Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Saturday Morning News
Search for bin Laden Continues
Aired March 08, 2003 - 09:41 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.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The last time anyone was sure where Osama bin Laden was hiding was back in December of 2001. Seems like an awfully long time ago. That, of course, is when he evaded U.S. forces who were closing on him in Tora Bora in Afghanistan.
Well, now the search, they say, is re-energized, thanks to new leads stemming from last weekend's arrest of a key al Qaeda operative.
Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, joins us now from Washington with more -- David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, there is an aggressive search underway for Osama bin Laden and for some of the other important al Qaeda figures. And some of the clues that have come out from the raid last week are allowing the searchers to narrow the area that they are looking at.
They are looking now at an area that is right along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's up in the northwest part along the edge there. They are tribal territories, for the most part. And, of course, this is the center of the area that was being searched before, but it is narrowed down based on the intelligence that they have gathered since the raid of last Saturday.
It, for example, does not include, we are told, the Baluchistan Province to the -- further to the south that they used to be spending quite a lot of time searching in.
Now, we understand, CNN and was the first to report, CNN's Barbara Starr, that the Joint Special Operations Command from here at the Pentagon has representatives on the ground in the area, in addition, obviously, to intelligence officers, Americans and a lot of Pakistanis, who have geared up this search in a greater way since the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda operations chief, who was captured in Rawalpindi last Saturday.
And it's mainly leads out of the materials that were caught with him, his laptop, his cell phones, his address book, for that matter, that are reenergizing the search for bin Laden. They're also reenergizing the effort to stop al Qaeda potential attacks in the United States. There are some leads there, there are phone numbers and names. And the FBI is very busy in the United States following up on some of those leads too, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. David Ensor, thanks very much. Live from Washington. Appreciate it this morning. 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 March 8, 2003 - 09:41 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The last time anyone was sure where Osama bin Laden was hiding was back in December of 2001. Seems like an awfully long time ago. That, of course, is when he evaded U.S. forces who were closing on him in Tora Bora in Afghanistan.
Well, now the search, they say, is re-energized, thanks to new leads stemming from last weekend's arrest of a key al Qaeda operative.
Our national security correspondent, David Ensor, joins us now from Washington with more -- David.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, there is an aggressive search underway for Osama bin Laden and for some of the other important al Qaeda figures. And some of the clues that have come out from the raid last week are allowing the searchers to narrow the area that they are looking at.
They are looking now at an area that is right along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's up in the northwest part along the edge there. They are tribal territories, for the most part. And, of course, this is the center of the area that was being searched before, but it is narrowed down based on the intelligence that they have gathered since the raid of last Saturday.
It, for example, does not include, we are told, the Baluchistan Province to the -- further to the south that they used to be spending quite a lot of time searching in.
Now, we understand, CNN and was the first to report, CNN's Barbara Starr, that the Joint Special Operations Command from here at the Pentagon has representatives on the ground in the area, in addition, obviously, to intelligence officers, Americans and a lot of Pakistanis, who have geared up this search in a greater way since the capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the al Qaeda operations chief, who was captured in Rawalpindi last Saturday.
And it's mainly leads out of the materials that were caught with him, his laptop, his cell phones, his address book, for that matter, that are reenergizing the search for bin Laden. They're also reenergizing the effort to stop al Qaeda potential attacks in the United States. There are some leads there, there are phone numbers and names. And the FBI is very busy in the United States following up on some of those leads too, Anderson.
COOPER: All right. David Ensor, thanks very much. Live from Washington. Appreciate it this morning. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
