violence at nbc. there it is. violence at nbc ge.com. what is internet, anyway? do you write to it, like mail? >> a lot of people use it and communicate. i guess they can communicate with nbc writers. and producers. alison, can you explain what internet is? there are people in this country who are furious at the federal government. >> they have a right to believe whatever they want. they do not have the right to kill americans. >> there has been a massive explosion in oklahoma city, oklahoma. >> police are descending upon columbine high right now. >> we shouldn't lose vigilancy. the terrorists often takes the path of least resistance and strikes when and where we least expect them to. >> what are your future plans? >> translator: you'll see them and hear about them in the media. god willing.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ terry anderson is free. he was the last of the american hostages held by pro-iranian terrorists in beirut, lebanon. >> in the beginning of the '90s terrorism was thought to be done. people who were likely to use

terrorism to achieve political objectives were dead, in jail or part of a new peace process. >> a syrian delegation is in washington today, ready to meet with israel to talk about middle east peace. >> we thought the '90s would be a time of peace. not only was the cold war over, we had won. >> we have before us the opportunity to forge a new world order, a world where the rule of law governs the conduct of nations. >> the world was changing, and it was an exciting time for those who really viewed america as the nation that would embrace globalization. but there were many people who didn't like that changing america. >> in maples, idaho about 40 miles from the canadian border federal marshals are surrounding a cabin, where a fugitive white supremacist named randy weaver is holed up with his family. >> randy weaver was a survivalist who lived out in the mountains with his family at ruby ridge, idaho. weaver was of interest to the

bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms because he had links to the aryan nations. and they tried to pressure him to inform on his friends in the movement, and he refused. >> weaver is summoned to court for a weapons charge that involves the selling of some sawed-off shotguns to law enforcement. >> now a force of 200 police, federal agents and the national guard have surrounded the house. >> this is nothing more than a show of force to scare everybody who lives up here in north idaho. we all have guns in our houses. we all have guns buried someplace. >> northern idaho has become home for a lot of people like randy weaver who want to be away from the problems of civilization and from civilization itself. >> he's not a terrorist. he's not endangering anybody. everybody that knows him has talked about him as a good, loving christian family man. >> never before has northern idaho witnessed this kind of fire power from the federal government. >> what should have been a relatively routine arrest went very badly wrong. there was a shootout in which

weaver's 14-year-old son sammy and a dog and a u.s. marshal all ended up dead. an fbi sharpshooter shot his wife dead while she was carrying the baby in her arms. >> fbi agents are trained to shoot only to protect themselves or others. the rules of engagement for ruby ridge were rewritten. >> decisions were made within the fbi which allowed the snipers to shoot at anyone who was armed. it was completely unjustifiable. >> put a bullet in my head! hey, i'll make it easy. i'll turn my back on you. >> baby killer! >> not everyone who lives around here says randy weaver is in the right. but they say none of this would have happened if federal authorities had just left him alone. >> ruby ridge was not a story that was on the front page of national newspapers. most people didn't know about it at all, but it absolutely did energize the radical right. >> the siege ended at 12:15 when randall weaver and his three

children walked off the mountain after 11 days. >> there is all this tremendous ferment that is arising precisely because of the end of the cold war. this mindset that the united states government is the enemy breeds almost a decade of violence. >> in langley, virginia today, right outside cia headquarters, a young man with a rifle opened fire on a number of people who were in their cars. >> no one would ever think that a situation like a shooting of cia personnel would happen on their front doorstep. the shooter escapes. >> two cia employees were shot to death in virginia. a pakistani suspect is reported to be back in pakistan. >> they figure out his name, mir qazi. but they don't know where to peg him. who is he working for? what organization? >> in the 1970s we were dealing with terrorist groups. in this case there was no group that could be identified. this was the actions of one single individual.

we did not realize that terrorism seemed to be moving in a new direction. [ sirens ] >> a mysterious explosion underground has spread fire and smoke and terror throughout the gigantic world trade towers today. >> at 18 minutes after noon, something terrible happened here in lower manhattan. >> counterterrorism sources tell cnn they now suspect the explosion was caused by a car bomb. >> the bombing was designed to bring down the north tower and the north tower then falling into the south tower. >> it did not, of course, collapse the towers. but it did kill six people and injure over 1,000 more. >> i was very concerned. anything like that, any accident, tragedy, anything of moment you feel it very personally. >> the thing that's most amazing

is that more people weren't killed, especially having occurred at the house that it did and the place that it did. >> president clinton had just come into office. i was in new york as ambassador at the united nations. there's no way to fully explain how all of a sudden the mood changed. >> i'll put the full resources of the federal government, every conceivable law enforcement information resource we can put to work on this we have. i'm very concerned about it. >> federal officials are beginning to focus more heavily on the possibility of the explosion being the work of foreign terrorists. >> the 1993 world trade center bombing was a signal of how the extremist war that had been limited largely to the middle east was coming to the american shores. >> tonight, six days after the bombing at the world trade center, one suspect is in custody. more arrests are said to be coming. >> the investigators found the vin number of the ryder truck, and it turned out that one of the collaborators had returned there to ask for his $400 deposit back.

>> authorities have told abc news that the man has links to a radical muslim group. >> they managed to capture most of the accomplices but the mastermind, ramzi yousef, fled. >> ramzi yousef is smart and he is radicalized. his uncle is khalid sheikh mohammed. a man who would later become a leader in an organization called al qaeda. >> i have an office in that building. i will lead my people back into that office. that will be our message to whoever did this. whatever you were trying to achieve, you failed. >> for the fbi the lesson was that these guys, while dangerous, were not at the same level as the terrorists of the late '80s. they were wannabes. that of course would be a complete misunderstanding. >> for the first time since the bombing, tower 2 will reopen for business, two weeks ahead of schedule. >> and that, says new york's mayor, is a testament to a city that conquered the use of fear as a weapon. the only ones who should be fearful now, he says, are the

terrorists themselves.

good morning, everybody. we begin this time around at waco, texas, where dozens of federal agents are surrounding the headquarters of a religious cult. >> february 28th, i got a call saying get down to waco, there's been some kind of shootout. [ gunfire ] this religious group, the branch davidians have this compound. they have been buying parts that

would convert semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic weapons, which were illegal. the atf decided it was time to go in. >> take the shot. get the hell off of here. >> four federal agents died in the sunday morning shootout there in texas. 16 others were wounded. >> almost 100 heavily armed cult members remain inside this sprawling compound. cult leader david koresh says the standoff will continue until god tells him to come out. >> koresh proclaimed himself to be a prophet. the "waco tribune" began to publish a series of articles about what they called the sinful messiah, who loves music and who will drink a beer with you and who also happens to have sex with underage girls and who has a lot of weapons. >> it makes nobody's business whether we have a gun or not. guns are the right of americans to have. >> cult members continue fortifying their compound, an indication there is no plan to surrender anytime soon.

>> the showdown moves into its 18th day. >> this is day 20 of the standoff. >> this was day 32. >> negotiations between the cult and fbi agents have stalled. >> it was all waco all the time. every newscast, every newspaper, every radio newscast is filled with this showdown. >> david koresh becomes a household name, and many people are inspired by him. he is taking it to the u.s. government. he is not going to stand down. and people drive to waco to show their support. >> things had reached a point partly because of the publicity that something had to give right away. >> an update on the 51-day standoff. early this morning armored vehicles entered cult leader david koresh's compound and began punching large holes in the walls. >> a decision was made to inject cs gas, a kind of tear gas on steroids. all america along with all of law enforcement on the scene is waiting for people to come out. >> suddenly, out of one of the

second floor windows, flames burst forth. and as you can see, it looks like at this point the entire compound is just engulfed. >> i have never in my life seen anything burn that way. it just went up in this massive fireball. >> there are no signs at this point of any people coming out of the building. >> the images are horrible. you had the federal government of the united states using a tank to deal with a compound that has children. it's not what we do in the united states. and yet in many ways the clinton administration felt that koresh had left them no alternative. >> the offender there was david koresh. and i do not think the united states government is responsible for the fact that a bunch of fanatics decided to kill themselves. and i'm sorry that they killed their children. >> it was proved later that the davidians lit that building on fire themselves. but there were literally millions of americans who

absolutely believed that the government had murdered those people. >> this whole situation started with violence. it was not justified, not provoked when the atf went in there. and it ended in violence that was not justified and not provoked. >> waco was proof positive to many of these people that this was an aggressive, predatory federal government and now we have to fight back, like the minutemen in 1776, to bear arms to defend their own rights. >> this is the michigan militia, a self-proclaimed fighting force of ordinary citizens preparing to defend themselves against the federal government. >> you will be receiving live fire over your heads this morning. >> there's also an armed militia here in indiana, and at least 20 other states. >> we'd always had a radical right. but in the '90s it really entered the mainstream. gun shows became an extremely important venue, not just for selling guns, but they're selling real-life nazi

literature along with survivalist handbooks and all that kind of thing. >> so you're prepared for a conflict with the federal government? >> yes, we are prepared to defend our homes, our families, our children, our lives, our property, yes. >> americans are largely ignorant of what's happening in the heartland with regard to this militia movement. and there is an extremist element of this which would not have been on anybody's radar. and that's what made them so dangerous. >> we do have a special report from nbc news. there has been a massive explosion at a federal building in oklahoma city, oklahoma. >> we have no way to tell at the moment how many casualties there are. though it was an explosion felt 30 miles away. >> rescue workers are desperately trying to save any remaining lives. you can see the side of the building is all down. >> on april 19th when i got to oklahoma city, the building was still on fire, and there were a whole lot of cars around the building that had also exploded. it was unbelievable. >> amid the horror of the bombing it's the dead and wounded children that have

stunned and angered the nation. >> the motive behind the madness is unknown at this hour. the governor of oklahoma says two things are known for sure. those who did this knew what they were doing, and whoever did it, the governor said, is some kind of animal. >> i am pleased to announce that one of the individuals believed to be responsible for wednesday's terrible attack in oklahoma city has been arrested. timothy mcveigh, age 27. >> the shock around the country was huge. this was an act of terrorism by one of our own citizens. >> a second man was charged today with blowing up the federal building. terry nichols, who has been in custody since just after the bombing. >> timothy mcveigh and terry nichols met in the army. mcveigh had fought in the first persian gulf war. >> he left the military very disillusioned. the one thing that sustained him

was his reading about the radical far right and meeting like-minded people. >> timothy mcveigh's alleged plot to blow up the federal building took shape over the course of a secret year-long odyssey across america. >> mcveigh visited militia groups throughout the country. he went to the waco compound when it was under siege. on april 19th, two years to the date after the waco incident, oklahoma city was bombed. >> mr. president, there are tens, maybe more -- tens of thousands of men and women dressing up on weekends in military garb going off for training because they're upset about waco. despite what you say, we're talking about thousands and thousands of people in this country who are furious at the federal government. >> well, they have a right to believe whatever they want. they have a right to say whatever they want. they have a right to keep and bear arms. they have a right to put on uniforms and go out on the weekends. they do not have the right to kill innocent americans.

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good evening. it is a terrifying and long-running mystery. somewhere in this country tonight there is a mad bomber who has been sending deadly bombs to people for 16 years now. the fbi started investigating this bomber in 1978. >> a new jersey advertising executive opened a piece of mail in his home this weekend, and it exploded, killing him. >> it was a horrifying scene. i remember there was a cast iron skillet with nails embedded in it from the force of the blast. >> this cold-blooded murder is the latest deadly development in a series of bombings code named unabomb. >> unabomb stands for university airline bomber. that's because six universities, one commercial airliner and one airline executive have been among the victims. >> the fbi says it cannot find a pattern and admits the long investigation has been frustrating. >> the '90s bring on a whole new challenge for law enforcement,

lone wolves. it really was the proverbial needle in a haystack. >> all authorities have to go on is a composite sketch of a white male believed to be in his 40s. >> he wasn't the only bomber we had investigated before. but his long solitary operation as a serial bomber was so unique. >> unabomb hotline? >> so far thousands of tips phoned into the san francisco unabomb task force have led nowhere. >> we began an entirely new look at this, an entirely new strategy. we brought in a crew of analysts from fbi headquarters. they worked 24/7, but sadly it happened again. [ siren ] >> a mail bomb explodes inside the california forestry association building. >> the killer known as the unabomber says he will stop mailing package bombs if the newspapers will publish his political theories. >> when we received the manifesto, we felt very strongly that we should publish this. we think someone out there will

actually recognize these words. >> "the industrial revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race." so begins a surprising eight-page addition to "the washington post" this morning. >> someone does recognize these crazed writings and turns him in to the authorities. >> the longest and most intense manhunt in history has zeroed in on a prime suspect just outside lincoln, montana. >> the big concern was are there booby traps? are there explosives on the property? so we had to be very careful. we were knocking on the door of the cabin. he started to close the door and say let me get my coat and come out. and as he did that, one of the agents pushed the door in. and on the morning of april 3rd, theodore kaczynski was taken out of his cabin. >> are you the unabomber? >> are you the unabomber? >> fbi agents today searched the home of a 53-year-old former mathematics teacher named theodore kaczynski. >> the on-site investigation has yielded a cache of evidence.

>> it was the most incredible moment. we knew that this long journey of 18 years was over. >> mike wallace and i together on "60 minutes" interviewed kaczynski's family, who had turned him in. >> i was feeling something that i didn't really expect to feel at all, which was a deep sense of unease, fear. >> because of what you read? >> because of what i read. >> because it sounded like ted? >> because it had sounded enough like him that i could not say to myself or to linda that this is not ted's writing. >> what can you do? you can't risk more lives. dave couldn't. none of us could. >> apparently some lives were saved. for when the fbi arrested ted kaczynski, they say they found a live bomb wrapped under his bed, ready for mailing. the only thing missing was a name and address. >> get your usa flags, everybody needs to have a flag.

>> three for one! >> hats, t-shirts. >> in july 1996, when the olympics were being hosted in atlanta, there was a tremendous concern about terrorist attacks. the security for the park was carefully coordinated. >> it's all taking place in the midst of security that an american of an earlier generation could not have imagined. >> the extra police, the extra surveillance, people searching their bags, they're willing to put up with that. >> nobody here is complaining about that, and that's the point. >> there was one place officials decided people should be able to go and not have to worry about checkpoints. and that was centennial olympic park. >> 1:25 this morning thousands of revelers at an open air rock concert in centennial park. >> all of a sudden i felt a big boom, blast, heat came and it knocked me off the wall, blew my pants off. >> up the street! everybody needs to move up the

street. >> authorities said the device appeared to be a pipe bomb loaded with nails and screws designed to penetrate human flesh. >> more than 100 people have been injured. two are dead. >> before this device explodes, security guard richard jewell notices this backpack, alerts a law enforcement officer and they begin to evacuate the area. if not for his quick thinking, there probably would have been many more casualties. >> jewell was hailed as a hero after the incident, even praised by president clinton for his swift action. >> the only thing i wish we could have done was got everybody out of the area. >> fbi has a suspect. read all about it. >> almost immediately richard jewell was suspected. they thought he actually set the bomb so he could be the hero. >> did you do it? >> no, sir, i didn't do it. >> the fbi agents arrived at jewell's apartment early this morning, armed with a search warrant. agents brought in a dog and an evidence truck. >> in the hurly-burly of trying to understand what had happened,

richard jewell became the face of the olympic park bombing until it was made clear that he wasn't, but by then a lot of damage had been done. >> despite their interest, they had not found any physical evidence linking him to the crime scene. >> in their mad rush to fulfill their own personal agendas, the fbi and the media almost destroyed me and my mother. >> jewell was fed to the world's media wolves, and the wolves obligingly fed on him for days. it was as if he was offered up to us in the hopes that the blood we draw would somehow help solve the crime. >> if richard jewell is no longer a suspect, who planted the pipe bomb? to be continued.

once again, a bomb blast in atlanta. >> the explosion about 9:30 this morning blew out windows at the north atlanta family planning clinic. >> following the olympic bombing in july 1996, it's quiet for a while. by 1997, the same bomber strikes again. >> it only lasted for a few seconds. you're basically shocked. you really didn't know what was going on at the time. >> where were you in the building, and where was the explosion? [ explosion ] >> oh, my god! >> this second explosion about an hour later injured a television photographer, an atf agent, and at least four others.

>> when the police and the emts arrived, there was a second bomb. the intention of course being to murder as many law enforcement people as possible. >> second and third bombs are classic techniques used by the irish republican army and middle east terrorists. but this apparently is the first time it's been used as a tactic in the united states. >> another explosion. the third major bombing in this city since last summer. >> over time there's more bombings that are similar to the atlanta bombing. same material, same detonation devices. abortion clinics, lesbian nightclub. >> federal agents went public today asking for help in locating this man, 31-year-old eric r. rudolph of marlboro, north carolina. >> not much is known about rudolph. investigators describe him as an outdoors type with no fixed job or address. >> eric rudolph is identified as an anti-abortion terrorist who bombed the olympics because he wanted a stage to show his anti-abortion sentiment.

eric rudolph goes on the run. >> as we started looking for him, we became more and more convinced his comfort level is in the place he was born and raised, in the woods and mountains of north carolina. >> this truck was found yesterday. we believe that between thursday and yesterday this truck was being driven by eric robert rudolph. >> i remember during the hunt one of the military advisers said you could hide a whole regiment in these mountains and we'd never find them. >> agents are now systematically picking their way through the hundreds of caves that dot the area. agents report encountering spiders the size of a hand and rattlesnakes as fat as a man's arm. >> american law enforcement discovers that you can be on the fbi's most wanted list and actually hide in this country. this guy disappears for five years. >> do you think that he's getting a big kick out of outsmarting the feds? >> well, sure, i think he is. i think it's part of his hide-and-seek game.

>> and he thinks he's winning? >> he is winning. >> in the end, he got caught in a sort of pathetic little moment where he's rummaging around in a dumpster looking for something to eat and some local rookie cop arrests him. >> there was a kind of unbelievable quality to all of this. eric rudolph was part of this internal terrorist moment. it's like a worm that was eating away inside of us. >> welcome back, everybody. we want to bring you up to date on a breaking story out of suburban denver. apparently there's been a school shooting at a high school in the town of littleton. >> the '90s bring us the first mass school shootings. there's something especially disturbing about premeditated murder by young people. >> police and law enforcement are descending upon columbine high right now. >> they do believe at least two people are inside with multiple automatic weapons and perhaps

some pipe bombs. we've heard unconfirmed again from police. >> it hit local tv very quickly. >> i happened to see this on television and got in my car. i saw a ring of choppers like vultures circling, and i knew instantly this was so much worse than i had imagined. >> masked gunmen in trenchcoats start shooting into the school's cafeteria. kids scatter. shots ring off lockers and walls. students are hit. >> they're just like spraying -- >> just starts shooting. anybody that was walking, talking, it didn't matter. boom, they were shot. they didn't care. >> you have blood on your hands. >> everyone around me got shot. and i begged him for ten minutes not to shoot me. >> it was horrific. it was beyond unthinkable. and yet we were watching it as it happened. >> you can see in the upper part of your screen a student, a badly bloodied student hanging out a window. >> second floor says i'm bleeding to death. >> the emotion was incredible.

it's hard for a parent to see the parents who came. >> they went through the school shooting classmates, shooting teachers. 13 people died and 28 were injured. the police had arrived. they didn't want to be arrested. so they took their own lives. >> tomorrow morning's "denver post" identifies the two suspects as 18-year-old eric harris and 17-year-old dylan klebold. both reportedly died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds. >> local authorities search the homes of the two boys and say they found the makings for pipe bombs and other explosive devices. >> the gruesome but all too familiar denouement begins. the search for a motivation, the calls for tighter gun control, the counseling sessions at school, and the endless, endless grief. >> there have been school shootings before. but never one quite like this. it put the school shooting in a

whole new and darker category. it also raised a flood of questions of what is happening to our youth. >> i believe some of these kids are drifting deeper and deeper and deeper into rock music, violence, and that subculture. >> the biggest question is why did they do it. they were completely different people, opposite personalities and opposite motives. dylan was suicidally depressed. he really wanted to die. eric harris was the ringleader. he wanted to show how powerful he was. >> on his internet page harris wrote, "pipe bombs are some of the easiest and deadliest ways to kill a group of people." >> columbine wasn't really intended as a school shooting. it was primarily intended as a bombing. >> they were inspired by the oklahoma city bombing. they hoped they'd would kill as many as 500 people. in the end a lot of their homemade bombs did not detonate. >> school bells have an ominous ring to them.

is it about to happen in our schools? >> what columbine did in sort of the arc of terrorism was open a terrible pandora's box. because terrorism was always used for political ends. and what eric and dylan decided was like why don't we just do this terrorist stuff for our own aggrandizement. and they did. and that created a whole new template of these spectacle murders. we're giving them the platform to do this. we provide the coverage. they do the act and then we make them the stars. are you a christian author with

a book that you're ready to share with the world? get published now, call for your free publisher kit today! the white house has now confirmed that ramzi ahmed yousef, the alleged mastermind of the bombing of the world trade center, has been arrested in pakistan. >> about 11 hours of deliberation before the seven men and five women unanimously sentenced mcveigh to death by lethal injection. >> the fbi says the man wanted in a fatal shooting outside cia headquarters has been turned over to the u.s. >> the unabomber now knows his sentence, and it is life in prison. >> over the course of the 1990s a lot of terrorism threats were dealt with as law enforcement cases. the department of justice and

the fbi would find their guy and they would prosecute him. it isn't that that wasn't essential, that strategy. it just meant that we weren't perceiving the threat as something bigger. >> this is the new face of terror, osama bin laden, the 39-year-old renegade son of a saudi billionaire, an islamic fundamentalist, elusive, mysterious. >> bin laden's academic training was in economics and public administration. so he brought the sensibilities of a businessman to terrorism when he creates al qaeda. >> call it terror inc. private jets, swiss bank accounts. he gives orders via the internet. >> when it comes to issues like motive, money, network, he is one of the few in the world who has all the various components. >> bin laden, who had been a de facto ally of the united states during the soviet invasion of afghanistan in the 1980s, turned on the united states. >> he was angry at the lingering american presence in saudi arabia.

i mean, the war with saddam hussein was over. it was seen as this great insult to have non-muslims in the country defending it. >> i first heard the name osama bin laden in a story in "the new york times." i went to my bosses at cnn saying let's try and meet this guy and find out what his deal is. >> amidst these remote mountains of afghanistan are the various hiding places of one of the world's most wanted men, osama bin laden. >> peter arnett, the correspondent and peter juvenile, the cameraman and myself, we traveled with bin laden's associates into the mountains of afghanistan, which at that time was controlled by the taliban. >> a year ago bin laden took refuge here in afghanistan. afghanistan is perhaps the only country in the world that will accept him. >> for his first television interview he figured he'd have a world audience. >> mr. bin laden, you have declared a jihad against the united states. can you tell us why? >> translator: the arrogance of the united states regime has reached the point that they

occupied arabia, the holiest place of the muslims, who are more than a billion people in the world today. >> what are your future plans? >> translator: you'll see them and hear about them in the media. god willing. >> on the 8th anniversary of the u.s. deployment in saudi arabia, osama bin laden's forces bombed two american embassies in africa. >> it was midmorning in nairobi when a powerful bomb exploded outside the u.s. embassy. the building behind the embassy crumbled into a tangle of concrete and steel, turning the sidewalk red with blood. a passing bus, its windows blown out. people on board incinerated. >> almost simultaneously, 415 miles away, another deadly blast. the target, the u.s. embassy in

dar es salaam, tanzania. >> simultaneous attacks become the hallmark of al qaeda demonstrating its power. >> the death toll now stands at 210. 5,000 people were injured. >> this attack is very sophisticated. it is very coordinated. this is an enemy that we were not prepared for. >> overseas tonight, secretary of state madeleine albright spent the day in east africa. >> i went to kenya. i also went to tanzania to see what had happened. basically, still trying to collect the facts. we began to be able to trace that to osama bin laden. >> we will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for. >> bin laden's group is suddenly a real player. and the clinton administration decides to do something about him. >> american military forces struck a series of targets overseas in sudan and afghanistan.

>> the unmanned tomahawk missile was the pentagon's weapon of choice for the surprise aerial attacks, aimed at sending a pointed message to accused terrorist kingpin osama bin laden. >> america has battled terrorism for many years. we have quietly disrupted terrorist groups and foiled their plots. but there have been and will be times when our very national security is challenged. and when we must take extraordinary steps to protect the safety of our citizens. >> within minutes of today's attacks in afghanistan and sudan, some in washington were openly questioning the timing of it. >> it was the wag the dog question about the movie where a president fakes a war to distract the country from news of his sexual dalliances. >> there are a quite a few people who believe that clinton is trying to distract americans with a shiny object from what really matters which is his impeachment trouble for the remainder of his time in office. he wouldn't authorize attacks unless the information was

absolutely perfect because he anticipated that criticism. >> we came within yards literally of taking out osama bin laden himself. >> and he got away, obviously. >> well, by you know, happenstance, luck. >> bin laden, at war with the united states every second of every day. according to counter-terrorism officials who tell nbc news his terror network now operates in 50 countries, training camps in 20. >> we had entered a different era. you have an enemy that is completely amorphous. they can be in yemen, they can be in saudi arabia, they can be in paris and london. they can be everywhere.

what's the fear of bin laden today? >> if in fact he is trying to mount another attack, and all the intelligence senior analysts have said publicly before congress and on television that they believe he is, then you end up moving towards american symbols, corporate symbols, or tourism. or america stateside. >> by the end of the decade, the american and other foreign intelligence agencies were very much on guard. the chatter on intercepts was that the turn of a century or in this case a millennium, this would be a great opportunity to be memorable. >> tonight a man in custody, a man who came across the canadian

border headed for seattle with a trunkload of explosives and timing devices. >> authorities say the suspect arrives at port angeles, washington aboard the car ferry from victoria, british columbia. but he's nervous, acting suspiciously. >> it was a border guard in washington state. she stopped the man who was the driver and asked if she could look into his trunk. >> authorities fear he was part of a plot to launch a new year's eve attack and that he was not acting alone. there may be a connection to saudi-born terrorist osama bin laden. >> but as one u.s. official worries tonight, there's still a lot we don't know. >> in some respects he was a new kind of terrorist. in the past al qaeda operatives have been given very specific orders and direct targeting instructions. ressam, though, is given $12,000 in seed money. he's told to raise the rest of your funds, recruit your own cell and bomb whatever you want. >> two quart jars of nitroglycerin and three garbage

bags filled with the chemical urea were found in the trunk. >> the explosive ingredients are the same used in the bombing of the world trade center in new york. >> his mission is to blow up one of the terminals at l.a.x. los angeles airport. and he gets stopped. >> even though the authorities appear to have gotten their man, the threat may not yet can be over. >> we ended the decade with a clear perception now that we were engaged with a terrorist organization that had declared war on us and was determined to carry out more attacks. >> his interest is in achieving a large body count. that is the reality of today's terrorism. >> fears of sabotage have also prompted tighter security at airports, border crossings, utilities and tunnels in many states. >> abc news released results today from a poll that asked how concerned are you about the possibility of a domestic

terrorist attack? 73% said they weren't worried. >> the challenge is sustaining counter-terrorism as a policy priority. we shouldn't lose vigilance after january 1. we need to sustain these efforts because the terrorists often takes the path of least resistance and strikes when and where we least expect them to. >> the government and security people all over the country have to be lucky every day. terrorists have to be lucky only once. >> if you look back at the '90s in their totality, there was a lot of violence going on in the united states on american soil. >> seeing the 1990s whole, if you will, and looking at major pivot points, columbine, the shooting in schools in colorado, the bombing in oklahoma city, the davidian compound in waco were indicative of something deep within the country. something dark was moving in this society. >> as the year 2000 approaches, groups that track the nation's militias say hatred of the

government and fear of martial law are growing. >> it's hard to think of any decade that comes close to the 1990s in terms of the number and the enormity of attacks directed and designed to get back at the u.s. government. >> these very powerful subterranean forces were marshalling their strength to really plunge us into a new era of violence in the new millennium. >> it was bad enough when all this horror happened somewhere else, but now that the world has become a global village, there is no somewhere else anymore. look out, america. terrorism has come home. >> i think we are in for a long time. you know -- >> of things like this? >> of things like this. this is the new -- the war, the battles of the end of this century and the beginning of the next one. and this country, when we put our mind to it, whether it was the first world war, the second world war, or the cold war, we have an enemy.

and the enemy are the terrorists who do not believe in what we do, open societies and freedom, who are out to kill plain innocent people and we have to understand -- >> it is a war. >> -- that this is a sustained effort. high winds and heat fueling massive wildfires in northern california, entire communities laid waste, lives lost. also ahead, israel releases a palestinian teenager jailed for slapping a soldier. we'll tell you what she had to say. also inside the fight against a renewed gold rush in alaska. we'll have the details straight ahead. these stories and much more ahead this hour. we're live in atlanta, i'm natalie allen. >> i'm george howell. from cnn world headquarters, "newsroom" starts right now.