he was a member of ansar al sharia, the local franchise of al qaeda. ansar al sharia was started last year to provide al qaeda in the arabian peninsula with foot soldiers and a new image. some experts question the exact relationship between the two groups, but ghaith found that they operated as one and the same. how clearly they referred to themselves as al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. and for fouad to talk to us, he would have to have permission from the highest authority. >> narrator: fouad said that us drones and the yemeni air force often attacked. >> (translated): they bomb people's homes to prove to washington they are truly fighting terrorism. but they have failed. >> narrator: he agreed to take ghaith on a tour of jaar. he wanted to show how al qaeda was effectively governing an entire city. >> jaar is really poor, is wretched. yet he points to all of this and he says, "this is the ultimate just city, because we're implementing sharia." >> narrator: but fouad told him that the attacks from both the americans and the yemeni air force made the

so some al qaeda is bigger. it's involved in more violent activity and expanded its control in some countries. that's not good. >> rose: if you had to guess where al-zawahiri is today, where would you guess? >> pakistan. >> rose: certainly pakistan. but in an urban environment or in the north? >> i would say based on the drone strikes against senior al qaeda leaders today he's probably out of range of drones. so... which would force the u.s. to do something along the lines of what they did against bin laden is put american forces into helicopters and push them deeper into pakistani territory. that's a much more... >> rose: and going back and forth and getting access and confirmation. >> that's right. we've seen al qaeda interested in getting out of the tribal areas if at all possible. >> rose: how good have they been-- obviously not good enough in osama bin laden's case-- in terms of being able to shut down on cell phone usage, to be able to do things that will, in a sense, make them more immune to attack? >> ros

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 has not changed its ambitions.t 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 united states

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

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 leader

when al qaeda loses someone like that, how long does it take them to find a new candidate? >> well, it is difficult in some positions. one thing that abu musab al-zarqawi was able to do better than most was inspire people. there was a magazine that he started it was called in speier. it was useful, but a lot of the things he did, it helped radicalize. we know that because a lot of the sales and in some cases, successful attacks over the last several years in the interviews afterwards, [inaudible name] was an e-mail contact with him. we know the individual in 2009 who is involved in a plot in new york city in 2009. there were plotters in new jersey that were inspired by abu musab al-zarqawi. he was able to do things that people like adam don, the southern california al qaeda operative, whose interesting case -- i have part of a chapter devoted to this -- his father is jewish. he is raising a christian the christian family. he ends up switching religions, and then joining al qaeda and going. he broadcast on youtube -- but the cases i can find where he is inspired by adam, he's

and what's interesting is al-qaeda in the arabian peninsula, probably better than any other al-qaedaaffiliate 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,

some of the stuff used was used in the al qaeda training camps. but over the next several years they had a falling out in the personal base. part of that was sharif was deeply upset at what al-zawahiri did to one of his books, editing it in a way that he thought was wrong. and then it does appear that sharif began to have second thoughts about the use of violence in the way that al-zawahiri continued to push on the opposition against the egyptian regime and then a broad view of killing civilians including muslims that sharif ultimately couldn't accept as valid. >> host: you talk about your frustration that the u.s. government didn't take advantage of the schism between the two sides. how could the u.s. have picked up the messages and reflect the amount to the islamic world without tainting them by backing them? i know that's a lot of time for u.s. officials as we increase this person we just turn them into an enemy of al qaeda. >> guest: i think the issue is less of the u.s. getting directly involved in the cases because when the u.s. it's treacly

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

al qaeda's merger with al- shabab. at the same time, al-shabab is a focus on regional attacks, and this is a look at two organizations in a climat -- in decline. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula continues to suffer from the death of ayman al- zawahiri. nevertheless, aqap continues to be al qaeda's most active affiliate will continue to support the government of yemen in its fight against aqap. in north and west africa, another a little bit affiliate, -- another al qaeda affiliate, aqim, continues efforts to destabilize friends and engage in the kidnapping o -- destabilize governments and engage in the kidnapping for ransom activities. and a group that aligns itself with al qaeda's violent agenda is increasingly looking to attack western interests in nigeria, in addition to the nigerian government targets. more broadly, al qaeda's killing of innocents, mostly men, wom -- mostly muslim men, women, and children has tarnished its image around world -- >> are you willing to speak out against -- what about the hundreds of i

that al qaeda has been? >> yes, i think in many ways the arab spring revolution, especially their, in egypt where it was a relatvely aceful 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 an

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.

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

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

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

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

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

he put al qaeda in yemen to 1,000. compared to the al qaeda in afghanistan, which is only 100.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 go to london, nic robertson is working his s

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

and, then, this, american al qaeda spokesman discussed al qaeda's media strategy and said, in generalmatter 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 ♪ it was the best day [ whoopi

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

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

i do not lose a lot of sleep worrying if it is al qaeda, al qaeda-affiliated, al qaeda- want-to-be. the fact of the matter is that it has been a fantastic year for those involved in counterterrorism. we are about to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the takedown of osama bin laden. it cannot be stress enough how important that was. we were mistaken we believe that he stopped being involved in things, the way he apparently was. mary was one of the few who kept saying he was still involved. i stand corrected. we now know from the treasure trove of intelligence that came out that the man was very involved. not in the day-to-day basis. when you deal with human couriers, that takes some time. but he was reaching out to people in coming up with ideas and giving the ok for ideas. now we also know about plots targeting the president of united states and plots targeting other things. taking him not was important because it is taking him out was important because -- taking him out was important because he was a symbol, an idea. in his place is not a pleasant individual. he does not have t

the new al qaeda documents called future works appears to have been written in 2009 by al qaeda's senioradership. 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 ç 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. two men are 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 bei

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

we didn't knew it was al qaeda.later, we just in the reporting of the book, we came to realize that i think it was him one of the names run together. some of the people that had been working for ksm were involved in the plot. i think there was a tremendous amount of them. the plot against the pope andwj against president clinton, it's hard to tell how close 0. i do know when they surged the room where they were plotting all of the this which caught fire for a law enforcement. they found robes and other things they indicated they were trying to get cloaks. they pick on the root at the motorcade. so there was certainly, fairly, what's the word? eager try to do this.ya >> what do you assess ksm's motivation to be? >> i think that what's one of the most fascinating things about the upcoming trial if and when it happens. is how eager ksm is to tell the word what the moted elevations are. i think that's one reason in the book we have the transcript verbatim transcript at the back of his very long shrill question at guanta

the mastermind of that attack, a british member of al qaeda.n one of the documents found in berlin, he spells out his role in that attack, as this bomber recorded his martyrdom statement, he writes he was in the roo room off camera, he set up a camera with the scripted statement. he also reveals there was a shortless of three targets, the bank of england, the g-8 summit taking place in scotland and the london subway. they picked the subway because it required less explosives. his big takeaway of the success from this team was the time he spent memorizing codes to teach them countersurveillance techniques to switch their phones, use e-mail accounts on internet chats. he revealed two of the bombers were sure they were being watched by british intelligence because some of their associate himself been arrested in connection with another plot. they acted out that life was normal, going to the movies, joking out loud a lot. a subsequent inquiry in britain found that the intelligence services, mi-5, were aware of the two men and their connections but

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'

al qaeda's attack plans found hidden in porn. police uncovering embedded files on a memory card meant only for senior leadership to see. we have exclusive details of future plots, including taking over a cruise ship. >>> may day protests all around the world. occupy wall street trying to regroup and calling for a day without the 99%. no work, no shopping, no banking. hoping for a nationwide disruption. >>> and rescue 411. a 4'11" firefighter just the right size to save a little baby who fell 20 feet down a drain pipe. we'll be talking to the hero. >>> up first this morning, pure gold. it's how intelligence officials are describing over 100 internal al qaeda documents that detailed past attacks and future terror targets. here is something incredible. the information was embedded in a porn movie. it was uncovered by german authorities after they arrested an al qaeda operative last year and that operative was searched. and that's when police found his underwear and inside, a memory card. the microchip had a pornographic video on it.