Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Powell Says Attacks Bear Markings of Al Qaeda Strike
Aired May 13, 2003 - 07:33 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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Secretary of State Colin Powell again arriving in Saudi Arabia only hours after the deadly series of explosions there. Powell says the attacks bear the markings of an al Qaeda strike.
National security correspondent David Ensor now live in D.C. with the latest on what we are learning from this side of the world on what happened last night -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Well, officials are saying that while the so far announced death toll of about 10 Americans is pretty accurate -- it might rise a little bit, but not much -- the death toll overall in these incidents in Riyadh is going, is likely to go much higher than the so far announced number of 11. There are likely to be many more non- Americans who were killed and if you look at the blast damage, that's hardly surprising.
Now, U.S. officials have the operating thesis for the moment that this probably was an al Qaeda attack, an attack organized by Osama bin Laden's organization, and, of course, he and many of the other members of it are or were originally Saudi nationals.
The first reason is the coordinated nature of these attacks. That bears the hallmark of al Qaeda. That's the way they like to operate. You'll recall on September 11 there was more than one aircraft and they all hit around the same time.
Secondly, there is intelligence that the U.S. has and has had for some weeks suggesting al Qaeda was in the final phases of planning some sort of large attack against Western targets in Saudi Arabia.
And thirdly, you may recall that around May 8th, the Saudi government announced it had raided a house and found 800 pounds of explosives and a large number of weapons. There was a shootout there and a number of suspected al Qaeda supporters managed to escape. That was within a quarter of a mile of one of the sites that was bombed last night. So those little, those three pieces of evidence leading U.S. officials for the moment to assume that this is probably a series of strikes by the al Qaeda network.
Now, Prince Nayef, the interior minister of Saudi Arabia, had said as recently as a week or two ago that al Qaeda was weak in Saudi Arabia, that it might not even have an operating structure anymore. Clearly, this is the answer from al Qaeda. Clearly, it does have an organizational structure. It's capable of pulling off these very large scale attacks inside the kingdom.
This is a challenge to the Saudi government, which U.S. officials are hoping to see a serious response to by the Saudis. There's going to have to be a lot of police action by the Saudis from here on or Westerners will start leaving the country -- Bill.
HEMMER: David, thanks.
David Ensor in D.C.
We want to get to Saudi Arabia right now by way of telephone.
Phil joins us now. No last name given. We will respect that.
Phil, I'm not sure where you were last night, but give us your location relative to the attacks.
PHIL: We were on the Jitero (ph) compound. The Jitero compound received an attack at the rear dikes, a car bomb and possibly some rocket propelled grenades.
HEMMER: How far were you from that, the detonating point, the detonation point, excuse me?
PHIL: We were approximately 300 metes from the detonation point.
HEMMER: Yes, what happened after the explosion? Can you describe that for us, please? The video we're watching here shows huge craters at some points where the explosion, at least in part, took place.
PHIL: I think there was a large amount of confusion on the compound. There had been some gunfire beforehand. An explosion had occurred, which must have been a fairly substantial explosion because even at our distance, the shock wave popped in windows and burst in the doors of houses. So many of the residents thought that their houses had received individual direct attacks.
HEMMER: So we're looking at some still photos that I believe you have sent back to us. I know you don't know the sequence, but it looks like inside of a home there is damage. Is this your home? And please describe it if you could, Phil.
PHIL: This is actually a work colleague's home. This is approximately 200 meters from the blast site, shielded by many other villas in between there. So you can see the effect of the shock wave there, that it's shattered all the windows. I think also in that series of photos there's a picture there which shows the door propped up.
HEMMER: Now, Phil, your home country, is that Australia?
PHIL: That's right.
HEMMER: Yes. What are you doing in Saudi Arabia?
PHIL: I work for an American company which is involved with the Saudi military here.
HEMMER: Yes, the Americans and the Westerners, the expats living in these complexes, are they working on behalf of defense contractors? Is it a variety of jobs? How would you describe it?
PHIL: It's a variety of defense contracts. There are American personnel here, Australians, British, etc., working with the various defense organizations such as the Royal Saudi Air Force.
HEMMER: Phil, how concerned have you and others been for your safety there?
PHIL: I mean we've always been taking precautions, and especially in the lead up to the Iraqi conflict we've been taking precautions. Certainly things had hotted up in the last week with the discovery of the large cache of weapons nearby and, in fact, there had been talk within the past few days that there was a possibility of our compound being a target and they were discussing various, various possibilities to protect the compound.
But I think this just happened too quickly before those steps could be implemented.
HEMMER: It's our understanding that some of the guards outside this complex were shot and killed as the attackers worked their way inside.
How was the security for your complex and others?
PHIL: Certainly our security is quite good. We have guards at the corners of the perimeter of the compound and what we actually believe is there was heavy gunfire directed from the attacking force at those positions. But basically we believe they killed the guards at the gate, managed to possibly get just inside the gate and then the vehicles had detonated. We think possibly they had detonated earlier and had probably upset their overall plans of attack and probably killed a lot of those people who were expected to come in and maybe fight, you know, have to help with automatic weapons.
HEMMER: Phil, you be safe and take care.
Thanks for talking and sharing your story with us.
That's Phil, an Australian working in Riyadh, living in one of the complexes that was targeted last night. Again, the latest word we have, Secretary of State Colin Powell says at least 10 Americans are dead, also giving indications there were others from other countries, possibly Saudi Arabia and more, also killed as a result of the attacks last night that struck right around midnight Saudi time.
As we get more, we'll give it to you.
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 May 13, 2003 - 07:33 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Secretary of State Colin Powell again arriving in Saudi Arabia only hours after the deadly series of explosions there. Powell says the attacks bear the markings of an al Qaeda strike.
National security correspondent David Ensor now live in D.C. with the latest on what we are learning from this side of the world on what happened last night -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Bill.
Well, officials are saying that while the so far announced death toll of about 10 Americans is pretty accurate -- it might rise a little bit, but not much -- the death toll overall in these incidents in Riyadh is going, is likely to go much higher than the so far announced number of 11. There are likely to be many more non- Americans who were killed and if you look at the blast damage, that's hardly surprising.
Now, U.S. officials have the operating thesis for the moment that this probably was an al Qaeda attack, an attack organized by Osama bin Laden's organization, and, of course, he and many of the other members of it are or were originally Saudi nationals.
The first reason is the coordinated nature of these attacks. That bears the hallmark of al Qaeda. That's the way they like to operate. You'll recall on September 11 there was more than one aircraft and they all hit around the same time.
Secondly, there is intelligence that the U.S. has and has had for some weeks suggesting al Qaeda was in the final phases of planning some sort of large attack against Western targets in Saudi Arabia.
And thirdly, you may recall that around May 8th, the Saudi government announced it had raided a house and found 800 pounds of explosives and a large number of weapons. There was a shootout there and a number of suspected al Qaeda supporters managed to escape. That was within a quarter of a mile of one of the sites that was bombed last night. So those little, those three pieces of evidence leading U.S. officials for the moment to assume that this is probably a series of strikes by the al Qaeda network.
Now, Prince Nayef, the interior minister of Saudi Arabia, had said as recently as a week or two ago that al Qaeda was weak in Saudi Arabia, that it might not even have an operating structure anymore. Clearly, this is the answer from al Qaeda. Clearly, it does have an organizational structure. It's capable of pulling off these very large scale attacks inside the kingdom.
This is a challenge to the Saudi government, which U.S. officials are hoping to see a serious response to by the Saudis. There's going to have to be a lot of police action by the Saudis from here on or Westerners will start leaving the country -- Bill.
HEMMER: David, thanks.
David Ensor in D.C.
We want to get to Saudi Arabia right now by way of telephone.
Phil joins us now. No last name given. We will respect that.
Phil, I'm not sure where you were last night, but give us your location relative to the attacks.
PHIL: We were on the Jitero (ph) compound. The Jitero compound received an attack at the rear dikes, a car bomb and possibly some rocket propelled grenades.
HEMMER: How far were you from that, the detonating point, the detonation point, excuse me?
PHIL: We were approximately 300 metes from the detonation point.
HEMMER: Yes, what happened after the explosion? Can you describe that for us, please? The video we're watching here shows huge craters at some points where the explosion, at least in part, took place.
PHIL: I think there was a large amount of confusion on the compound. There had been some gunfire beforehand. An explosion had occurred, which must have been a fairly substantial explosion because even at our distance, the shock wave popped in windows and burst in the doors of houses. So many of the residents thought that their houses had received individual direct attacks.
HEMMER: So we're looking at some still photos that I believe you have sent back to us. I know you don't know the sequence, but it looks like inside of a home there is damage. Is this your home? And please describe it if you could, Phil.
PHIL: This is actually a work colleague's home. This is approximately 200 meters from the blast site, shielded by many other villas in between there. So you can see the effect of the shock wave there, that it's shattered all the windows. I think also in that series of photos there's a picture there which shows the door propped up.
HEMMER: Now, Phil, your home country, is that Australia?
PHIL: That's right.
HEMMER: Yes. What are you doing in Saudi Arabia?
PHIL: I work for an American company which is involved with the Saudi military here.
HEMMER: Yes, the Americans and the Westerners, the expats living in these complexes, are they working on behalf of defense contractors? Is it a variety of jobs? How would you describe it?
PHIL: It's a variety of defense contracts. There are American personnel here, Australians, British, etc., working with the various defense organizations such as the Royal Saudi Air Force.
HEMMER: Phil, how concerned have you and others been for your safety there?
PHIL: I mean we've always been taking precautions, and especially in the lead up to the Iraqi conflict we've been taking precautions. Certainly things had hotted up in the last week with the discovery of the large cache of weapons nearby and, in fact, there had been talk within the past few days that there was a possibility of our compound being a target and they were discussing various, various possibilities to protect the compound.
But I think this just happened too quickly before those steps could be implemented.
HEMMER: It's our understanding that some of the guards outside this complex were shot and killed as the attackers worked their way inside.
How was the security for your complex and others?
PHIL: Certainly our security is quite good. We have guards at the corners of the perimeter of the compound and what we actually believe is there was heavy gunfire directed from the attacking force at those positions. But basically we believe they killed the guards at the gate, managed to possibly get just inside the gate and then the vehicles had detonated. We think possibly they had detonated earlier and had probably upset their overall plans of attack and probably killed a lot of those people who were expected to come in and maybe fight, you know, have to help with automatic weapons.
HEMMER: Phil, you be safe and take care.
Thanks for talking and sharing your story with us.
That's Phil, an Australian working in Riyadh, living in one of the complexes that was targeted last night. Again, the latest word we have, Secretary of State Colin Powell says at least 10 Americans are dead, also giving indications there were others from other countries, possibly Saudi Arabia and more, also killed as a result of the attacks last night that struck right around midnight Saudi time.
As we get more, we'll give it to you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
