SHOW: ABC NEWS SATURDAY NIGHT ( :am ET)
JANUARY 14, 1999
Transcript # 99011401-j18
TYPE: PACKAGE
SECTION: NEWS
LENGTH: 7310 words
HEADLINE: CRIME AND JUSTICE
BYLINE: J. MILLER, J. MCWETHY, S. MACVICAR, CYNTHI MCFADDEN
HIGHLIGHT: TARGET AMERICA: THE TERRORIST WAR
BODY:
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, this is Crime and Justice.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: (voice-over) The enemy is out there. Terrorists targeting Americans around the world.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: It is a least manly way of going to war that I can think of.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Where will innocent people die next? Will the new front line be abroad or at home?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Intelligence sources telling Time magazine they believe Osama bin Laden may be planning an attack on New York or Washington.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) It's a shadowy network of radical fundamentalists led by this man.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) With a $5 million award posted for his capture.
Rep. PORTER GOSS, Chairman, Select Intelligence Committee: What amazes me a little bit is ABC seems to be able to sit down and talk to Osama bin Laden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Tonight, an exclusive ABC News interview with the man who declared war on the United States -- terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. His loyal foot soldiers are even here in the U.S., hidden among us, awaiting his call to deadly action.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Now, the real story behind the deadly embassy bombings, over 220 dead and more than 4,000 injured. Was the government warned? And why is bin Laden in secret meetings with Saddam Hussein's top men? ABC News has learned of a high-risk mission planned by U.S. commandos. But will they get to Osama bin Laden in time? Can anything stop the slaughter?
ANNOUNCER: Tonight, "Target America: The Terrorist War." With reports from John Miller, Sheila MacVicar and John McWethy in Washington. Now, from New York, Cynthia McFadden.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN, ABC News: Good evening. And welcome to ABC News Crime and Justice. Over the next several weeks, we'll be bringing you a series of stories about people on both sides of the law -- some fascinating, some frightening.
We start with one of the biggest threats facing the world today, terrorism. It's an issue of such great concern that ABC News assembled a team to take you moment by moment through the recent African embassy bombings and deep inside the FBI and CIA investigations.
Sheila MacVicar from London, John McWethy from the Pentagon and John Miller from our law and justice unit here in New York will tell you who was behind the bombs, how the bombings were planned and what the U.S. government is going to do about it.
Tonight, you'll hear information never before made public about the man who has been called America's number-one enemy, Osama bin Laden, and his worldwide network of devoted soldiers. We begin in East Africa on that terrible day last August. We must warn you, some of the footage you're about to see is graphic.
ONDEKO AURA, Kenyan Broadcasting: It was reminiscent of doomsday. The first thing I saw was a thick cloud of smoke billowing above my head. Minutes later, I saw people running, bleeding profusely.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Ondeko Aura is a reporter for Nairobi Television. On the morning of August 7, 1998, he and his crew were about to do an interview two blocks away from the American embassy.
ONDEKO AURA: It brings back to memory nightmares. I'll tell you, sometimes it's not easy to sleep. Sometimes those dead bodies come back to mind. You're seeing them in your sleep. You see the injured screaming in your sleep. You wake up sweating.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) U.S. intelligence officials believe the planning for this particular nightmare began more than a year earlier. During August of 1997, in Nairobi, a small group of Islamic fundamentalists had taken up residence. True believers in the terrorist creed -- that with a pickup truck and 2,000 pounds of TNT, the power is yours. Target a superpower and become a player. One of them wrote a letter to a comrade, foreshadowing what was to come.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: "There is a war, and the situation is dangerous. The fact of these matters and others leave us no choice but to ask ourselves -- are we ready for that big clandestine battle?"
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) What is shocking is that a full year before the bombs explode in Africa, the CIA and FBI had intercepted this letter. The letter ends with this...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN:..."say a lot of prayers for us so God may grant us success."
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The answer to their prayers would come as the details of their plan are put in place. According to the FBI, the following is the chain of events. By August 1, 1998, the suspects have been using the rented villa in the suburbs of Nairobi for five months. They have picked a target. They are building a bomb.
The next day they check into this hotel, leaving the elements for the bomb at the villa. August 4 -- the suspects finalize their plans, taking a practice drive past their target -- the U.S. embassy.
("Hail To The Chief" plays)
(voice-over) August 6 -- in Washington, the President is trying to conduct business as usual. If he is distracted, it is not by a terrorist plot half a world away, but by a former White House intern giving testimony today to a Washington grand jury.
Friday, August 7 -- leaving the villa just before rush hour, the suspects are driving two Toyota trucks -- one carrying the bomb. They are headed toward their target. It is a suicide mission. The U.S. ambassador to Kenya, Prudence Bushnell, says she remembers the morning clearly.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL, U.S. Ambassador to Kenya: Every Friday, we have a senior staff meeting scheduled. And indeed, I had one scheduled that day.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Four hundred fifteen miles away in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, American embassy personnel are also heading to work. One of them, Justena Mdobilu, is starting her morning in the usual way -- praying for God's protection.
Back in Nairobi, Joanne Huskey is bringing her kids to the embassy for their school shots. They arrive at the embassy gate at the same moment as a Toyota truck.
JOANNE HUSKEY: I noticed the truck, and I noticed that it was not an embassy truck. It was probably some kind of a delivery truck, and it seemed to have a tarpaulin over the top.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) She has no idea that inside that truck is a bomb. It's now 10:30 in the morning. The guard refuses to let the truck enter.
EMBASSY GUARD: These guys were strange. I never seen them before.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Inside the embassy, Major Neil Kringel is enduring the Friday staff meeting.
Maj. NEIL KRINGEL: 10:35, and I was thinking, "Oh, boy, how boring this meeting was." It was really, really dragging to me. And all of a sudden, we heard this small bang.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That small bang was a stun grenade, a diversion to help the terrorists move their truck closer to the embassy.
NEIL KRINGEL: Nine, 10 seconds later was the huge bang.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: Kaboom!
JOANNE HUSKEY: And the whole thing blew up.
NEIL KRINGEL: And then I realized, "Jesus, we've just been bombed."
ONDEKO AURA: There has been a powerful bomb blast at the American embassy. Numerous people are feared dead. Hundreds of others are feared injured. Ondeko Aura, KBC (ph) News, outside the American embassy, Nairobi.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The force of the bomb sent scraps of metal and glass flying at a terrifying 21,000 miles per hour -- a deadly shower that kills many of those drawn to the windows to investigate that first explosion. Those who survive have to find a way out.
JOANNE HUSKEY: Then we heard voices calling out, and them asking where the door was, where's a door? I would say, "I know there's a door somewhere here." And finally, we saw a light.
PRUDENCE BUSHNELL: We went down an absolutely torturous journey, 21 flights of stairs, blood all over the place. And the farther down we got, the darker it became and the more smoke there was. At one point, I thought, "I'm going to die."
ONDEKO AURA: Just next to the U.S. embassy building, I see a very familiar face. Who's face is this? The U.S. ambassador Bushnell. She was bleeding from the head, from the hands.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Seven minutes later, the American embassy in Dar es Salaam is rocked by an enormous explosion. Justena Mdobilu, who started the morning praying for protection, is inside the crumbling building.
JUSTENA MDOBILU: It was this "bhhhhh." It reverberated through my body.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) The bomb is identical to the one used in Nairobi -- 2,000 pounds of TNT. Back in Washington, the President is awakened in the hours before dawn with news of the bombings. Already medical supplies are being sent from U.S. bases in Germany, as FBI and CIA counterterrorism experts assemble at Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Africa.
Within hours, U.S. officials will name Osama bin Laden the architect of the bombings. ABC's Sheila MacVicar reports how bin Laden became a legend in the business of terror.
SHEILA MACVICAR, ABC News: (voice-over) Just who is Osama bin Laden? He is a son of privilege, one of 53 children of a Saudi Arabian billionaire, himself married with three wives and seven children, an unlikely holy warrior. He uses his own fortune, estimated at $300 million or more, to fund his battles.
No millionaire life for him. He lives as a guerrilla fighter, his base in the mountains of Afghanistan. Barri Atwan, editor of the respected Arabic daily Al-Quds, has tracked bin Laden's life.
BARRI ATWAN, Editor, Al-Quds: He gave up wealth. He gave up money, and he decided to go and fight for Muslim causes until he dies as martyr. In the Arab world, in the Muslim world, he is a hero.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) The United States first heard of Osama bin Laden 20 years ago. His story began during the Afghan war, the last great stand-off between Communist Soviet Union and the United States. Bin Laden was one of thousands of Arabs who volunteered alongside the Muslim Afghanis, allied to the Americans by a common cause -- the defeat of the Soviets.
But with Russians driven from Afghanistan, bin Laden began to focus on what the U.S. was doing. And he didn't like what he saw.
BARRI ATWAN: The man hates the American policies in the region. He considers America or the American administration the main enemy of the Muslim and Arab worlds.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) In his homeland of Saudi Arabia, bin Laden was angered by the arrival of U.S. forces, welcomed by a royal family he denounced as corrupt. The Americans were occupiers, he said, with no business in the Muslim holy land.
VINCE CANNISTRARO, ABC News Intelligence Consultant: To Osama, these were infidels. These were nonbelievers, and they were there despoiling Saudi Arabia, which should be the pristine guardian of Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He declared his own war -- a war investigators now suspect began back in 1993 at the World Trade Center, continued in Saudi Arabia and Somalia, where it was his fighters who killed 18 U.S. soldiers and forced the U.S. to leave Somalia. For bin Laden, it was an important lesson -- the U.S. could be made to withdraw.
Last February, bin Laden and other Islamic militants formed "the world Islamic front for holy war against Jews and Americans."
STANLEY BEDLINGTON, Former CIA Analyst: He is driven by his extremist version of Islam which is far, far, removed from the voices of authentic Islam.
SHEILA MACVICAR: (voice-over) He issued this ominous warning -- "Killing Americans and their allies, civilian and military," he said, "is an individual duty for every Muslim."
Three months later, ABC's John Miller was waiting to meet the man U.S. authorities now call public enemy number one.
JOHN MILLER, ABC News: (voice-over) Peshawar, Pakistan. To find Osama bin Laden, you start here. Of course, you don't find bin Laden, unless he wants you to. Days before, our contacts in bin Laden's organization instructed us to dress in the clothing of the region. At airports, we were handed tickets just before the flights. We were never told our destinations in advance.
In the late afternoon of May 20, two months before the embassy bombings, we were loaded into the back of a truck and driven toward the Khyber Pass, the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Two of bin Laden's men led us over the border into Afghanistan on foot. That night, another truck took us to bin Laden's camps. In the early morning hours of May 22, Osama bin Laden made his entrance.
(Gunshots)
(voice-over) This scene, of course, was a show for the cameras. We understood that. Even so, after two days in the camps, it was clear to us that the men around bin Laden, hundreds of them, idolize him. He is, for lack of a better comparison, like a god to them.
But bin Laden downplays his own power. He denied ordering the various attacks he'd been linked to but said he supported the attacks and knew many of the suspects. And he warned America should brace for more.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We predict a black day for America and the end of the United States. And they will retreat from our land and collect the bodies of their sons back to America.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) That was a direct threat against the U.S. military. But bin Laden was very deliberate in his next threat -- that the killing would not be limited to American soldiers.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. They are all targets in this fatwa.
(Gunshots)
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Like the bullets his followers fired into the sky, bin Laden's threats seemed to hang in the air that night. He did not say how Americans would die or when or where. Of course, if plans for the embassy bombings had begun in March, as the FBI now alleges, then bin Laden already knew that night in late May, how, when and where.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: When we come back, U.S. investigators sort through the rubble. We'll show you why they say Osama bin Laden was the mastermind.
(Commercial Break)
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Nairobi, Kenya, August 8, 1998. Over the next week, this makeshift morgue will become a painful stop for those looking for their loved ones. By week's end, more than 220 people are dead, with over 4,000 injured.
Among the dead are 12 Americans. A career diplomat and his 20-year-old son. A Marine sergeant come to cash his paycheck. A 40-year-old Air Force officer, who'd just turned down an offer to return to Washington because she loved Africa.
But in those first horrible hours, it was unclear who was dead and who was alive.
ROBERT KIRK, Embassy Worker: There were helicopters all around, and people were just -- it was just mayhem.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) After the bombing, Robert Kirk searched frantically for his wife, Arlene. Both worked at the embassy in Nairobi. Both had the day off, but Arlene decided to go in for just a minute to check her e-mail.
ROBERT KIRK: OK, I just told everyone that "I want to see my wife. I want to see her condition before I leave this place. Simple as that. And I waited there.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) All the while thinking about the life they had shared -- traveling the world and working together, raising a family. About an hour later, his worst fears were confirmed.
ROBERT KIRK: She was wrapped in a blanket, but her hair was exposed and I could tell it was her by her hair. And I remember the only thing I said was, "Oh, my God," and closed the blanket because her face was disfigured.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) That first night there was little hope for survivors until rescuers heard a voice from deep under the rubble. Rose Macharia, a 36-year-old mother of three, could be heard faintly begging for help.
RESCUER: Rose, Rose!
ONDEKO AURA: I was on top of the debris reporting, and I hear the rescuers calling, "Rose, Rose!" They call out her name.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) Businessman Vimal Shah is one of the many who try to help her.
VIMAL SHAH, Businessman: Because this could fall any time.
She was saying, "Get me out. I need help. I need assistance." And she was knocking on the concrete there.
ONDEKO AURA: Rose seems to be the driving factor of the rescue mission. She seems to give hope of at least achieving some success in retrieving somebody alive from the wreckage.
CYNTHIA MCFADDEN: (voice-over) And for five long days, rescuers struggle to free her. As the search for survivors continues, the first wave of counterterrorism investigators from the CIA and FBI begin to arrive. They are 13 hours late because of problems with a transport plane. The FBI's Mike Brooks is among the first on the scene and sets up a command post.
MIKE BROOKS, FBI: In going through the embassy and knowing that people died in that building, you see nametags. You see name plates. You see pictures, personal effects. And you wonder what happened to this person? Did this person live? Did this person die? How could anyone have survived this at all?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Immediately following the embassy bombings, bin Laden vanishes from his camps. For weeks, he is deep in hiding. December 24 -- somewhere in the Afghan desert, inside a tent, Osama bin Laden meets an ABC News reporter for a second exclusive interview. With bin Laden in the tent are his top advisors. By now, the U.S. has offered a $5 million reward for bin Laden's capture.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) If the instigation for Jihad against the Jews and the Americans is considered a crime, let history be a witness that I am a criminal.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) It is the first time bin Laden has been seen since the embassy bombings. He denies ordering the attacks but says he believes his calls for war on the United States have been heard.
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) Most probably these acts came about as a result of such calls and warnings, but only God knows the truth.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) But we asked bin Laden even if he supported the killing of Americans in the name of Jihad, how could he justify the Africans, the Muslims and children who were hurt and killed?
OSAMA BIN LADEN: (through translator) When it becomes apparent that it would be impossible to repel these Americans without assaulting them, even if this involved the killing of Muslims, this is permissible under Islam.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In spite of bin Laden's denials, he was the leading suspect from day one. But before the FBI could try and prove who the bombers were working for, they had to find the bombers. The FBI's Ken Pernick tried to put himself inside the bomber's head.
KEN PERNICK, FBI: If I was the terrorist, how would I plan to do this? When I put myself in their shoes, I can begin to help focus my own investigation. What would I use? What kind of people would use?
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The answers to "what kind of people" came in more quickly than investigators could have imagined. August 7, the same day the bombs went off, a plane coming from Nairobi touches down in Karachi, Pakistan. At passport control, one of the passengers appears nervous. Immigration officials say he hands them this false passport.
Shift commander Riaz Gondal questions the man in this office. Gondal says they learn his real name is Muhammad Sadiq Odeh, and they say he admits to being an explosives expert, trained in bin Laden's camps.
RIAZ GONDAL, Pakistani Immigration Official: When he was being interrogated, at one point, he admitted frankly that he is a member of Al Qaeda organization, which is headed by Mr. Osama bin Laden.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) According to Gondal, Odeh describes planning the bombing at the Hilltop Hotel and gives the names of the other bombers. And so, within 24 hours of the bombing, alert Pakistani immigration officials hand investigators the first big break.
August 9 -- two days after the bombing. Nairobi police receive a tip about another man who went by the name Khalid. He is said to be among the injured. Peter Mbuvi is the assistant chief of detectives for Kenya's national police.
Det. PETER MBUVI, Kenya's National Police: The force behind the arrest of this person, of Khalid, came from a member of the public who became suspicious.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) Kenyan investigators find Khalid. They say his real name is Mohammed Al Owali. He has a deep wound in his back. The FBI says Al Owali admits he got the wound running away from the truck that carried the bomb, that he rode in the truck to the embassy, that he was the man who threw the grenade at this guard.
EMBASSY GUARD: He pull out something, then he threw.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) The FBI says Al Owali ran just before the explosion because he changed his mind about becoming a martyr. With two suspects talking, the FBI identifies a third, Harun Fazil, as the man who supervised the making of the bomb in that rented villa. Assistant director Lew Schiliro is the FBI's man in charge of the embassy bombing case.
LEWIS SCHILIRO, FBI Assistant Director in Charge: Fazil is believed to be originally from the Comoros Islands, is alleged to have been in Nairobi at the time of the bombings and is also have been alleged to have led the truck to the embassy.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) In the Comoros Islands, the FBI raids Fazil's home. Fazil is gone. Neighbors say Fazil was a serious young man who memorized the Koran and taught religious classes before moving to Kenya. ABC News obtained this video of an FBI evidence recovery team going over the house, looking for clues that might connect Fazil to the bombing.
LEWIS SCHILIRO: Fazil has become a subject of an international manhunt, somebody that's also subject to the $5 million State Department reward and is an individual we would desperately seek to get back to the United States to put on trial.
JOHN MILLER: (voice-over) ABC News also obtained this video, which FBI sources say shows Fazil on a mission for bin Laden in Kenya, as far back as 1996.
PETER MBUVI: What our investigations have revealed so far is that most of the people who are behind this incident, actually, they have all been financed by Osama bin Laden.