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CNN Saturday Morning News
U.S. Believes bin Laden Remains in Afghanistan
Aired November 17, 2001 - 07:11 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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Osama bin Laden continues to elude the U.S., and now there are reports the U.S. is ready to up the ante for information leading to his capture.
CNN's David Ensor has that story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Where is he? Is Osama bin Laden still in Afghanistan, or could he have fled on a horse or mule into Pakistan? Or perhaps in a helicopter?
DONALD RUMSFELD, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I don't doubt for a minute that there are some well-hidden helicopters that we can't find, and that they are undoubtedly available to the senior people, as opposed to the junior people. And that it is possible to run down a ravine and not be seen.
ENSOR: But neither Rumsfeld nor U.S. intelligence officials nor outside experts believe bin Laden has left Afghanistan. Not to Pakistan.
EDWARD LUTTWAK, SENIOR FELLOW, CSIS: Pakistan has a regular sort of army police. It's a normal control. It's not a wild West situation.
ENSOR: And not to any other country either -- too risky for him, too risky for them.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For every regime that sponsors terror, there is a price to be paid.
ENSOR: So that leaves Afghanistan, perhaps in disguise as a woman in a burkha -- not easy when you're at least six-foot-four.
LUTTWAK: The only reason there's any chance he might be found is that he's so extraordinarily tall.
ENSOR: That leaves the mountains, hundreds of square miles of them, riddled with caves and tunnels dug through centuries of warfare -- some, as this animation suggests, fitted out for fighters to survive months and years underground.
Major General Makmud Gareyev was an adviser to the Soviet-backed communist Afghan government of the early '90s.
MAJ. GEN. MAKMUD GAREYEV, FORMER ADVISER TO AFGHANISTAN (through translator): Some of them are 300 to 400 meters deep. Many are located around other areas where there is a three-kilometer-long tunnel.
ENSOR: And even if American soldiers figure out which cave complex contains the al Qaeda leader, Niamatullah Arghandabi, who fought the Russians from caves and tunnels of Afghanistan, warns U.S. Special Forces will lose men taking bin Laden.
NIAMATULLHA ARGHANDABI, FORMER AFGHAN CAVE FIGHTER: Even if they know where bin Laden is, maybe they will fail, and they have to back up, and they will lose a lot of people.
ENSOR: Some experts on bin Laden say in fact they believe the terrorist mastermind has already planned his own end.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: I think that he's decided to die in this final conflict. The unfortunate thing is that he may well decide to take a lot of other people with him.
ENSOR (on camera): The key to finding bin Laden is intelligence information, and the $25 million reward the U.S. is offering could produce it. One senior official saying there is talk of increasing that price on bin Laden's head.
David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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