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CNN Sunday Morning

Pakistani Journalist Provides Proof he Interviewed bin Laden

Aired November 11, 2001 - 10:09   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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: More from Pakistan now on those interviews with Osama bin Laden.

CNN's Nic Robertson is in Islamabad; that is where he has been verifying some details about the interview -- Nic.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Martin, we met with Hamid Mir, the Pakistani journalist who says he conducted that interview. The first face-to-face interview with Osama bin Laden since the September the 11th attacks. We asked him to prove essentially, if you will, that he had actually met Osama bin Laden.

He showed us photographs that he said were taken in the last few days during that meeting. He showed us the negatives. He showed us the stamps in his passport showing that he had left Pakistan, gone to Afghanistan in this time period, and he also played for us an audio tape. On that audio tape, he said the voices that we could hear speaking in Arabic were that of Osama bin Laden and his lieutenant Ayman Al Zawahiri. He said Mr. Dr. Zawahiri was the translator during that interview.

Now, Mr. Mir said he was taken in the back of a vehicle in the middle of the night, bundled up in a carpet so he couldn't see where he was going. At times, he said he was blindfolded. He said at the end of a five-hour drive, he met with Osama bin Laden in what he thought was a mud-type hut, and there he put to him the question of whether or not Osama bin Laden had any nuclear capabilities. He said Osama bin Laden replied, "Yes" but that they were just as a deterrent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID MIR, PAKISTANI JOURNALIST: He was very brief. He said that if the United States of America is going to use chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we reserve the right to respond back, and he used the word "Deterrent." He said he had that deterrent, and he said that we will not use these kinds of weapons first. So this is -- these weapons are just for defense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, Mr. Mir says he's interviewed Osama bin Laden twice before, and he doesn't believe Osama bin Laden when he says that he has these type of weapons. And certainly, that's the view of international terrorism experts, who say that Osama bin Laden and his organization al Qaeda have tried to purchase weapons grade material in the past but they do not believe that he has been able to put that in a weaponized form.

They do, however -- these experts do say they believe Osama bin Laden perhaps has some chemical and possibly biological capability but again, not the ability to deliver it in a mass effective form in a military battlefield. Now, Mr. Mir said the interesting thing for him in this interview was the fact that Osama bin Laden seemed to be changing his policy on whether or not to target American citizens.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIR: He took a U-turn on the issue of the killing of Americans. Previously, he was saying or he was quoted in different interviews that he said that I'm against all the Americans. But this time, he said, "I'm not against all the American people, I'm only against the American policies."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: Now, some experts say this in itself is quite a surprise. Because in the past, Osama bin Laden has only ever ratcheted up his rhetoric about targeting American citizens including them since 1998 along with U.S. military and U.S. government personnel as being OK, if you will, for al Qaeda and other fighters in his force to attack.

Now, Mr. Mir said that as well during this interview, a 90-minute interview with Osama bin Laden, he said that about four times each hour Osama bin Laden was contacted and given military updates on what was happening on the battlefield. Now, at that time, the night of the 7th of November, it was a battle for Mazar-e-Sharif, and he said Osama bin Laden was following very, very closely what was happening on the battlefield -- Martin.

SAVIDGE: Nic, switching gears slightly regarding the fighting going on in Afghanistan. You've been in that area many, many times. You know it well. These victories that the Northern Alliance is reporting, how significant a setback for the Taliban is it?

ROBERTSON: The picture that is beginning to emerge from the Northern Alliance -- and if their claims are to believed -- they are beginning to clean up in the north, if you will, the city of Taloqan that the Northern Alliance lost not so long ago to the Taliban taking control of that. It's a big flat plane. They'll push across that plane. Listening to Dr. Abdullah, earlier in his press conference. They come upon a ridgeline that separates them from the key city of Konduz.

Dr. Abdullah talking about the potential of taking Konduz. If they push out the Taliban from that area or again moving further west towards Mazar-e-Sharif that they now say they already control. They potentially threaten the Taliban and present the Taliban with the option of do they retreat from that area and if they choose to retreat, how do they retreat because the Northern Alliance is saying that they've possibly taken the city of Pul-e-Khumri, which would likely be along definitely the road route that the Taliban would have used to withdraw from that northern city of Konduz.

Also, it's complicated for the Taliban. On their route back to Kabul, it would take them through -- likely through the area of Bamiyan. Dr. Abdullah from Northern Alliance saying that possibly they have taken Bamiyan. If they control Bamiyan, which has been an area that is mostly populated by ethnic Shia -- rather Shia Moslems rather than the Taliban Sunni. The Hazara people who have long been opposed to Taliban's rule. If they can gain a foothold in that region, the Northern Alliance then possibly that can threaten one of the Taliban's main road routes between the capital Kabul and their spiritual stronghold in the south.

So if the Northern Alliance is correct, if the momentum is on their side, then there is a potential here that the Taliban are exceptionally squeezed in the north. However, obviously from Washington, the view is to wait and be very careful and to judge a little later, when all the military information is in and certainly, that is the situation in Afghanistan. Very hard to verify on the ground and often, early accounts of battle gains can be reversed, particularly if the Taliban pull out strategically and strike back.

SAVIDGE: And that is the big question right now. CNN's Nic Robertson reporting to us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Thank you, Nic.

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