AP : CNN profiles lasting power of bin Laden

CNN profiles lasting power of bin Laden

By Lynn Elber | AP television writer | August 16, 2006

LOS ANGELES -- To terrorism expert Peter Bergen, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda are hiding in plain sight as the force behind the alleged plot against trans-Atlantic airliners.

Bin Laden's tenacious influence five years after Sept. 11 is why, Bergen said, he felt compelled to write about him and to participate in "In the Footsteps of bin Laden," a new CNN documentary based in part on Bergen's book, "The Osama bin Laden I Know."

The two-hour special, reported by CNN's chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, airs at 8 p.m. next Wednesday, and repeats at 6 and 9 p.m. Aug. 26 and 27.

While U.S. and British officials investigate links between the airplane bombing plot and Al Qaeda, Bergen already sees a clear connection.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden and his chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri, have released dozens of video and audio tapes that Bergen characterizes as "the most widely distributed political statements in history."

"Hundreds of millions of people see them or hear them or read about them. .... To people who are part of the jihadist movement, these words are akin to a religious order," Bergen said. When bin Laden calls for assaults on members of the Iraq war coalition, "people react to that in Madrid and London."

As he dodges capture (he's believed to be in Pakistan), bin Laden is not in operational control of Al Qaeda, but "he doesn't need to be because these tapes get the message out."

Bergen teaches at Johns Hopkins University and is a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

CNN's film constructs an account of bin Laden's life based on dozens of worldwide interviews, 21 of which were with people who had direct contact with him, including childhood friends, university classmates, fellow jihadists and a former English teacher.

"When there is somebody like bin Laden who's done what he's done, there's the natural reaction of pigeonholing, making him the monster. ... But I think it's interesting to try to know more about them," Amanpour said in a recent interview.

In trying to comprehend the "fatal switch" that turned bin Laden from what Amanpour calls a "comfortably off, establishment person" into an extremist, the CNN documentary sidesteps armchair analysis.

There are details that carry the potential for such scrutiny: Bin Laden, the son of the late Saudi construction magnate Mohammed bin Laden, lived apart from the family that included his father's 22 wives and 54 sons and daughters.

But the CNN special deliberately avoids theorizing about bin Laden's personal demons, Amanpour said.

Bergen, who in 1997 obtained the first TV interview with bin Laden for CNN, found two elements of his research on the man particularly intriguing and unexpected.

One was the sharp criticism from within Al Qaeda that bin Laden faced after Sept. 11, initially seen as a tactical error. Bin Laden thought it would drive the U.S. to withdraw from Mideast involvement; instead, it fueled attacks on his group and Afghanistan's Taliban.

(The Iraq war, which Bergen said reinvigorated Al Qaeda and its terrorist efforts, ultimately reversed its attitude toward the attack on America.)

Bergen also was struck by another, more intimate detail about bin Laden. He named a daughter Safia, after a woman from the prophet Muhammad's time who was known for killing Jews.

"Just the kind of mental state of calling your infant daughter" after such a figure is striking, Bergen said. "I think that gets inside that he's a really rabid anti-Semite. ... I didn't take that seriously enough. I don't think we can make that mistake this time around."