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American Morning

U.S., British Troops Trying to Trap bin Laden

Aired May 13, 2002 - 07:17   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: Is the U.S. bracing for more terror attacks on America? Well, a "Time" magazine report says shopping malls, restaurants and other so-called soft targets could be next on Osama bin Laden's hit list. And Pakistan is said to be resisting U.S. pressure to attack al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Barbara Starr joins us now from the Pentagon with the very latest. Let's start off with the soft target warnings this morning. What are officials there making of it?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, this isn't the first time they have heard about it, Paula. This apparently all comes from Abu Zubaida, the al Qaeda operations chief, who was captured by U.S. officials in Pakistan several weeks ago. He has talked about this before. The question is whether or not he is telling the truth.

Is he making these allegations of these threats simply to, you know, get U.S. intelligence and law enforcement all spun up and running around? Or is there really something all to it?

So these types of warnings are made public, because the U.S. government feels it's the right thing to do. But they are warning they are not sure about their credibility.

Now, in Afghanistan over the weekend, British forces operating in eastern Afghanistan once again blew up a huge stockpile of weapons along the eastern border. They have been there for about two weeks. This is all part of the public phase of the war in Afghanistan. And publicly, the Bush administration still says it does not know where Osama bin Laden is.

But privately, there is a strategy that's beginning to emerge that U.S. military and intelligence officials are pursuing very intensively behind the scenes. It centers around the working assumption that Osama bin Laden is moving across this border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, moving back and forth into the tribal regions of Pakistan, where the al Qaeda has a lot of ongoing support.

In fact, the U.S. believes that there are significant numbers of al Qaeda in this tribal region area, al Qaeda that has fled Afghanistan since the fighting there. But the whole notion of asking Pakistani President Musharraf to go into these tribal areas to pursue the al Qaeda is very difficult. The tribes have already promised to fight any U.S. military action in their homeland areas, and the Pakistanis know that the al Qaeda, under Osama bin Laden, have learned their lesson. They are not likely to regroup in large areas and make themselves an easy target.

So where does this all stand right now? Well, a small number of U.S. personnel, military and CIA, continue to sit inside Pakistan just along the border watching for anybody that might cross over.

And on the Afghan side, those 1,000 troops, they have a more strategic goal right now than just blowing up caves full of weapons and ammunition. By moving south along the border, what they hope to really do is drive bin Laden from the areas where he has a lot of support in the more northern part of the border. The idea is this: If bin Laden is really there in the region, he will be forced to move now, and he will run into U.S. and coalition troops that will be waiting for him wherever he goes -- Paula.

ZAHN: Barbara Starr, thanks for the update.

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