks against U.S. targets.

U.S. officials say there is evidence Zubaydah is hiding in Pakistan.

Well, meanwhile, authorities in Iran are questioning some of the reported 150 people arrested there about ties to al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Joining us now from Washington, CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen and terrorism expert Bill Cowen. Good morning to both of you. Thanks for being with us.

PETER BERGEN, TERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning.

BILL COWEN, TERRORISM EXPERT: Good morning.

ZAHN: All right, just for starters, why don't we put up on the screen what we do know about Zubaydah and what we don't. According to a top law enforcement official yesterday in the "New York Times," this guy is "as dangerous as anyone we are looking for, including bin Laden. But it's scary how little we know."

Look at this list here. He is 30 years old, a top aide of bin Laden since the 1990s, replaced Muhammad Atef as chief of military operations, used fake passports and false identities and is directly linked to September 11.

Why can't we find him, Bill?

COWEN: Well, this guy is smart, Paula, no question about it. He's been doing this for a little while. He knows how to use fake identities. He knows how to keep a very low profile. He's accomplished. He's confident of himself, I'm sure. He hasn't let himself get too visible and he can move around the world. He knows when he's in danger. He knows how to move through airports, through security checkpoints. When something's not right he probably backs out.

I would suggest that this guy, indeed, is very, very dangerous. ZAHN: Peter, we know authorities have updated pictures of him yet they have not released them. If, in fact, he is on their most wanted list, why aren't authorities showing us what he looks like so we can help them track him down?

I don't quite know. I don't quite know that, Paula. But one thing I'd like to say about this guy is that he, he sort of came to prominence within the last year or two. I mean, as you say, he's 30. He's a relatively young man for the rather important role he plays.

The first time that he really came on the radar screen was in the testimony of somebody called Ahmed Ressam, who is the guy who was arrested near Seattle who was planning to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the time of the new millennium.

Ressam, in his court testimony, said that Abu Zubaydah played a very critical role in the sense that he was the person you went to in Pakistan before you transferred to the bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan. And so he was really sort of the gate keeper to those training camps. And then when you had finished at the training camp, you went back to him and he would give you some kind of task in the future.

So I think the description of him as the operational leader is a very accurate one.

ZAHN: And Bill...

COWEN: Paula, if I might, if you don't mind, I'd like to add, regarding the photos, why they're not out there yet. There might be two plausible reasons. One is that if, indeed, they were released, it might compromise whatever the source was. That is, if he saw a picture of himself, he may know where that picture was taken and who took it. So we may have a source problem here.

And the other perhaps plausible reason is that we may not want to catch this guy right now because we may be on his tail or close to being on his tail and we know that if we are, he's going to lead us to some of the people that we want to find.

So getting close to him, not having him captured, getting close to him and being able to follow him as he moves around to some of these sleeper cells would be a real coup for us.

ZAHN: Bill, if you could, follow up on the point Peter was making about the fact that this guy was in charge of the training camps. He kept track of who was going in and out of them. He has been apparently able to travel freely, obviously without getting caught and keeping tabs on various sleeper cells. You have compared that, actually, Bill, to Secretary Rumsfeld going to Afghanistan to meet with U.S. troops. What do you mean by that?

COWEN: Well, I mean having a senior leader get out and go see his people, pat them on the back, shake their hands, tell them they're doing a good job, have them do what you want them to do, maintaining some kind of visibility from the top levels down. It's interesting that he got to see a lot of people coming and going from these camps because, again, going back to the fact that he's probably a pretty sharp guy, he knows that of those thousands of people who went through which ones are really sharp, which ones are capable, motivated, able to do things. And he's probably got a cadre of people out there that he witnessed, observed, met who he can rely on, in fact, to go see, to start talking about accomplishing missions, putting sleeper cells together, whatever.

He needs to get out and grip and grin a little bit now and then to make sure they all know leadership still exists and he is exercising control.

ZAHN: Peter, a very quick reaction to the rounding up of 150 of those potential suspects in Iran that may have links to al Qaeda? Apparently the U.S. is a little cynical about these claims. What do you think?

Well, apparently the U.S. is cynical about the claims. But I would guess that it's accurate and it's an interesting, since we're calling Iran part of the axis of evil, at least the president is, obviously it may be something of a response to that statement.

ZAHN: All right, we're going to have to leave it there this morning.

Peter Bergen, as always, good to have you on. And I think, Bill, this is your first appearance here on A.M.

COWEN: It is.

ZAHN: Glad to have you with us, as well.

COWEN: Thank you, Paula.

ZAHN: Thank you for your time.

Let's go back to Jack, now.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Paula.

More now on that firefight in Afghanistan where two U.S. troops were injured.

When American soldiers came under intense fire at the Kandahar Airport earlier in the week, Apache helicopters at the base were mobilized to fly directly toward the hostile fire.

CNN's Martin Savidge is with one of the U.S. Apache helicopter pilots now and he joins us live from Kandahar, sporting that fine new haircut -- Marty, I'm looking forward to this. Give us a tour.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hello, Jack.

We're out here on the flight line for the helicopters here that are, many of them that are lined up. About the meanest, baddest bird in the air these days is the Apache, the AH-64-A or Apache attack helicopter. This is one of them here in the background here.

It is armed with hell fire missiles, other missiles and also it's got a 30 millimeter chain gun. It's a very, very lethal weapon. It also has night vision. That's one of the reasons it is part of the QRF here. That is military terminology for quick reaction force.

Say hello to Seth Pervell (ph), everyone. Good morning to you, sir.

SETH PERVELL: Good morning.

SAVIDGE: The reason we're talking to Seth is not only are you a pilot here, but you are a former American Airlines pilot. Of course, everyone knows the connection of the two airliners that were lost that day as part of September 11. For you now, being a pilot, formerly with American Airlines, now with the army, it has to be significant to be here in Afghanistan.

PERVELL: Absolutely. That moment in September when we saw all the tragedy happening at the World Trade Center, it was real personal when we found out the method in which the terrorists did what they did. And that could have been anybody from -- any of the crew members from American who could have been in that cockpit.

SAVIDGE: Now, you have remembered the crew members from those two flights, that's Flight 11 and Flight 77, in a special way. Tell us about it.

PERVELL: Correct. I'm carrying four hell fires, two on each pylon. On the right pylon I've chalked on "in memory of the crew members of Flight 11." That's John Ogonowski and his first officer, Tom McGuinness. On the left side, the two hell fires have in memory of Captain Charles Burlingame III and his first officer, Dave Charlebois.

SAVIDGE: So what is the idea here? Is this going to be vengeance for you?

PERVELL: No, it's not so much vengeance as it is giving me an edge. You know, as a combat fighter pilot, anything that gives you the edge is significant. In this case, it makes each one of those missile shots all the more personal and thus significant.

SAVIDGE: Have you been out flying and what's it been like for you?

PERVELL: Yes, I've been up about eight times. I've had eights flights on different missions here.

SAVIDGE: What do you worry about up there?

PERVELL: Well, the first week it was, you know, being shot. You know, everything we've done so far in the way of training has been notional. Now it's the real thing. You get used to that. The weapons systems and the aircraft's survivability systems really help a lot. Our confidence are high on that. Then the environmental threat, the dust, the high altitude, is something we deal with. Our training, again, has given us the capability to deal with that. But it's something that we're still concerned about every time we go out.

SAVIDGE: All right, Chief Warrant Officer Seth Pervell, thank you very much for talking to us this morning.

CAFFERTY: Thank you.

SAVIDGE: We appreciate it.

And I mentioned that chain gun, which is the weapon that they most commonly use, fires 600 plus rounds a minute, Jack. Each one of those rounds has the explosive power and detonation capability of a single hand grenade. That gives you some idea why this is the baddest bird in the air in Afghanistan -- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Indeed.

Marty, that's great stuff. Thank you very much.

Martin Savidge on the ground at Kandahar in Afghanistan.

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