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CNN Sunday Morning

Five Terrorist Suspects Await Bond Hearing

Aired September 15, 2002 - 09:02   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Five terrorist suspects remain at a New York detention center this morning. They are awaiting a bond hearing on Wednesday. Officials say the men formed an al Qaeda training cell that may have been helping to plan the terrorist operations. CNN national correspondent Bob Franken is joining us from Buffalo with more on all this. Hello again, Bob.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Miles, and there is a distinction here that the officials are quite persistent about making, and that is they do not know if this was part of the formal al Qaeda network. All they know is that these men, according to their allegations, in any case, these men formed a group that was planning -- was engaged in the acts of preparing for some sort of terrorism. They do not know, contrary to some published reports, whether they were awaiting instructions, formally part of an al Qaeda network.

They were arrested after an investigation, as we've reported, that began before the September 11 attacks, and arrested after chatter, which was intercepted electronic communication suggested that they were making plans to do something -- where or when in the United States, people didn't know -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Bob, you know, I had an opportunity to talk, as you know, to the U.S. attorney out there an hour or so ago. He was not very forthcoming with details, to say the least, but it was interesting to me that this investigation has its origins before 9/11. What are we to make of all that, and has anybody tried to put this together with Atta and his efforts?

FRANKEN: Well, as a matter of fact, yes, they have tried to do that, but where they've ended up is that they have absolutely no evidence that there was any participation here in the September 11 attacks, and no indications beforehand that anything was occurring.

Here's what seems to have happened -- this according to government sources involved in the investigation -- that people in the community, the Muslim community, which makes up about 5 percent of the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna, went to the FBI, told officials, part of the terrorism task force, that these people had gone to this al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, the now infamous training camp. They were told before September 11 of last year, before the attacks. That began the investigation. Of course, it intensified after the September 11 attacks, and investigators felt that the time had come to go from covert to the more open situation that we have now.

O'BRIEN: Now, another area where I didn't have much luck and maybe you have had some luck with your sources, is exactly how this alleged cell might have been operating or ready to operate. Were they waiting orders from central command somewhere, Pakistan or Afghanistan or somewhere else, or were they completely autonomous, which has been suggested many times by our reporting, that al Qaeda is sort of set up with these cells, they kind of operate on their own?

FRANKEN: Well, the fact that they had participated in the al Qaeda training, according to the officials, meant that there was a connection. What they are trying to say is that there is a distinction between that and being part of a formal network, being part of anything other than a desire, according to the allegations, to commit terrorism. There have been reports every once in a while that one of the concerns that people in the official levels of government have is that these cells will act on their own because of the same feelings of hatred toward the United States, that while they may have gotten some training, it is not something where there is a formal network, where they would get certain codified messages or anything like that and say, the time has come. It is different, in other words, from the extremely structured September 11 attacks.

O'BRIEN: And one quick point: Did they indicate to you in any way about funding? Were they sitting on a pile of money? Were they awaiting funding from somewhere else? Any indication on that?

FRANKEN: Well, there has been no real indication about that, but I do want to point out that when they talk about the allegation of providing material resources to terrorist groups, which is the crime for which they are charged, the resource had nothing to do with money. It had everything to do, according to the allegations in this case and the John Walker Lindh case, the resource was themselves, their bodies, that by taking the training they had violated that law.

O'BRIEN: CNN's Bob Franken in Buffalo, thanks very much, Bob, we appreciate it.

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