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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With David Isby

Aired December 08, 2001 - 08:16   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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Now to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. U.S. warplanes are targeting mountains near Tora Bora in Afghanistan, where bin Laden and his forces may be hiding in caves. But would bin Laden still be in the region?

Joining me now with some perspective is David Isby of "Jane's Intelligence Review." Thanks a lot for coming in.

DAVID ISBY, "JANE'S INTELLIGENCE REVIEW": Good morning.

MESERVE: Before we talk about Osama bin Laden, let's talk about Mullah Omar. We just heard Nic Robertson report that Pashtun leaders there believe that Mullah Omar may have left Kandahar. Where do you speculate he might have gone?

ISBY: Well, he could have gone a couple of places. If he's looking to continue resistance, to put together a coalition of people who are opposed to the new government, he may have gone north to the southern part of Oruzgan Province where he's originally from to put together sort of a coalition of the unwilling, who don't like the current government or fight against it.

The other alternative is he may have decided to escape and evade, go across the border to Pakistan, link up with Pakistani political supporters there, perhaps at a safe house near the city of Sharmand.

MESERVE: How much success might he have putting together a coalition of the sort you mentioned? Are there many people who are feeling disenfranchised from the interim government that's being put together?

ISBY: Well not just from the interim government in Kandahar, You know, all politics is local in Kandahar. Local politics is tribal. There are the tensions. If some tribes say, "these guys are going to run things." "Well we don't like them. We've never liked them, so we're going to oppose them."

That's been part of the thing which Mullah Nakib (ph), which we talked about before, who's come back from exile in Germany an the tension with the other tribal ones, whose authority over in the tribal section are Nakib who's more of a mullah. His authority is from outside.

MESERVE: Well what about Osama bin Laden, still in country do you believe or do you think he might have fled?

ISBY: Well it's very hard to say. Certainly any self-respecting terrorist mastermind would have an escape and evasion plan to get him out, but there's very few places he can go.

MESERVE: Well where would he go? What are the possibilities?

ISBY: Again, first step would be to Pakistan and from there, either stay covertly in Pakistan for a while. It would have to be in an area which a government, any government, does not control.

We have just seen all the damage that would be done on any government that tries to harbor Osama.

MESERVE: If he is still within Afghanistan, how could the U.S. find him, when here's these descriptions of these cave complexes that sound incredibly complex?

ISBY: Well they're not. Most of these -- many of these are indeed exaggerated. There's very few like that. Most of these are not resort hotels and you wouldn't want to spend a lot of time in them.

MESERVE: But you could if you needed to?

ISBY: Perhaps if you want to be a troglodyte, but then you're not going to plan many terrorist atrocities. Rather, if he stays in one piece, he is looking at martyrdom and the question is, is this going to be effective for what he's doing?

How you get him out is you deal with Afghans who are going to be turning against him and give you fresh intelligence, saying "well we know we filled water bottles in this cave up there, not that cave," because the Arabs didn't fill the water bottles themselves. They don't like doing manual labor.

MESERVE: Hamid Karzai appears to have changed his mind on the issue of amnesty for Mullah Omar, now reported to have said "uh-uh, he hasn't renounced terrorism." What's going on there? How do we interpret that change?

ISBY: Well, he's got to balance first of all the Afghan need to show that we are not beholding to the outside, that we were not simply bombed into power by the United States on one hand. So he has to show independence, yet he knows where the aid is coming from. He's sophisticated enough to know the Congress would not really vote for aid if they didn't get things there.

And also, Mullah Omar, by singling the Americans, singling him out, you both have made it easier for Karzai to bring the other Taliban in, but you've also kept the problem. He's just one man. If most of the Taliban stay there, if their religious practices which led them to make common calls to al Qaeda remain unchecked, you're going to have the problem again, maybe not this year but next year.

MESERVE: David Isby of Jane's Intelligence Review, thanks so much for your insight.

ISBY: You're welcome.

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