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American Morning
Pakistan's Information Minister Denying Bin laden Being Hunted in Pakistan
Aired March 07, 2003 - 08:03 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: Turning now to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's information minister is now denying that bin Laden is being hunted in that country, saying, "There is no search going on." But American sources maintain that an aggressive search for the world's most wanted man is under way.
David Ensor joins us now from our Washington bureau chief with the very latest -- good morning, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officers and others are pursuing new leads, fairly aggressively, we understand, in an increasingly narrow area of Pakistan right along the Afghan border, and a little bit of a space in Afghanistan, as well.
The leads are narrowing the search down to just a few provinces of Pakistan in the northwest area. I think we have a map that may show you the area that we're talking about. We're talking about on this map as you see it, the red and yellow areas. We're told that the new leads are causing investigators to believe that bin Laden is in that yellow or red area and there's a little bit of overlap into Afghanistan, as well.
There have been reports he was in Baluchistan, seen here in green, but my sources tell me that they can pretty much rule that out.
Now, these leads are coming, of course, from the Saturday raid that caught Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operations chief of al Qaeda, in Rawalpindi, just outside the Pakistani capital. He is now talking to his interrogators, sources say. He is providing some useful intelligence information.
But even more important, at least so far, has been the information gleaned from his laptop computer, his cell phones and even an address book that they found in the house where he was hiding. So that has given them new leads and new confidence that Osama bin Laden is alive and they've narrowed the search down to this area.
Bin Laden has never been in greater danger than he was in December 2001 in Tora Bora, when, of course, he slipped away from U.S. forces -- Paula.
ZAHN: I guess it's surprising to me is Mohammed was as sloppy as he was about the way he went about his business. Are people surprised by that? ENSOR: Well, he was the operations chief and I guess he couldn't memorize all those names and phone numbers and so on. He had to have them with him. So there was an element of risk all along. But, yes, it is interesting that he was such a mother lode of intelligence, that he, and, of course, his documents are. It is still being mined. There's still more treasures to be found, U.S. officials say.
So there's a lot to do and they are moving very aggressively on this.
ZAHN: David Ensor, thanks so much.
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
Hunted in Pakistan>
Aired March 7, 2003 - 08:03 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Turning now to the hunt for Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's information minister is now denying that bin Laden is being hunted in that country, saying, "There is no search going on." But American sources maintain that an aggressive search for the world's most wanted man is under way.
David Ensor joins us now from our Washington bureau chief with the very latest -- good morning, David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officers and others are pursuing new leads, fairly aggressively, we understand, in an increasingly narrow area of Pakistan right along the Afghan border, and a little bit of a space in Afghanistan, as well.
The leads are narrowing the search down to just a few provinces of Pakistan in the northwest area. I think we have a map that may show you the area that we're talking about. We're talking about on this map as you see it, the red and yellow areas. We're told that the new leads are causing investigators to believe that bin Laden is in that yellow or red area and there's a little bit of overlap into Afghanistan, as well.
There have been reports he was in Baluchistan, seen here in green, but my sources tell me that they can pretty much rule that out.
Now, these leads are coming, of course, from the Saturday raid that caught Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operations chief of al Qaeda, in Rawalpindi, just outside the Pakistani capital. He is now talking to his interrogators, sources say. He is providing some useful intelligence information.
But even more important, at least so far, has been the information gleaned from his laptop computer, his cell phones and even an address book that they found in the house where he was hiding. So that has given them new leads and new confidence that Osama bin Laden is alive and they've narrowed the search down to this area.
Bin Laden has never been in greater danger than he was in December 2001 in Tora Bora, when, of course, he slipped away from U.S. forces -- Paula.
ZAHN: I guess it's surprising to me is Mohammed was as sloppy as he was about the way he went about his business. Are people surprised by that? ENSOR: Well, he was the operations chief and I guess he couldn't memorize all those names and phone numbers and so on. He had to have them with him. So there was an element of risk all along. But, yes, it is interesting that he was such a mother lode of intelligence, that he, and, of course, his documents are. It is still being mined. There's still more treasures to be found, U.S. officials say.
So there's a lot to do and they are moving very aggressively on this.
ZAHN: David Ensor, thanks so much.
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
Hunted in Pakistan>
