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American Morning

More Alarming Information Coming From Most Senior Al-Qaeda Leader in U.S. Custody

Aired April 23, 2002 - 09:02   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: "Up Front" this morning, though, more alarming information coming from the most senior Al-Qaeda leader now in U.S. custody. CNN's Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr joins us with more. Good morning Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

While Abu Zubaydah (ph), the most senior Al-Qaeda official taken into custody in this war, has told his interrogators that yes indeed, he says the Al-Qaeda wants to make dirty bomb and in fact he says they know how to make one.

Now what should be understood right off the bat is these so- called dirty bombs are really radiological weapons. They are not nuclear weapons. They are explosives with radiological material in them, which spreads them when the device the detonated.

The threat that Zubaydah is talking about is very difficult to assess. U.S. officials have said for months that they know that the Al-Qaeda wants to either buy or make nuclear, chemical, biological, radiological weapons but so far there's no specific evidence that they have gotten their hands on any of these weapons. Some weeks ago, in fact, the U.S. intelligence community had already warned that it had concerns that the Al-Qaeda might at some point have tried to slip a radiological weapon into the United States. So this has all been out there for some time.

The question though is Zubaydah telling the truth? Of course, everyone will remember last week he said that banks in the northeastern of the United States were under threat by the Al-Qaeda so interrogators now say they are very skeptical of what he has been saying. That perhaps he is saying all of these things simply to make U.S. law enforcement react. But that doesn't mean, of course, that there isn't a threat out there from these radiological weapons. They are relatively easy to make and the U.S. intelligence community has already been assessing this threat for some time since September 11th. Their feeling is that it is U.S. ports that U.S. shipping is the most vulnerable to the possibility some day of a radiological device being sneaked into the United States - Paula.

ZAHN: And of course, as you know, there's so much concern about the level of inspections that are being done at our nation's ports and that's a subject we're going to plan to tackle a little bit later on in the week. Barbara Starr thanks so much for that update.

STARR: You're welcome.

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