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American Morning

Al Qaeda Videotapes Give View Into Group's Military Type of Training

Aired August 21, 2002 - 09:17   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: These Al Qaeda videotapes certainly give us a rather incredible insight and a view into the terrorist group's military type of training. We have see them throughout the morning conducting quick-strike raids, and kidnappings and assassinations. The pictures certainly are compelling, but how good are the forces.
In Chicago, CNN military analyst, retired Army Brigadier General David Grange is our guest.

General, good to see you again. Good morning to you.

BRIG. GEN. DAVID GRANGE, (RET.) CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning.

HEMMER: Size it up for us. You look at them, you watch them in their training, you see them carry out these acts, and you think what, according to their abilities?

GRANGE: Well, there is some strengths, there is some weaknesses. There is a lot of good infantry training. Some is specific training for terrorist-type attacks, like hostage taking, assassinations, but a lot of tapes show good infantry movement and attacks.

HEMMER: One think I don't think you can discern, though, is motivation. Can you gauge that at all from watching videotape?

GRANGE: Somewhat. Attitudes during training, looking at the different -- the intensity, when you can get a close-up shot of some of the fighters. You hit it right on the head. You can train people all you want, but if they are not motivated, if they don't feel they have a purpose, than that it part of their capability just as well as their ability to shoot a weapon.

HEMMER: You said a few thing in piece we just saw with Nic Robertson before we went to commercial. I want to pick on that a little bit here. What do you take from fact that these are offensive operations? What should be gauged from that?

GRANGE: Well, almost all terrorist operations are offensive in nature. You know, offensive -- to win, you have to be on offense. And again, they are doing small offensive operations for an economy of force. They are a small force. They are going to take on the military or police of countries that are more powerful, so they have to be on the offensive, and it's all quick strike -- go in, do it quickly, then get out. HEMMER: Another thing you point out is the ethnic reputation. What is significant about that, in your view?

GRANGE: If you look at tape, you see people running, stripped down to the waist with weapons over their head, through the water, kind of a drill. It may have been a weeding-out process, some type of a selection process to get the best of the best from their organization. You look at the different types of characteristics of the people that are represented, you see people it looks like from part of sub-Sahara Africa, from Europe, and you see people with blondish beards, you see people of Mongolian descent maybe, and of course southwest Asia. So that's a far reach of recruitment from what these tapes...

HEMMER: And it would also seem to think that if you are trying to thwart the potential for a future attack may be more difficult for Western governments, the United States to go ahead and step in if you can't necessarily set up some sort of profile of all Al Qaeda members, correct?

GRANGE: That's right. Some of these people can infiltrate in certain areas of world very easily. So it's not a distinguished characteristic that sets this whole group apart.

HEMMER: Do you think, though, general, knowing that some of the tapes are four years old, maybe older than that, how concerned would you be in fact, ticks getting better over that period?

GRANGE: I'd be concerned. Like us, our military constantly improves it's tactics, techniques and procedures, and I am sure that they are doing the same thing. They do very well at adapting to former fights and they adapt their tactics to what is the present day requirement.

HEMMER: In a nutshell, do you think that U.S. officials and those in the Pentagon watching these tapes have gleaned a lot more insight to military tactics or not?

GRANGE: I think we know that tactics, our government knows the tactics, our military. What these tapes show is the imaging, which bring its home you to that, this is a determined foe, we have to keep on the fight, and they are going to continue to improve and do bad things. We have to go after them.

HEMMER: All right.

Thank you, General David Grange in Chicago.

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