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American Morning

Tape Shows Sophistication of al Qaeda

Aired August 22, 2002 - 08:07   ET

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

PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Tapes that show bomb making, old news, right? Well, you can find it on the Internet. It's a scandal we already know is out there. But in today's installment of CNN's special investigative series on Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, correspondent Nic Robertson reveals how videotape is used to train terror teams to make the deadly bombs.
The detail and the ease of it is especially chilling in the hands of these people.

Nic Robertson joins us now from CNN Center.

Good morning, Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about more of what is in the second part of your series. I've heard a number of counter-terrorism experts suggest that what they were surprised by was the level of sophistication of these trainers on film. Can you expand on that?

ROBERTSON: Sophistication, indeed, and referring to the videotapes we show today showing how to make TNT, or at least parts of how to make TNT, one of the things that surprised the experts most of all was that it showed how to make detonators. It showed that the terrorists are able to make detonators. And that concerns experts greatly because in the past terrorists have not been able to make detonators before.

This is just another way that they will be able to avoid detection. So they have the training tape. They have that goes with it a list of chemicals, easy to get chemicals. It tells them that they can get these substances in pharmacies, in hardware stores. And, for example, if they can't find it readily available, it tells them, for example, if you can't find this chemical, you can make it out of soap.

So the sophistication that's gone into giving the al Qaeda operatives all the information they need to keep hidden, to keep essentially their activities below the radar, if you will, of intelligence organizations throughout the world, the level of sophistication that's gone into that, that is what concerns the experts.

ZAHN: Is there any evidence to suggest post-September 11 that we've seen any members of al Qaeda actually put these lessons to the test? ROBERTSON: Well, the person who made Richard Reid's bomb, the gentleman who was on the aircraft with the explosives in his shoes, has yet to be tracked down. It's not clear at all if the TNT that's being manufactured on this tape is any way similar to the explosives in his shoes. The analysts we talked to say to get a full chemical analysis of what is made on this videotape, they would have to replicate all those steps and put it all together.

So not clear. But there have, around the world, arrests in Germany in December 2000 of four suspected al Qaeda members who when investigators looked more closely into what they had, into their possessions, they found that there were a collection of chemicals there. The experts said those were exactly the type of chemicals that could be turned into a bomb.

ZAHN: Now, the other thing that was pointed out is that in the absence of these field tests I guess no one really can tell just how powerful these concoctions were. But can you tell by looking at the tape and listening to some of the audio on these tapes how experienced, like this guy is in the handling of explosives? How good is he?

ROBERTSON: The experts who looked at this said he was very experienced. The fact that he had got the craft of making pure TNT, detonators, fuses, down so tightly simplified in such a way as operatives could understand it, an indication that he was skilled. But one chemical expert said just look at the way he folds the filter paper that he uses to filtrate some of the chemicals through. The way he does that, that's done by the -- in the hands of a professional, somebody who's handling that type of chemical laboratory equipment all the time.

So the assessment is these people know what they're doing. They're very skilled and experienced.

ZAHN: And I guess one obvious concern this all raises is the ability of these guys to disperse this stuff with radioactive material. What are the experts telling you?

ROBERTSON: Well, in some of the al Qaeda manuals, CNN picked up some al Qaeda manuals in an al Qaeda safe house in Kabul in November last year and again earlier this year. In some of those manuals there are detailed descriptions of how TNT is at the centerpiece of a radioactive dirty bomb.

The TNT manufactured in this videotape is a pure TNT. That's how the al Qaeda operatives describe it. That's a very high explosive TNT. And that's what experts say is needed for al Qaeda to make a radiological dirty bomb. That is a high explosive surrounded by a radioactive material. It's not a nuclear bomb. But when this high explosive TNT goes off, the radioactive material is dispersed over a large area and that's what makes this particular type of bomb of great concern.

ZAHN: Well, I'll tell you one thing, based on the experts we've actually interviewed on AMERICAN MORNING, Nic, this tape has had a profound impact because I guess it's the first time visually that any of these experts have had to get a sense of just how advanced these guys are.

ROBERTSON: Indeed.

ZAHN: Nic, we're going to leave it there. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow for the fifth part of your installment of this report, Explosive Force.

And tomorrow Nic Robertson will finish up this series on al Qaeda. He will report on the nature of the group, its goals, its motivations, why they hate Americans and others not like them so much. If you subscribe to the saying, that is, know thy enemy, this is a story worth telling.

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