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CNN Sunday Morning
Are We Winning War on Terror?
Aired November 23, 2003 - 07:15 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: The U.S. this past week reissued its worldwide warning that Americans maybe the target of terrorists attacks abroad. It comes on the heels of attacks in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Those attacks are linked to al Qaeda or its associates. As CNN's Maria Ressa reports, one wing of al Qaeda to watch is in Southeast Asia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For more than seven years this sleepy town in Malaysia was al Qaeda's terror HQ. From this hub, regional intelligence officials tell CNN Jamaah Islamiyah or J.I., al Qaeda's arm in this part of the world, quietly created a system of Islamic schools which provided new recruits, sent it's members to al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, built replica camps in the southern Philippines, and plotted future attacks.
J.I.'s goal was to overthrow regional government and create one giant Islamic state stretching from the Philippines to Malaysia and Indonesia to the northern tip of Australia.
Under the radar screen of much of the West, al Qaeda peddled the same dream to other associate groups around the world, uniting Muslim grievances under its radical ideology.
TONY TAN, DEP. PRIME MINISTER, SINGAPORE: The type of terrorism which we are facing is more akin to the communist movement which rises from a belief that it is their destiny to change the world.
RESSA: Beginning in 1998 al Qaeda carried out one major attack each year. But after it was pushed out of Afghanistan in 2001 and thousands of its operatives arrested analysts say it turned to its associates around the world.
ROHAN GUNARATNA, AUTHOR, "INSIDE AL QAEDA": Al Qaeda is able to replenish the human losses and the material wastage and continue to fight, because it has effectively established links with local and regional Islamist terrorist groups.
RESSA: After Afghanistan these groups, government officials say, have carried out attacks in places like Yemen, Jordan, Kenya, Russia, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Philippines. Although the attacks seem independent of each other, they carry al Qaeda stamp, analyst add.
Take four days last May when al Qaeda carried out multiple large- scale operations, most suicide bombings, in four different countries. More important, the worst attacks have taken place in Muslim nations like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where governments tolerated the presence of al Qaeda linked terrorists.
Galvanizing these nations into action is important, officials say, because the frontlines of the war on terror is in every Muslim community, between a radical minority and a moderate majority.
LEE KUAN YEW, SR. MINISTER, SINGAPORE: The radicals have their program, the moderates don't have a program. They are in power. The radicals want to seize power from the moderates. Eventually they must collide.
RESSA: The non-Muslim world, he adds, must help the moderates win.
RESSA (on camera): Regional intelligence officials tell CNN Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia, continues to plan more attacks for December to April. Training continues in the southern Philippines, that situation analysts say is replicated in many other al Qaeda linked groups around the world, making the threat level higher than ever.
Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: It has been more than two years since President Bush declared war on terror, Al Qaeda was in the bull's eye. In light of increased attacks how is the U.S. campaign going? CNN Security Analyst Kelly McCann joins us from Washington with some insight on that.
Morning to you, Kelly.
KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Marty.
SAVIDGE: Let's talk about this latest increased alert that has gone out, especially for so-called soft targets, perhaps overseas U.S. interests. What exactly would these targets be?
MCCANN: Usually the softer targets are going to be comprised of industry overseas that represent American concerns, maybe the hotel industry, softer places where there isn't as much restricted access and there is not as much manpower as you might find around a consulate or an embassy or a military post.
SAVIDGE: In an open society we know it is very difficult to try to secure everything, but what could you do, say for soft targets, to try to reduce the threat?
MCCANN: Usually what you'll start to see, Marty, is you'll start to see a couple of things. Number one, restricted access. They'll bring Jersey barriers in order to slow vehicles down as they get to a place where they can be checked.
SAVIDGE: Now does that do that, Kelly, just so people -- in case they don't know?
MCCANN: If you can imagine a serpentine, the way that you would basically offset Jersey barriers so that vehicles didn't have a straight-line approach. They might have to move their way very slowly through these barriers to get to what is called the blast containment point.
And that blast containment point normally has 12-foot concrete T- barriers, which if something did explode while the vehicle was being searched, it would direct the explosion straight up as opposed to letting it proliferate out or propagate the waves outward.
They might introduce K-9s, where they normally wouldn't have been surveilled, to be around that site suddenly there are explosive sniffing K-9s. And in then irregular guard patterns, I mean, what they want to do, Marty, is change the security picture so that the pre-operational surveillance that was conducted suddenly doesn't support their plan.
SAVIDGE: You mention surveillance a couple of times, there. Surveillance is also something, obviously, a terrorist would do when planning to hit a target?
MCCANN: Absolutely. And we know al Qaeda received considerable training, as well as their counterparts, in surveillance. And if you think about it all targeting has to start with surveillance. You don't just go out with some kind of ambivalence with a plan. They really want to know the way that security works around a particular facility. So if in the operational phase suddenly their surveillance shows that things are vastly changed, suddenly there is a lot of variables that they didn't consider, they are much less likely to attack.
SAVIDGE: Also, the news of the day, coming our three more soldiers dying in Iraq. Is there anything the military can do -- or what can they do, perhaps, to try to reduce troops being killed?
MCCANN: You know, it's terrible situation, but if you think about it in cold military casualty matrix terms, really if you look country-wide at the number of people there and the kind of operations that are being conducted, the words "militarily acceptable" would be there.
Now, that's not acceptable to any family that loses a young man or woman. However, they are conducting a lot of force protection kinds of programs. They are using good barrier plans. You are starting to see more and more aggressive patrolling with oversight and over watch. This is the trouble of being fixed in place, Marty, when you're not as mobile as your enemy.
SAVIDGE: And lastly, quickly, the holidays approaching, at least in this part of the world, Thanksgiving and then Christmas after that, concern perhaps that terrorists might target that time?
MCCANN: Sure, and of course, it also coincides with Ramadan, like you said, but the volume of travel is what is interesting. Normally, there is a very, very high volume of travel during Thanksgiving, in particular. And, of course, the man pad threat, the man pack able air defense systems that we've seen, SA-7s and we know that al Qaeda and their counterparts got training. So you can bet that all the federal authorities are really on guard right now, Marty.
SAVIDGE: Kelly McCann, thanks very much for joining us, CNN's security analyst.
MCCANN: Pleasure.
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 November 23, 2003 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. this past week reissued its worldwide warning that Americans maybe the target of terrorists attacks abroad. It comes on the heels of attacks in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Those attacks are linked to al Qaeda or its associates. As CNN's Maria Ressa reports, one wing of al Qaeda to watch is in Southeast Asia.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARIA RESSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For more than seven years this sleepy town in Malaysia was al Qaeda's terror HQ. From this hub, regional intelligence officials tell CNN Jamaah Islamiyah or J.I., al Qaeda's arm in this part of the world, quietly created a system of Islamic schools which provided new recruits, sent it's members to al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, built replica camps in the southern Philippines, and plotted future attacks.
J.I.'s goal was to overthrow regional government and create one giant Islamic state stretching from the Philippines to Malaysia and Indonesia to the northern tip of Australia.
Under the radar screen of much of the West, al Qaeda peddled the same dream to other associate groups around the world, uniting Muslim grievances under its radical ideology.
TONY TAN, DEP. PRIME MINISTER, SINGAPORE: The type of terrorism which we are facing is more akin to the communist movement which rises from a belief that it is their destiny to change the world.
RESSA: Beginning in 1998 al Qaeda carried out one major attack each year. But after it was pushed out of Afghanistan in 2001 and thousands of its operatives arrested analysts say it turned to its associates around the world.
ROHAN GUNARATNA, AUTHOR, "INSIDE AL QAEDA": Al Qaeda is able to replenish the human losses and the material wastage and continue to fight, because it has effectively established links with local and regional Islamist terrorist groups.
RESSA: After Afghanistan these groups, government officials say, have carried out attacks in places like Yemen, Jordan, Kenya, Russia, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the Philippines. Although the attacks seem independent of each other, they carry al Qaeda stamp, analyst add.
Take four days last May when al Qaeda carried out multiple large- scale operations, most suicide bombings, in four different countries. More important, the worst attacks have taken place in Muslim nations like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, where governments tolerated the presence of al Qaeda linked terrorists.
Galvanizing these nations into action is important, officials say, because the frontlines of the war on terror is in every Muslim community, between a radical minority and a moderate majority.
LEE KUAN YEW, SR. MINISTER, SINGAPORE: The radicals have their program, the moderates don't have a program. They are in power. The radicals want to seize power from the moderates. Eventually they must collide.
RESSA: The non-Muslim world, he adds, must help the moderates win.
RESSA (on camera): Regional intelligence officials tell CNN Jemaah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's arm in Southeast Asia, continues to plan more attacks for December to April. Training continues in the southern Philippines, that situation analysts say is replicated in many other al Qaeda linked groups around the world, making the threat level higher than ever.
Maria Ressa, CNN, Manila.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SAVIDGE: It has been more than two years since President Bush declared war on terror, Al Qaeda was in the bull's eye. In light of increased attacks how is the U.S. campaign going? CNN Security Analyst Kelly McCann joins us from Washington with some insight on that.
Morning to you, Kelly.
KELLY MCCANN, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: Hi, Marty.
SAVIDGE: Let's talk about this latest increased alert that has gone out, especially for so-called soft targets, perhaps overseas U.S. interests. What exactly would these targets be?
MCCANN: Usually the softer targets are going to be comprised of industry overseas that represent American concerns, maybe the hotel industry, softer places where there isn't as much restricted access and there is not as much manpower as you might find around a consulate or an embassy or a military post.
SAVIDGE: In an open society we know it is very difficult to try to secure everything, but what could you do, say for soft targets, to try to reduce the threat?
MCCANN: Usually what you'll start to see, Marty, is you'll start to see a couple of things. Number one, restricted access. They'll bring Jersey barriers in order to slow vehicles down as they get to a place where they can be checked.
SAVIDGE: Now does that do that, Kelly, just so people -- in case they don't know?
MCCANN: If you can imagine a serpentine, the way that you would basically offset Jersey barriers so that vehicles didn't have a straight-line approach. They might have to move their way very slowly through these barriers to get to what is called the blast containment point.
And that blast containment point normally has 12-foot concrete T- barriers, which if something did explode while the vehicle was being searched, it would direct the explosion straight up as opposed to letting it proliferate out or propagate the waves outward.
They might introduce K-9s, where they normally wouldn't have been surveilled, to be around that site suddenly there are explosive sniffing K-9s. And in then irregular guard patterns, I mean, what they want to do, Marty, is change the security picture so that the pre-operational surveillance that was conducted suddenly doesn't support their plan.
SAVIDGE: You mention surveillance a couple of times, there. Surveillance is also something, obviously, a terrorist would do when planning to hit a target?
MCCANN: Absolutely. And we know al Qaeda received considerable training, as well as their counterparts, in surveillance. And if you think about it all targeting has to start with surveillance. You don't just go out with some kind of ambivalence with a plan. They really want to know the way that security works around a particular facility. So if in the operational phase suddenly their surveillance shows that things are vastly changed, suddenly there is a lot of variables that they didn't consider, they are much less likely to attack.
SAVIDGE: Also, the news of the day, coming our three more soldiers dying in Iraq. Is there anything the military can do -- or what can they do, perhaps, to try to reduce troops being killed?
MCCANN: You know, it's terrible situation, but if you think about it in cold military casualty matrix terms, really if you look country-wide at the number of people there and the kind of operations that are being conducted, the words "militarily acceptable" would be there.
Now, that's not acceptable to any family that loses a young man or woman. However, they are conducting a lot of force protection kinds of programs. They are using good barrier plans. You are starting to see more and more aggressive patrolling with oversight and over watch. This is the trouble of being fixed in place, Marty, when you're not as mobile as your enemy.
SAVIDGE: And lastly, quickly, the holidays approaching, at least in this part of the world, Thanksgiving and then Christmas after that, concern perhaps that terrorists might target that time?
MCCANN: Sure, and of course, it also coincides with Ramadan, like you said, but the volume of travel is what is interesting. Normally, there is a very, very high volume of travel during Thanksgiving, in particular. And, of course, the man pad threat, the man pack able air defense systems that we've seen, SA-7s and we know that al Qaeda and their counterparts got training. So you can bet that all the federal authorities are really on guard right now, Marty.
SAVIDGE: Kelly McCann, thanks very much for joining us, CNN's security analyst.
MCCANN: Pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
