against al qaeda, al qaeda's strength does not... is not linear. we see it rise and then fall in part depending on u.s. effective against it. and other organizations and their ability to gain sanctuary. so we saw in the 1990s and through 2001 what you might call the first wave. embassy bombings in africa, targeting the u.s.s. "cole" in yemen and leading up to and peaking tapt september 11 attacks. >> rose: also this evening, steve coll, the reporter who has covered afghanistan extensively has a new book called "private empire: exxonmobil and american power." tonight part one of that conversation which is about afghanistan. >> the united states should also have learned that no policy that is based on a misunderstanding of the facts or wishful thinking is likely to succeed. and there are a whole series of assumptions built into this transition policy about the ability of the afghan national arm about the degradation of the taliban and the ability of afghan political lead yooers to fashion a fair transition of power from karzai who-to-whoever comes af

yet at the same time, this is al qaeda. this is not even, you know, taliban and al qaeda. this is al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, and they just control a whole city. >> narrator: gaith was shown these pictures, filmed by al qaeda. local people had been summoned to the town's theater. it showed al qaeda fighters attacking a major army base near jaar. almost 200 yemeni soldiers were reported killed, and dozens of prisoners were believed to be held in jaar. jalal al marqashi, the top al qaeda commander in this region, was shown visiting the prisoners. >> it's unconceivable for a small unit of 60 fighters to achieve this kind of victory. i really wanted to see, did they actually detain 73 officers? >> narrator: ghaith asked to be taken to see the prisoners. after hours of negotiation, fouad got word he could bring him, but blindfolded. >> he said, "i will have to blindfold you," and immediately inside you as a journalist you realize, "ah-hah, that's the point when we're being kidnapped." you're very scared, but you can't run away. you are in the middle of that. we were driv

against al qaeda, al qaeda's strength does not... is not linear. we see it rise and then fall in part depending on u.s. effective against it. and other organizations and their ability to gain sanctuary. so we saw in the 1990s and through 2001 what you might call the fst wave. embassy bombings in africa, targeting the u.s.s. "cole" in yemen and leading up to and peaking tapt september 11 attacks. >> rose: also this evening, steve coll, the reporter who has covered afghanistan extensively has a new book called "private empire: exxonmobil and american power." tonight part one of that conversation which is about afghanistan. >> the united states should also have learned that no policy that is based on a misunderstanding of the facts or wishful thinking is likely to succeed. and there are a whole series of assumptions built intohis trsition policabout the ability of thefghan national arm about the degradation of the taliban and the ability of afghan political lead yooers to fashion a fair transition of power from karzai who-to-whoever comes after. all o

of al qaeda. frankly when you receive the documents that my report on it had been completed and it was reviewed by external leaders so i have to put it aside and i think it's much more insightful than the 17 documents. so i had this -- the documents did not surprise me because i had heard them before. and the report will be published, you know, hopefully next week. so, i was very familiar with these dynamics from an insider perspective about the fact that these indiscriminate attacks against civilian is, is not al qaeda's mode. and also against other civilians. al qaeda sees itself as targeting military, economic and political targets. it doesn't see itself targeting civilians. that's why i think we need to be looking, especially after these documents have been released, we need to reassess where al qaeda stands. what is really al qaeda and what does it mean in terms of the rest of the regional jihadi groups. so that didn't surprise me. i had this privilege to be reading somebody's work. but i'll

al qaeda has not changed its ambitions. and if it finds another rasheed ralph, it may yet be able to translate those ambitions into devastating attacks. >> we'll discuss this a bit more now with nic robertson. i want to focus on al qaeda's efforts to recruit supporters and sympathizers. are they having much success with this? >> they seem to be. every time they get people into these training camps who go back to europe as these two guys in germany did, they go back with lists of other people to recruit their methods and sophisticate to try and cheat intelligence counterterrorism officials using their own sort of countersurveillance methods. gets more complex. this is what they're trying to achieve. they're not so successful in getting people to these training camps and back home safely, but the ones they are getting back, they're using to recruit other people. and this rasheed ralph that we saw here, he wasn't just planning attacks in europe. he was plotting an attack that somebody's been taken to court for now in the unite

what's interesting is al qaeda and the peninsula probably better than any other al qaeda affiliates at the time is they were innovative. the bomb that they established for the christmas day bomber was again one that they figured out how to get it undetected at airports because it had no metal components and they tested that bomb and it worked. >> host: these were the explosives that were sold the qtr end in his underwear and the only reason it didn't work as the ignition didn't quite be the >> guest: i am not a bomb expert and it's not entirely clear to me why i know that one or maybe even to test cases that bomb had actually gone and the tested in yemen. i don't know if there's a decent amount of time when he had been given at and he went from gindin through africa for a period of time in nigeria and then the u.s. and that was the part of the instructions from al-awlaki to avoid detection as much as possible and used a long time in nigeria where you found for on the purity of the ingredient, the power of the ingredients in the bomb, but the innovation of thinking about how to thwart s

they don't have what it takes -- al qaeda would not admit them into their own, as members of al qaeda if they had the organizational luxury to. >> they have killed a lot of people on the way. >> absolutely. that's not what we see bin laden and al qaeda wants. it's not just killing for killing's sake. it's not a question of they don't want -- they don't mind killing, but only if it is, if it is qualitative. so with respect to 9/11 they would justify it as an economic target. now you want to quibble where is economic and where is civilian and there's a good reason. if you say this is an economic target, why is the marketplace not an economic target. you can certainly go into a legal discussion with them on that basis and no doubt you'll have plenty to criticize about al qaeda's conceptualization of an economic target. having said that you are forced to discern between 9/11 and say 7/7, right? these are different. so they are not interested in attacking. this is what makes you kind of wonder or push you to kind of say is this the qualitative attack that al qaeda would want? would bin lad

it could be driven by al qaeda core. and i do think there is something to be said for the fact that the al qaeda core today has less to do with than once did. there are people still out there, people who know the united states, who are certainly trying to carry out attacks. but i think the larger thing, to get to the question, which was about the homegrown violence extremist threat, is that the most likely threats we're going to have here in the united states aren't going to come from the al qaeda core. they're not going to be al qaeda, per se, at all, other than from the big idea. i think that operationally, what that means, it's not that we won't have at least attempts on spectacular attacks, whether it's from al qaeda core or the al qaeda peninsula, the franchises, you'll still have that. but what's much more likely, and likely to be more frequent, is smaller-scale attacks. by home-grown violence extremists or other wannabes. some may have ties back as the times square bomber did, back to pakistan. and others may not.

that's exactly what al-qaeda in iraq began to do. it began to lose support in provinces like umbar that takes us to pre-surge in iraq. i would say what you really see in 2005 and 2006 is less large numbers of american forces fighting al-qaeda in iraq, but supporting iraqis doing it themselves, you know, with special operations, with conditional army marine, and with intelligence units providing a lot of support. local iraqis doing the bulk of the fighting. >> host: the local iraqis doing the bulk of the fighting was, again, zahiri's behavior. >> guest: exactly. >> host: he had not only been sponsoring attacks against civilians, but can you walk us through some of the things he was putting the local communities through? i remember hearing at the time on everything from he's trying to force us to marry off our daughters to him. he won't let us smoke cigarettes and on and on. >> guest: well, there was one awful case, one that's in one of the chapters of the book, where al-qaeda in iraq kills some local civilians, and as the tribal leade

let's pull it back to al qaeda at large. the organization you say has changed a lot from 2001 until now. what was your 32nd elevator speech on how to take the next steps against al qaeda? >> there are a couple of things. one, i think, there is a u.s. strategy, and there are a couple of things, i think, that we want to avoid. as we saw, for example in the second wave, we want to avoid a foreign policy decision that will radicalize large numbers of individuals that support al qaeda, like the iraq invasion. >> so no more ground invasion? >> no more ground invasion. where that would come into play, if there was a successful attack on u.s. soil, somehow we could call for more of a presence -- whether it wasn

and what's interesting is al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula, probably better than any other al-qaeda affiliate by this time, is they were really innovative. the bomb that they established for the christmas day bomber, 2009, was again one that they figured out how to get it undetected in airports because it had no metal components. and they had tested that bomb, and that worked. >> host: these were the plastic explosives what that were sceneo abdulmutallab's underwear, and the only reason it didn't work is the ignition didn't quite go off. >> guest: correct. i'm not a bomb expert, so it's not entirely clear to me why. i know with one, maybe even two test cases that bomb had actually gone off. they tested it in yemen. i don't know if it was the -- there was a decent amount of time when when he had been given it, and he went a circuitous route from yemen, through africa, stayed for a period of time in nigeria, then went to amsterdam and then the u.s. that was part of the instructions from awlaki, was to avoid detection as much as possible, and if you go through these multiple locations,

the expression of al qaeda central is a technical term used in the media to distinguish between al qaeda and afghanistan and pakistan and al qaeda and the rest of the region. i do not object to using it initially to clarify the objective of the centralization endeavor. end of quotation. as to those that have been called the affiliates, they have not just been a problem for al qaeda in terms of harming its image but also caused internal debates among the senior leadership. three different position within al qaeda can be discerned on the subject. there are those who one may term the principal, represented by a leader to disassociate themselves from groups whose leaders have not consulted al qaeda and yet still act the same. there are others represented by an anonymous author urging the opposite believing the inclusion of regional jihadi groups in the fold contributes to al qaeda's growth and expansion. bin laden stems have represented a third position. he wanted to maintain communication through his own pen or that of idea with brothers every where. at least to urge restraint and provided

that al qaeda has been? >> yes, i think in many ways the arab spring revolution, especially their, in egypt where it was a relatively peaceful revolution was a clear repudiation of al qaeda's strategy for changing the political die nam knicks the middle east. but it's also important to newport that while there is a shared intellectual lynn age between the muslim brotherhood and groups like alka a, al qaeda looks like the brother had as out foremost enemy, more so than the united states, because it sees groups like that as competing for the same constituencys that it wants to lead. and al qaeda knows that it's not going to lose a lot of supporters to the united states directly, but it will lose supporters to the muslim brotherhood if groups like that are able to demonstrate that they can seize political power and really influence the way that government is structured in that part of the world. >> and david, in a final few seconds, what posture then does the united states have in that struggle between al qaeda

we keep saying that al qaeda and taliban have no connection. whoever believes in that believes in the tooth fairy. i was invited for that. it's the only this evening i can contribute, the regional conflict. >> don't go away. >> i won't go away. >> just one point of clarification. you're right, everybody wants to create ticalifi and aspirations -- they failed miserably, weren't able to do anything. when i look at al qaeda, i see they have not on that aspiration but they are also talking about world conquest. the issue for me is where are they at in actually achieving their objectives? to me what i see is the first objective of overthrowing these rulers seems to have happened through other means but there's places like egypt where mubarak is no longer in charge. but immediately they wanted to set up sharia in those places and failed. the only places they've been able to set up sharia is yemen, pakistan and the places like emirates. i believe that the correct metric for measuring whether they're successful in these areas has to do -- >> there are

that al qaeda has been? >> yes, i think in many ways the arab spring revolution, especially their, in egypt where it was a relatively peaceful revolution was a clear repudiation of al qaeda's strategy for changing the political die naknic e middle east. but it's also important to newport that while there is a shared intellectual lynn age between the muslim brotherhood and groups like alka a, al qaeda looks like the brother had as out foremost enemy, more so than the united states, because it sees groups like that as competing for the same constituencys that it wants to lead. and al qaeda knows that it's not going to lose a lot of supporters to the united states directly, but it will lose supporters to the muslim brotherhood if groups like that are able todemonstrate that ty can seize political power and really influence the way that government is structured in that part of the world. >> and david, in a final few seconds, what posture then does the united states have in that struggle between al qaeda and the

al-qaeda fighters call home. it is just over the border from where president obama is said to speak moments from now. david lee miller live in new york city. how did this convicted terrorist react to all of this. >> reporter: he sat stone faced as he listened to the verdict. he was largely unemotional even when listening to damaging testimony from his two accomplices. a few days ago he did shed a tear when his mother and sister took the stand and his attorney said he thought of them when convicted. >> at the end when the jury did reach its verdict, he did say to me to please tell his family to be strong. >> reporter: the defense says there is going to be an appeal. meanwhile, he now faces life. >> shep: big win for the people because we learn so much how al-qaeda works. >> reporter: indeed, law enforcement did. they learned a great deal was al-qaeda seems to greatly value home-grown trim. he and his accomplices wanted to fight u.s. forces in afghanistan. al-qaeda told them they were far more valuable returning to

this obviously brings me to the question of the al qaeda and the challenge of al qaeda basically in terms of the short-term and the long-term aims and goals and what direction al qaeda is taking. i would like to mention now that we do have a very distinguished panel, you do have basically the cv. i'm not going to read it this time except to indicate that each and every one specialized in this particular area and because of the time factor and some have to leave earlier, i would like to invite first mark levitt, matthew levitt who is as you know the director of the terrorism program at the washingtonian institute on middle east policy. >> good afternoon, thank you. and thanks also for accommodating my teaching schedule. the students aren't very understanding when you arrive as late as maybe i did here this afternoon. it's a pleasure to be here. thank you very much. if you read the papers this weekend, you might come to the cob collusion that we're done. that al qaeda's all but over and we're on the right trajectory. i might agree with the second half. we're on the right trajectory. but we'

where does al qaeda want to go? where can al qaeda go? and where do we want al qaeda to go? fist, let's address what the death of bin laden meant. i'm not sure. i am sure the pressure of the military, the economic put on al qaeda has caused al qaeda to adopt. to morph or to mutate. most view bin laden's death as a good thing. we must ask if his death now causes us to deal with a new strain of al qaeda and what does that strain look like? when you have a game plan set and the other team changes you need to adjust. war and life is about edap tags and especially in war he who adapts quickest will have an advantage. if al qaeda under bin laden looked the same after his death, there is no adaptation required. attempting to extrapolate what al qaeda will look like, what al qaeda will do, what al qaeda will become is uncertain. as owy beara stated, prediction is hard especially about the future. second, where does al qaeda want to go and can they go? assuming they have not shifted from their original views and methods we are dealing with people on the fringe. we believe in our caus

al qaeda says it is behind the attacks. frank gardner reports. >> some salt -- some thought it was at first a ceremonial cannon. but it was a lone suicide bomber to week hot carnage in the heart of the yemeni capital. -- to wreak carnage in the heart of the yemeni capital. it was at of tomorrow's planned parade to celebrate the country's unity. the capitals hospitals were overwhelmed and called for blood donors. this is worse than almost anything its residents can remember. we were just waiting for the defense minister's speech, says this soldier, and we have no idea where the explosion came from. >> yemen has been shaped -- shaken by last year's protests. its longstanding president driven out and in the confusion, al qaeda has moved in, taking large tracts of territory in the south. today's bombing is a message of defiance from al qaeda to the new president. it took place in the capitol right by the presidential palace. it should have been a secure area. it comes as government forces are battling al qaeda, mainly in a cert

got al qaeda. it is something analogous to trade unionists or social democrats. that takes time. 100 or 150 years. if we get to the point where all the heads of the residual core want to talk about how they have influenced the parliament in agent or syria, that battle is just about one. -- won. the voices of the people, [unintelligible] they can't do without the oxygen of violence. that is where they lost footing as people have had alternatives in the greater the middle east. >> i think you touched on it a couple of times. for a game changing watch, watch the money. it is about money. it was -- it is what will drive them and give them capability. recently, i can say this in a general sense. we have realized that and matt with his background in the treasury could speak to this better. we have started to employ those tools to go after some things, and when you take their legs out and add accord, at religious beliefs are important but if you do not have the capability to do it, you will fall flat on y

of any changing game plan by al qaeda. whether it's game plan as a terrorist group, or whether as one of our speakers said, it might be a game plan for something beyond just being a terrorist group. do we have any evidence, other than conjecture, for any kind of change in game plan? is. >> well, let me just offer that -- and i too am sorry that mary has left and matthew would probably be able to add a lot, as well. beyond what i can. but, yes, we do. we have evidence that al qaeda is a thinking and promulgating organization. it thinks and promulgates through a couple primary media. one is its based website called al fasiar, and has a newspaper that it prom gates messages and information. and predominantly, we get the tone and tenure of where al qaeda's core believes it's headed, from the releases and the pronouncement the s by now zawiahiri himself or those listd in al qaeda as the -- either the heads of internal and external operations for the different functionarie functionaries. so for many years, you had one or more of

he put al qaeda in yemen to 1,000. compared to the al qaeda in afghanistan, which is only 100. that gives you an idea why almost everyone we speak to here at the pentagon ch. >> does the u.s. military, as far as you know, have any u.s. military personnel on the ground in yes, ma'am man? we know there are 19,000 al qaeda troops in afghanistan, but what about in yemen? >> there is -- counter terrorism training, things like that, nowhere near, near the amount that obviously that would be in afghanistan. so a very limited number. but there was a big development in that relationship between theist and yemen, just within the last month, wolf, because u.s. officials tell us that both the cia and the u.s. military have been granted the authority to use drone strikes in yemen -- when they are going after these suspected al qaeda fighters. >> there are many bases in northern africa, and around the region, where those drone strikes are operated. a lot of it depends on whether you're talking about the u.s. military or the cia. >> very sensitive stuff indeed. chris, thanks very much. we'll

al qaeda's uniqueness historically was its attempt to bring that together. that made it conspicuously dangerous. bin laden's death made it less dangerous and our policy needs to reflect that going ford. >> thank you very much. in honor of our speakers, i would like to develop some sort of discussion, especially because i know that mary and matt have to leave for your teaching. okay. are there any yeses now at this point? would you kindly come to the mic over there. >> we've scared them speechless. >> can i say one thing about this whole -- >> you can -- honestly if the members of the panel want to make a statement or ask a question or comment. yes. melvin? >> milton hoenig. i have a very general question. what does what you've said have to do with the concern over a rise in domestic terrorism and terrorism perhaps is inspired by the ideals of al qaeda, even after the death of bin laden. what is your feeling about the importance of a concern over domestic terrorism? one speaker emphasized it strongly. what is the panel's concern about that? >> mary? >> on the

on the other hand pretty clear that al-qaeda still working very hard to hit the u.s. targets and getting increasingly sophisticated on how to do it. how do you read it? >> absolutely, i think the main message here, is that the bomber in yemen is still alive and committed to bringing down an airplane in the u.s. tried three times in the las three years, twice with the mep of the saudies, able to foil the plot, but there's an ever present threat and coming now from yemen and i think this really brings home. >> paul: and that these sanctuaries are evolving. we used to say pakistan and now yemen and maybe some evolving in africa. and whenever you have the spaces of unrest around the world. al-qaeda is evolving and we're also evolving and i think it's important, a lot of that that says a great focus on the leaks, and where they came from, how much damage they've created and we want to get to that. >> and, but the important point here is just last thursday, seven more terrorists were killed in a drone strike in yemen and the number of drone strikes has increased dramaticall

as you note, al qaeda today, al qaeda core, the al qaeda that is holed up in pakistan, is in a much weaker state than it was, certainly, in, you know, from 2001 through 2008, 2009. in part, that has to do with actions that are taken by others. but in part, it's due to the affective use of our sanctions authority that has led to a substantial decrease in the financial support for al qaeda. when we designate individuals who are supporters of al qaeda, who are financial facilitators, who are raising money, moving money for al qaeda, that has the effect of making it much more difficult for those individuals to appropriate. certainly in the united states, where it is a crime to do any business with these people, but one of the things that we have been able to do is to get international financial institutions, institutions that are not obliged to follow u.s. law to run the list. to screen their transactions so that they are certain they're not facilitating any transactions for individuals that we have designated for being involved in terrorist financing. that has largely prevented al qaeda from

he does not like al qaeda. he fears them and he says he does not believe there behind the recent bombings. >> this line has been used over and over by the regime, he said. i wish it would come up with something new. the regime lies all the time. they lie about the weather. many fighters are deeply pious. there is a tradition here at odds with al qaeda's harsh ideology. the daily suicide attacks and the headings have not yet come to syria. sometimes there is an offer of help from al qaeda. we have learned of a direct approach from an emissary of al qaeda. a muslim cleric from this part of the country. money, weapons, and other support put on the table people here turn them away. more than a year into the revolution, people are getting desperate. they warn if the west fails to come to their aid, al qaeda will step in. and at a free army command post, they say they are fighting for democracy, not sharia law. this officer has this morning. -- warning. >> i tell the un, syrian people cannot take it anymore, he says.

al qaeda's murderous new ideology. all of it culminating in this, osama bin laden's official and very public declaration of war on america and americans. bin laden had spoken. once again he had warned his enemy. but was anyone really listening? did anyone take him seriously? bin laden was about to strike and now had his own spy casing the target. >> my name is ali mohamed. >> reporter: an agent who had spent years inside the u.s. military. [ sirens ] two american embassies, two truck bombs, two terrorist attacks just nine minutes apart in neighboring countries along the coast. kenya and tanzania. more than 200 dead. more than 4,000 injured. who was behind this carnage and why? within eight days there were leads and suspects and a stunning realization. osama bin laden had lived up to his threat. his al qaeda terrorists had just struck their first direct blow in their holy war against the united states. the attacks were carefully planned. >> my name is ali mohamed. >> reporter: this man, ali mohamed, was no ordinary al q

al qaeda local wing has taken responsibility. financial times deutschland blames greed for the pollen share price. -- fall in share price. this suggests the company was overvalued. google perhaps has a few too many. the eu has issued a surprise and the monopoly ultimatum to the online search giant. a newspaper says germany will reject proposals at a summit on wednesday. the former england football manager -- >> president obama has said there has been progress in chicago to form a long-term plan for handing over security in afghanistan and pulling out western combat troops. >> the al qaeda branch in yemen says the carried out the suicide bombing in the capital that killed at least 90 soldiers in sanaa. a former student at rutgers university in new jersey has been jailed for three days for using web came -- the web can to spy on his gay roommate. the 18-year-old roommate jump to his death after learning thatdharun ravi had filled a sexual encounter with another man. >> in court, the 20-year-old showed little emotion. he had already

the new al qaeda documents called future works appears to have been written in 2009 by al qaeda's senior leadership. u.s. intelligence sources tell cnn this information is pure gold. but it contains details of some of al qaeda's most dangerous attacks, including the attack on the london subway seven years ago. one source says that this is the most important haul of al qaeda documents this year, outside of what was found in bin ladin's compound. another plan revealed in these documents, more attacks by pakistani militants in mumbai india. ten gunmen on a shooting rampage, 164 innocents killed. german intelligent sources say these two men who came back to europe last year, may have been tasked with planning a similar attack. they're now on trial at this berlin court. prosecutors allege that their job was to recruit a network of suicide attackers. >> we do not know what these two young men were actually up to. but there are certain information in those files that would make it plausible to assume they probably were thinking of a mumbai style attack. >> reporter: the pair have denied being m

and, then, this, american al qaeda spokesman discussed al qaeda's media strategy and said, in general, and no matter what material we send, i suggest we distribute it to more than one channel, so logical be healthy competition between the channels in broadcasting so no other channel takes the lead. it should be sent to abc, cbs, and nbc, and cnn and as for fox news, let her die in anger. >> well, is there a school where they come out with this flowery language "let her die in her fire." this guy obviously if terrorism does not work out he can be an intern at media matters. >> a lot in that statement but they said that oberman was an amazing journalist were seriously? >> the economy, still the most important issue for americans and still a key factor in the voters' pick for president. but are the media telling the whole truth? or spinning the numbers to fit their agenda? >> we are going to put down the role of candidate and candidate spouse and take back the roles of active citizens. >> newt gingrich bows out of the g.o.p. race. was it too soon for the media? that is next. [ kyle ] my