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American Morning
Al Qaeda Arrest
Aired November 22, 2002 - 07:04 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: More now on our top story this morning, the capture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. U.S. officials say the arrest could give them a chance to gather crucial, new intelligence about al Qaeda.
Let's get the very latest now from our own State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel.
Good morning -- Andrea. How much do investigators really know about this guy?
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, quite a bit, Paula. They know that he was a key operational planner for al Qaeda, responsible for developing the maritime terrorist attacks stretching all the way from the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain way over to Asia near Singapore near the Strait of Malacca.
This is a guy whose title, if you will, is the chief of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf. He is a native of Saudi Arabia, intelligence officials say, though he ran his operations out of Yemen. In the 1980s, he was a mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan who fought with bin Laden.
He's also known to be an explosives expert. His handiwork designed a powerful bomb, which, if you'll remember, blew a 40-foot hole in the side of the USS Cole back in October of 2000 -- Paula.
ZAHN: Now, what is interesting are the varying accounts, Andrea, this morning of why the government withheld the news of his capture, and I want you to walk through the various theories and what you're being is the truth of all of that.
KOPPEL: Well, our viewers may remember this story broke a week ago. Last Friday, we heard that a key al Qaeda figure had been captured, someone in the top dozen in the hierarchy of the al Qaeda terrorist network.
The news was kept -- at least his name was kept quiet, we're told, because they wanted to keep as much information as they were getting from al-Nashiri. And they said he is talking away from other al Qaeda members. Without tipping their hand, this was real-time information they were getting about plots that had been planned, in the works.
And they were also hoping, Paula, that some of these guys would actually call him, because as you can know, they've been monitoring cell phones and satellite phones. And so, they were really hoping to take as much advantage of knowing that they had him before other al Qaeda operatives did.
As one source told me, every hour of every day helped -- Paula.
ZAHN: What are the chances that al-Nashiri is making up this stuff to cause panic?
KOPPEL: Well, that is absolutely a possibility, but one thing that investigators do do is double-check, triple-check, quadruple- check with other al Qaeda operatives that they already have in custody, so that they can cross-check their information.
ZAHN: All right, Andrea Koppel, thanks for that live update -- appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired November 22, 2002 - 07:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: More now on our top story this morning, the capture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. U.S. officials say the arrest could give them a chance to gather crucial, new intelligence about al Qaeda.
Let's get the very latest now from our own State Department correspondent, Andrea Koppel.
Good morning -- Andrea. How much do investigators really know about this guy?
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, quite a bit, Paula. They know that he was a key operational planner for al Qaeda, responsible for developing the maritime terrorist attacks stretching all the way from the Strait of Gibraltar in Spain way over to Asia near Singapore near the Strait of Malacca.
This is a guy whose title, if you will, is the chief of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf. He is a native of Saudi Arabia, intelligence officials say, though he ran his operations out of Yemen. In the 1980s, he was a mujahideen fighter in Afghanistan who fought with bin Laden.
He's also known to be an explosives expert. His handiwork designed a powerful bomb, which, if you'll remember, blew a 40-foot hole in the side of the USS Cole back in October of 2000 -- Paula.
ZAHN: Now, what is interesting are the varying accounts, Andrea, this morning of why the government withheld the news of his capture, and I want you to walk through the various theories and what you're being is the truth of all of that.
KOPPEL: Well, our viewers may remember this story broke a week ago. Last Friday, we heard that a key al Qaeda figure had been captured, someone in the top dozen in the hierarchy of the al Qaeda terrorist network.
The news was kept -- at least his name was kept quiet, we're told, because they wanted to keep as much information as they were getting from al-Nashiri. And they said he is talking away from other al Qaeda members. Without tipping their hand, this was real-time information they were getting about plots that had been planned, in the works.
And they were also hoping, Paula, that some of these guys would actually call him, because as you can know, they've been monitoring cell phones and satellite phones. And so, they were really hoping to take as much advantage of knowing that they had him before other al Qaeda operatives did.
As one source told me, every hour of every day helped -- Paula.
ZAHN: What are the chances that al-Nashiri is making up this stuff to cause panic?
KOPPEL: Well, that is absolutely a possibility, but one thing that investigators do do is double-check, triple-check, quadruple- check with other al Qaeda operatives that they already have in custody, so that they can cross-check their information.
ZAHN: All right, Andrea Koppel, thanks for that live update -- appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
