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American Morning

Seeds of Terror

Aired December 02, 2003 - 08:34   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.


SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Southeast Asia is a hotbed of terrorist activity, and Maria Ressa has covered the territory for 16 years. Maria is CNN's Jakarta bureau chief, reports that all of the major al Qaeda attacks in the last 10 years have had something in common, a connection to the Philippines. She has a new book, called "Seed of Terror," and she investigates Southeast Asia's terrorist cell.
She's been kind enough to join us here in New York City.

Nice to see you, not in a double box as we normally do, but face to face.

MARIA RESSA, CNN JAKARTA BUREAU CHIEF: Nice to be here with you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. No big secret. It is well known that a lot of these terrorist cells and camps are operating out of southeast Asia. Why are they still functioning? Why has, to some degree, nothing been done about it?

RESSA: I think part of the problem has been that there are different vested entrance at every rung of the fight against terrorism. It's not that nothing has been done, perhaps it's more that not enough has been done. For example, if you take the Philippines, the Mora Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim separatist group there, it is known. The Philippines intelligence agencies are the ones to tell me they know these camps are operating. But part of the reason is those intelligence agents on the ground will pass that information up, and it's up to the politicians to decide whether or not they'll take action on it.

And the politician, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, has decided that the best way to deal with this 30-year-old insurgency is to go into peace talks with the MILF, because she believes that's the root toward lasting peace.

O'BRIEN: Others disagree.

RESSA: Exactly. So it's a difference of how do you deal with this problem? I repeatedly asked President Arroyo, OK, if you are going to deal with them, how are you going to make sure that you hold them accountable? And she says, well, it's going to be part of the talks. So this has been something that's been going on since 9/11, that we've been talking this way.

O'BRIEN: You've covered the region before 9/11. And after 9/11, I know that you decided to sort of look back and I guess connect the dots between this sort of unexplained violence. What did you find in your research for your book?

RESSA: I found that it is imperative that we go back to look at the past, in order to understand what's going to happen in the future. Because, in effect, 9/11 stripped off a layer. It showed us an alternate reality that's underground, how bin Laden has been quietly building a network, and that's what we found in Southeast Asia. Since 1988 he sent his brother-in-law, Muhammad Jamal Karif (ph) to set up a financial network. And then in 1994, several cells of expert terrorist, including Muhammad Sadeek Uday (ph), who was one of the men convicted in the 1998 East Africa bombings. You can see how they're all interconnected internationally.

O'BRIEN: And personal connection, too, not just sort of business connections. Tell me a little bit about the personal links among a lot of these members of al Qaeda.

RESSA: They're family, friends. What we see now is we know how they operate. The first wave of al Qaeda operatives were Middle Eastern. We saw them come into the Philippines in 1994. The first thing they did was to have local connections. They married. They married Filipino wives. And what's interesting is that many of those men who were arrested in 1995 and released for lack of evidence were re-arrested after 9/11, because they were suspected of being members of al Qaeda. Many of those men are still in custody in the Philippines now. The other thing that you said about looking to the past, what we found, at least what I found in doing the book, is that things in the past that were unsolved, bombings -- in 1998, in Indonesia, was the end of a 32-year dictatorship. It was the fall of Suharto. A fledgling democracy came in. It was very chaotic.

The year after that, I felt like every month I was just walking into a new city, and I was talking about two groups that were trying to kill each other.

Well, after 9/11, in a place called Ambonh (ph), and I go over this in the book, over a span of three years, more than 10,000 people were killed in what was effectively a war between Muslims and Christians in that province.

And what we found out, while I was doing the research for the book, was that this conflict was fueled by al Qaeda, its regional arm, Jermiz Lemiya (ph). Every time the conflict died down, people were exhausted, their homes were burned, they had nothing left to lose except their lives, and yet they continued fighting. And Every time I talked to them, they would say, you know, it's not us, we want it to stop, but it's the people from outside. While that was going on, you discounted that. But then later on, I found out that, yes, Muslim fighters would go in, they would...

O'BRIEN: Fan the flames.

RESSA: Exactly. And we have evidence that it is happening again now, in (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Just this weekend, attacks on Christian villages.

O'BRIEN: Maria Ressa, the book is called "Seeds of Terror." You also talked a little bit about predicting a second wave of terror after 9/11. We're out of time to talk about it, but it's a fascinating book. Thanks for coming to New York to talk about it. Nice to meet you in person as well.

RESSA: Absolutely, thank 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 December 2, 2003 - 08:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Southeast Asia is a hotbed of terrorist activity, and Maria Ressa has covered the territory for 16 years. Maria is CNN's Jakarta bureau chief, reports that all of the major al Qaeda attacks in the last 10 years have had something in common, a connection to the Philippines. She has a new book, called "Seed of Terror," and she investigates Southeast Asia's terrorist cell.
She's been kind enough to join us here in New York City.

Nice to see you, not in a double box as we normally do, but face to face.

MARIA RESSA, CNN JAKARTA BUREAU CHIEF: Nice to be here with you.

O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. No big secret. It is well known that a lot of these terrorist cells and camps are operating out of southeast Asia. Why are they still functioning? Why has, to some degree, nothing been done about it?

RESSA: I think part of the problem has been that there are different vested entrance at every rung of the fight against terrorism. It's not that nothing has been done, perhaps it's more that not enough has been done. For example, if you take the Philippines, the Mora Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim separatist group there, it is known. The Philippines intelligence agencies are the ones to tell me they know these camps are operating. But part of the reason is those intelligence agents on the ground will pass that information up, and it's up to the politicians to decide whether or not they'll take action on it.

And the politician, Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, has decided that the best way to deal with this 30-year-old insurgency is to go into peace talks with the MILF, because she believes that's the root toward lasting peace.

O'BRIEN: Others disagree.

RESSA: Exactly. So it's a difference of how do you deal with this problem? I repeatedly asked President Arroyo, OK, if you are going to deal with them, how are you going to make sure that you hold them accountable? And she says, well, it's going to be part of the talks. So this has been something that's been going on since 9/11, that we've been talking this way.

O'BRIEN: You've covered the region before 9/11. And after 9/11, I know that you decided to sort of look back and I guess connect the dots between this sort of unexplained violence. What did you find in your research for your book?

RESSA: I found that it is imperative that we go back to look at the past, in order to understand what's going to happen in the future. Because, in effect, 9/11 stripped off a layer. It showed us an alternate reality that's underground, how bin Laden has been quietly building a network, and that's what we found in Southeast Asia. Since 1988 he sent his brother-in-law, Muhammad Jamal Karif (ph) to set up a financial network. And then in 1994, several cells of expert terrorist, including Muhammad Sadeek Uday (ph), who was one of the men convicted in the 1998 East Africa bombings. You can see how they're all interconnected internationally.

O'BRIEN: And personal connection, too, not just sort of business connections. Tell me a little bit about the personal links among a lot of these members of al Qaeda.

RESSA: They're family, friends. What we see now is we know how they operate. The first wave of al Qaeda operatives were Middle Eastern. We saw them come into the Philippines in 1994. The first thing they did was to have local connections. They married. They married Filipino wives. And what's interesting is that many of those men who were arrested in 1995 and released for lack of evidence were re-arrested after 9/11, because they were suspected of being members of al Qaeda. Many of those men are still in custody in the Philippines now. The other thing that you said about looking to the past, what we found, at least what I found in doing the book, is that things in the past that were unsolved, bombings -- in 1998, in Indonesia, was the end of a 32-year dictatorship. It was the fall of Suharto. A fledgling democracy came in. It was very chaotic.

The year after that, I felt like every month I was just walking into a new city, and I was talking about two groups that were trying to kill each other.

Well, after 9/11, in a place called Ambonh (ph), and I go over this in the book, over a span of three years, more than 10,000 people were killed in what was effectively a war between Muslims and Christians in that province.

And what we found out, while I was doing the research for the book, was that this conflict was fueled by al Qaeda, its regional arm, Jermiz Lemiya (ph). Every time the conflict died down, people were exhausted, their homes were burned, they had nothing left to lose except their lives, and yet they continued fighting. And Every time I talked to them, they would say, you know, it's not us, we want it to stop, but it's the people from outside. While that was going on, you discounted that. But then later on, I found out that, yes, Muslim fighters would go in, they would...

O'BRIEN: Fan the flames.

RESSA: Exactly. And we have evidence that it is happening again now, in (UNINTELLIGIBLE). Just this weekend, attacks on Christian villages.

O'BRIEN: Maria Ressa, the book is called "Seeds of Terror." You also talked a little bit about predicting a second wave of terror after 9/11. We're out of time to talk about it, but it's a fascinating book. Thanks for coming to New York to talk about it. Nice to meet you in person as well.

RESSA: Absolutely, thank 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