bin laden left -- bin laden's father left the village when he was a young man to seek his fortune in saudi arabia but the family retained some links to the village. they gave money for irrigation projects and there is a house there which is the bin laden street, which is this rambling old, decrepit place which has an extended family, some distant relatives of osama bin laden and is so big that part of it is a british school. i went there with john burns of "the new york times," a wonderful reporter, and we went to go and talk to some of the remaining cousins who were there. >> what does it mean if you're from yemen? what's that -- in that part of the world over there, where is it located? what borders yemen? >> to the south it's the arabian sea and to the north saudi arabia. so, a lot of yemennies went to saudi arabia to get -- yemen is i think the poorest country in the middle east, probably, and so you get a lot of immigration, and one of the people who immigrated was mohammed bin laden, the father of osama. but he was part of a pretty big movement. one thing that's interesting, bi

now, a lot of people tell me, how ironic that our chief bin laden hunter didn't get bin laden and bin laden got him. i don't see it that way. people told him, you know, john, they are the world trade center 1993, so you're going to be safe now. they're not going to go back. he said no, they won't stop until they brought the towers down. he was saying that constantly. in a way he was putting himself in harm's way. i think it was more a feeling of destiny within. >> host: fan of the american fbi, cia, white house individuals that come through in your story are not quite as dapper, but is driven. there are people who broke china when they walk in the china shop and were sorted and told forward by the sense of the danger we face. richard clarke is another one who straddles two administrations and certainly became a major part of the story during the 9/11 commission. talked to me about richard clarke. just go clarke and o'neill were sold brothers. they really thought each other as having the same kind of drive, same obsessiveness, the same intolerance of bureaucratic resistance and people

operating in and the increasingly indigenous violence in the united states and canada in north in europe bin laden died a fully successful in his own terms mr sure you were had of the cia's bin ladden intelligence unit in the ninety six ninety nine you mention this period of your life already couple of minutes ago it was your job to provide necessary information to capture or eliminate the al qaida leader were you receiving the information at that time that he was up to a major attack against the u.s. was it possible already at that time to neutralize him or not. well certainly it's never been a it's never been hidden from the western from the united states that they intended to attack the united states at home and attack us very severely as i said earlier in our interview sir the west has been stone deaf to what bin laden has said over the over the course of his active career much in the way that we ignored my income when hitler wrote it of the one nine hundred twenty s. we would have been better off had we listened to what he said or had we read what he said but we didn't and we took a pounding

our invasion of iraq and subsequent occupation really created a situation that did for bin laden and al qaeda what it probably could never have done by itself the occupation of iraq made al-qaeda it turned out to rather from a man and a group into a philosophy and a movement and now we're living with that philosophy and that movement mr sure why did you why does you say that bin ladin i quote died a success isn't it an overestimation i would say or is that that had to be indeed the hiding for the last couple of days or years rather of his life. i don't think it's an overestimation at all perhaps it's an underestimation solid in loudon was the one person in the muslim world in the arab world especially who stood up and defied the united states in words and deeds and indeed enticed us into coming into afghanistan where we have lost that war so he will be remembered both as as a very brave man and as someone who is more effective than any muslim government has ever been in challenging the united states but i think more important the west has always missed the point they've they've kind

that's the former cia chief and osama bin laden tracker under the spotlight is coming your way. hello again our walk and truth squad like the interview show in our sleep i'll do it all for him today and we're talking to a bad guy until. this year marks the tenth anniversary of september eleventh attacks in the united states two passenger airliners crashed into the world trade center buildings in new york and one tenth of the pentagon building in d.c. almost three thousand people died in the attacks started a new air raid u.s. led war against terror which is part two major military operation in iraq and afghanistan just two months ago the u.s. enemy number one salad bin ladin was killed in pakistan what did his death really change any of this big ten years now being produced any result except the growing insurgency on the one hand and the flower phobia on the other we're asking the former chief obvious hamad bin laden tragedy units in the cia michael kelly. who were stare at a target in u.s. history terrorists hijacked planes and koresh two of them into the twin tower was of the

west and europe it took america ten years to locate and eliminate some of bin laden the mastermind of nine eleven months months of the death of the u.s. as most wanted and i mean may spark mass celebrations in the united states. was assured a welcome to the show thank you very much for being with us. well thank you for having me so yes thanks sure you say i quote the fundamental flaw in our thinking about bin laden is that muslims hate us for what we are rather than what we do and quote what's your explanation of the reasons for these attacks. we were attacked because of what our government does in the muslim world this is overwhelmingly a defensive response to us foreign policy toward european foreign policy for that matter there is not much difference when it comes to the muslim world and it to fail to understand that is to fail to understand the motivation of our enemy the appeal of our enemy to the younger generation in the muslim world and really just to kid ourselves to think that killing bin laden really solve the problem it's an ongoing problem it's a worsening problem and lea

in fact, as far back as 1995, he actually compared bin laden to a young adolf hitler and he said bin laden is like hitler when hitler wrote "mein kempf." what he writes and what he says is what he's going to do. every time he speaks, we have to pay attention. unfortunately for john o'neill and to a large degree to this country, john became disillusioned in the f.b.i. he wasn't supported enough. his calls, his call over the years to get people to line up and recognize that bin laden was the great threat was falling on deaf ears. in addition, john o'neill was a very unusual man. he was want the cookie cutter f.b.i. agent. he dressed very flamboyantly, he enjoyed shivas regal and hung out in the best restaurants wherever he worked when he was in baltimore, washington and chicago. he got around with boundless energy. he'd go out four hours. people who knew him thought he was this bat that would hang in the corner for a few hours, catch a few hours sleep and emerge dapper and dressed as though the day -- as though he was fresh as a daisy and the day was just starting and yet, while most of

he knew it because we funded bin laden. we took care of bin laden. and the c.i.a. complistity in that. when clinton cut the budget back on c.i.a., c.i.a. turned on him and said, well, ok, we'll give him this information in pieces of information and say this is possible and that's possible and leave it all up in the air. when george bush was sitting in the white house, we got hit on september 11th, he had ten days in that ten days he knew exactly within a half a mile where osama bin laden was. and fed had the guts of harry truman and knocked a nuclear bomb this was ten years ago. but it's turned into an industry for the c.i.a. guys who wants to write a book and make a million dollars out of it. guest: well, you're titled to your own ideas. they're completely wrong. but you're entitled to them sir. unfortunately i think for us the c.i.a. bin laden would not deal with us during the war with the soviets. he made it very clear that he hated us then. he had his own sources of money and armaments and steered clear of us and he was on the side of the angels at the time bec

bin laden. >> the picture was still fuzzy-- i mean, it was by no means sharp-- that there was an emerging global islamic fundamentalist terrorist network that was becoming more and more engaged in the objective of attacking american targets. >> when yousef fled from the trade center bombing in 1993, among the places he went, really right before he was apprehended in pakistan, was to the philippines, where he was mixing the bombs to blow up, you know, 12 jumbo jets in a 48-hour period and was not far away from at least attempting to carry out that plot, which would have resulted in thousands of deaths in two days. >> narrator: from the beginning, o'neill obsessed about the details of the ramzi yousef case. he dug into that plan to blow up the planes, known as the bojinka plot. investigators had found a connection with the world trade center bombing that led to yousef's co-conspirator, ahmad ajaj, and a terrorist training manual with a title that would translate into "al qaeda," "the base." they u

he knew it because we funded bin laden. we took care of bin laden. and the c.i.a. was complistity in that. when clinton cut the budget back on c.i.a., c.i.a. turned on him and said, well, ok, we'll give him this information in pieces of information and say this is possible and that's possible and leave it all up in the air. when george bush was sitting in the white house, we got hit on september 11th, he had ten days in that ten days he knew exactly within a half a mile where osama bin laden was. and fed had the guts of harry truman and knocked a nuclear bomb this was ten years ago. but it's turned into an industry for the c.i.a. guys who wants to write a book and make a million dollars out of it. guest: well, you're titled to your own ideas. they're completely wrong. but you're entitled to them sir. unfortunately i think for us the c.i.a. bin laden would not deal with us during the war with the soviets. he made it very clear that he hated us then. he had his own sources of money and armaments and steered clear of us and he was on the side of the angels at the time

the house was usama bin laden's operations center. the call came in and the two saudis who would hijack american airlines flight 77 that would slam into the pentagon headed for the country club. photos were taken at the summit which remain classified to this kay. -- day. >> i remember the pictures as clear as this day. >> assigned to work with the cia's usama bin laden unit known as alex station. >> that meeting was surveilled because there had been a communication from alec station station -- station. these people were coming in. take their photographs. see what they are doing, where they are going. that's what happened. we had no idea what they were doing. but they knew some of them had visas to the u.s. >> but then the krier refused to share those with other agencies such as the border patrol walk in to the united states los angeles airport a week after the summit of terrorism concluded. >> we blew it basically. >> we blew it with that advance notice, we could have gotten our alistening device in the condominium unit. george tenet,

it shows osama bin laden speaking to al qaeda members. osama bin laden was killed by the u.s. military in may. >> the death of bin laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al qaeda. >> reporter: i man al zawahri will be the organization's number two man, he took control of al qaeda after bin laden's death. expert in the west say the terrorist group will weaken. they say al zawahiri's grip on al qaeda is not as strong as bin laden's. but the man who claims to have worked with al qaeda doesn't see it that way. the man spoke to us in yemen. who is he? he says he worked as bin laden's bodyguard until the year before the 9/11 attacks. >> translator: al qaeda has been reko reorganizing since bin laden's death and will likely regain momentum. >> reporter: he said the name of a key person in the organization. he's a former officer in egypt's military. the man is believed to be a part of al qaeda's leadership. saif al adel is on the list, of the most wanted terrorists. he is said to have trained the extremists from around the world in afghan

of that day, take me back to when you met bin laden.r imagine when you had that extraordinary encounter that he might be capable of pulling off such an atrocity? >> i was fairly certain from the time i met bin laden and this is not revisionist history, but i said that he said that as we harden targets, bin laden would strike on u.s. soil. on that, i think that i saw that coming to some degree, but what i didn't see coming, and i don't think anybody saw coming was the scaleability of it coming. what i saw was a truck bomb on the soil of a public place, but the idea of using planes as missiles to kill thousands of people on a single day was beyond the concept that any of us were looking at. >> the criticism of that would be that people in your position, and others at much higher level at time, their specific job is to think the unthinkable, and this was on a totally different scale than anything that had happened before, but do you believe as a result of what happened the thinking of the unthinkable planning is now much better than it use

they know they have to go after bin laden. they're in fire fight, they've got to get out of there and yet they gather all of the intelligence they can gather. that was remarkable that they were able to get as much intelligence as they did. as a result of that obviously we got tremendous insights into the bin laden operation. >> charlie: we learned he w short of cash. >> well , they were hurting in terms of their finances. we actually knew this from intelligence even before the raid, th were having a much harder time developing the financial support they had in the past. i think a large part of that was frankly the efforts to go after their leadership or undermine their leadership and command and control. when you have people on the run it's very tough to raise money and stay on the run at the same time. >> charlie: this raid and the drones has made a really change. >> i think we have learned a great deal about the capabilities that we do have to be able to conduct very sophisticateand targeted operations. these are probably th

he's a natural real successor to bin laden and he has advantages that bin laden didn't have.e's a fluent english speaker, the american citizen, and the religious authority that bin laden never had. but there's another threat that i see is something of concern. that that's lashkar itaiba. >> the group involved in the attacks in mumbai. >> that's a state-sponsored terror group sponsored by the pakistani intelligence association. they're very fluid. people are members of both organizations. they go back and forth. and lashkar operatives gave safe houses to al qaeda members when they were leaving from the war. >> about the mumbai attack, with the small number of lightly armed fighters, machine guns, grenades, they were basically able to paralyze a city by taking over and ape tackin atta few -- just a few locations, that's a worrying attack. not a big attack but with a few people lightly armed be able to paralyze a major city like mumbai. that's stunning. >> in the chicago trial of david headley, the pakistani american who was involved in planning the mumbai attacks, a lot of unse

one member ask the question, do you one bin laden dead? bush replied i want justice.there is an old poster out west that said wanted dead or alive. the president's supporters included large majority of americans it was a symbol of the resilience of unspeakable tragedy and with the critics the ranks was well with the war is dragging on with afghanistan and iraq. it will lead epitomize his simplistic cowboy diplomacy. even president bush would express regret over his choice of words that day. and then with the fate of one man osama bin laden but the statement was not as dramatic as it seemed although documented that day to authorize operations capture or kill he was not the first u.s. president to do so. august 1998 president clinton fired tomahawk cruise missiles to kill bin laden also authorized the use of legal force if necessary. more over bin laden was up the first individual singled out with a strategic objective of a military campaign. may 3rd come 1886 more than one century before the 125 leu dollar reward of the whereabouts of bin laden there is a joint resolut

osama bin laden has a different view. he told nhk that al qaeda is reorganizing and may launch more severe attacks than those on september 11th, 2001. >> reporter: this footage is believed to have been taken in afghanistan the year before the september 11th attacks. osama bin laden was killed by the u.s. military in may. >> the death of bin laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al qaeda. >> reporter: ayman al zawahiri took control over al qaeda after osama bin laden's death. they say his grip on al qaeda is not as strong as bin laden's. but the man who claims to have worked with al qaeda doesn't see it that way. nasr bahari spoke to us in yemen. who is he? al bahari says he worked as bin laden's bodyguard until the year before the 9/11 attacks. >> translator: al qaeda has been reorganizing since bin laden's death and will likely regain momentum. >> reporter: he cited the name of a key person in the organization. he's a former officer in egypt military, the man is believed to

bin laden mix 96ed the proposal saying, i'm used to the people in charge. i don't want this american cleric to be in charge of al qaeda in yes, ma'am aren. certainly for u.s. counterterrorism officials are that al qaeda in the arabian peninsula, the other thing they're concerned about are lone wolves with no connection to any network who may take the 9/11 anniversary as an opportunity to make a statement, these are people without e-mail trails or cell phone trails, very hard to de detect. >> peter bergen, appreciate the reporting, fran townsend as well, jessica yellin, susan candiotti. we'll be following this throughout the hour and the night. follow me on twitter or join me on facebook. our political panel joins us after the break. we'll look at the president's jobs speech to congress and the country, laying out his job creation plan. >>> also breaking news out west. a huge mess, traffic lights out, flights delayed after a massive power outage. if you're in southern california and you can see this picture right now, consider yourself lucky. >>> our other b

he's the natural real successor to bin laden. and he has advantages bin laden didn't have.he's a fluent english speaker. he's an american citizen. and he has the religious authority that bin laden never had. but there's another threat that i see as something of concern. and that's -- >> the group that we saw that was involved in the attacks in >> what i find about their attacks especially the mumbai attack was with a relatively small number of lightly-armed fighters, machine guns, grenades, they were able to basically paralyze the city by taking over and attacking just a few -- a hotel, a few other locations. i think that's a worrying kind of attack. because it's not a big attack, but with a few people lightly armed to be able to paralyze a major city like mumbai, that's stunning. >> in the chicago trial of david etly, this pakistani american who was involved in the planning the mumbai attacks, a lot of very unsettling information came out. one was that there were sites planned, possibly terrorist strikes, more than 300 of them. only a few of them actually in india. many of

he's the natural real successor to bin laden. and he has advantages bin laden didn't have.uent english speaker. he's an american citizen. and he has the religious authority that bin laden never had. but there's another threat that i see as something of concern. and that's -- >> the group that we saw that was involved in the attacks in >> what i find about their attacks especially the mumbai attack was with a relatively small number of lightly-armed fighters, machine guns, grenades, they were able to basically paralyze the city by taking over and attacking just a few -- a hotel, a few other locations. i think that's a worrying kind of attack. because it's not a big attack, but with a few people lightly armed to be able to paralyze a major city like mumbai, that's stunning. >> in the chicago trial of david etly, this pakistani american who was involved in the planning the mumbai attacks, a lot of very unsettling information came out. one was that there were sites planned, possibly terrorist strikes, more than 300 of them. only a few of them actually in india. many of them in

osama bin laden likes to brood. he would think according to date he's for days about the code name for operation. the only known inside al qaeda, he will spend days thinking about it. bin laden is terrified of making a mistake. he likes bureaucracy and process. he has a council like a board of directors. even if it is unanimously against bin laden he can overrule them. not the way councils work. he likes everyone to have their input. he likes to take his time. he is afraid of making a mistake. somehow these two people begin to work together on one of the most complicated and effective terrorist strikes in the history of the world, the 9/11 attacks. from the beginning it is a managerial nightmare for ksm. one of the so-called pilots of 9/11 from lebanon, the was born christian and converts to islam, studying in germany and falls in love with a non muslim german girl. it is a matter of public record. their love letters are a matter of public record. they are deeply love with each other. he either knows or has reason t

bin laden essentially nixed the proposal saying, hey, i'm used to the people who are in charge. i don't want a pr-- >> the other thing they are concerned about are lone wolves with no connection to any network who may take the 9/11 anniversary as an opportunity to make a statement. these are people without e-mail trails or cell phone trails, very harder to detect. >> peter bergen, appreciate the reporting, fran town send and jessica yellin. susan candiotti, appreciate t.following it all throughout the hour and night. follow me on facebook and on twitter. our political panel joins us after the break. we'll look at probe's jobs speech to the country and laying out his plan. and out west a huge mess, trafficlation out and flights delayed after a massive power outage. if you're in southern california, you can actually see this picture right now. consider yourself lucky. [♪...] >> male announcer: now, for a limited time, your companion flies free, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. conditions apply. >>> our other breaking story tonight, the president's address on jobs to being

saying he was like osama bin laden. >> translator: he reminds me, for example, the bin laden and also as the foundations they have. >> he said, hand me over your scrolls. >> reporter: this was the same anwar al awlaki who exchanged e-mails with major nidal hasan accused of killing 14 people at fort hood. after the killings, awlaki praised hasan on his website calling him a hero. why he is so influential is a combination of birth and upbringing. born in the united states. his father a minister in the yemeni government. he is smart and privileged. he preached in a mosque in virginia. he doesn't agree with awlaki's extreme views and denounces the killings at fort hood, but it was here at this mosque that major hasan as well as two of the 9/11 bombers. the 9/11 commission reports that even before this he was on the fbi's radar. according to the commission, by the time we sought to interview him in 2003, he had left the united states. so it's not just the fact that this guy is charismatic, that has made him important to al qaeda, but he's got so much out there. he's been a good recruiter,

al-awlaki was called the osama bin laden of the internet. i islamic lecturer with a blog, facebook page and many tube videos. he was born in new mexico. he told followers they did not need permission to kill americans, just kill them. some listened. he was tied to the gunman in the fort hood shooting in 29 charged with killing 13. awlaki connected to the attempt to bring down a jetliner over detroit christmas day 2009. here is awlaki from a 2001 "washington post" profile. >> never unstatement the power of fear especially when the enemy of allah hears allahu akbar. >> he could talk in an american vernacular. >> reporter: the u.s. has been after al-awlaki for years. the yemeni government announced he had been killed last year, only to admit he was still alive. officials are confirming statements from the government in yemen saying that anwar al-awlaki has been killed. saying a bigger blow to al-qaeda than the killing of bin laden. >> it is 4:32 now. motorcycle club member in custody on charges of killing the leader of a south bay hells angels

. >>> in may 1998 osama bin laden gave a press conference. not the most accessible press conference in the world. bin laude declared war on america, again. only a few hand picked journalists were there. the press conference in 1998 gave us these fantastically overused photos of bin laden in a camouflage vest sitting in front of a dramatic looking banner. the banner he's in front of is the flag of al qaeda. black banner, write arabic writing. the hadif are the descriptions of what the prophet did during his lifetime and it says if you see the black banners coming, join the army, even if you have to crawl over ice, no power will stop them. when osama bin laden declared war on the united states two years before the '98 press conference he signed and dated the first declaration of war august 23rd, 1996 in the hindu cush mountains. bin laden was in part of afghanistan that could be considered part of it but wanted to be thought of as a guy in khurasan and gave his group his black banner so he could make it seem like his army, his terrorist group ha

he didn't want to be osama bin laden radical son.nted to be by the great prophet of islam to lead a great army that could not be defeated. the insight into the self-concept of osama bin laden and the tactics gives us the title of ali soufan's book "the black banners." he is our guest for the interview tonight. he's an american muslim born in lebanon. a handful of arabic speaking fbi agents. he joined the bureau in 1997 and brought with him an obsessive interest in al qaeda and particularly in osama bin laden. mr. soufan was still a rookie in his first year at the fbi when the u.s. embassies in kenya and tanzania were bombed. when he asked his supervisor if he knew who was responsible for the bombings his supervisor replied, still unclear, but quote, i think it might be your guy. meaning it might be osama bin laden, the guy ali soufan as a rookie in the fbi had been all over. two years later al qaeda bombed the uss cole. ali soufan was chasing the attack and bin laden when september 11th happened. within a week of 9/11 he was face to

it didn't end the bin laden threat even though it had eight years to do it.dick clark during that time when he was counter-terrorism adviser to national security council have almost instant access to the oval office and his warnings about al qaeda were delivered almost directly to the president's desk. when the bush administration comes and it appears they have a different view of the world and a different set of priorities most of them dealing with great power questions between the united states and russia and china and missile defense and rogue states like iraq and north korea and iran and terrorism becomes from the documentary records a secondary priority. again what we know is apparently at philip zelikow's surge in he is demoted and don't receive the attention in the bush administration they did in the clinton administration. >> host: we're talking about "the commission: the uncensored history of the 9/11 commission" by philip shenon. i wanted to talk about two of the agencies that are really at the center for a lot of people of what happened before 9/11

i -- and he talks about osama bin laden.tatus in the world right now, our military commitments there, did osama bin laden succeed? >> if that was his objective, he accomplished it. we spent trillions of dollars actually trying to protect our influence into an area which we had never been before. certainly not in any numbers and which had a long history of tradition of peeping outsiders at bay. so we spent tons of money, which is what he wanted us to do. number two, we lost influence in the mediterranean. we were rejected when we tried to get russia on our side. turkey wouldn't even let us put our fourth division in to go into iraq. and now we are cowering away and limping away there the area. so he accomplished that, too. and there was osama bin laden and there's an ancillary benefit to the axis of evil from our getting involved there in iraq, the way we did. and that is that israel is now more isolated than ever. military and politically. and is in a very difficult straits in many respects. osama bin laden accomplished his

osama bin laden was eliminated.ght he was going to get president obama a big bump because he did something no one else was able to do. now, we've got anwar al-awlaki. is the president going to get a bump this time? >> how this helps the president, it removes the national security conversation out of next year's presidential campaign. at the end of the day, the election going to be about the economy. you can talk iraq, afghanistan, you can talk about killing as many terrorists as you want to, it will boil down to folks'folk pocketbooks. >> churchill, won world war ii, saved civilization and lost the next election. people don't use tbat lot to sa thank group vote business the future what the economy's going to look like in the next four years. >> a failure could hurt you as president jimmy carter, what took place with the hostage rescue in iran. so again, this kind of issue with the economy driving everything, it's going to overlap anything. >> so, this president, can't go on the campaign trail and push this thing to

the getting of zarqawi and bin laden took a lot of president on the president.t basically we have a lot of criticisms about the institutions of our government. but we have set in place a national security apparatus that takes al qaeda extremely seriously. and i would say goes after them quite effectively. and al qaeda has been severely, severely dismantled over the past ten years and that's something that will probably survive whatever party takes over that institution, the national security apparatus i think is pretty effective. set up five, ten years ago but now continuing quite effectively. >> well, i mean, he got a lift out of osama bin laden. but it was ephemeral. it does come back to-- all politics is local and this is local. and local is the economy. >> woodruff: another issue that may be before the voters next year, health-care reform. the justice department mark just asked the supreme court in essence to take a look at the law, whether it's constitutional. could that have an effect on the campaign next year. >> it could. in all likelihood, at least the

and osama bin laden. now, he said that to us.as that something that really galvanized the action of the clinton administration? were they driven by this fear of, or concern about terrorism? >> guest: i don't think they were driven, that was the problem. i wish they had been driven. i think it's unfair to characterize the clinton administration as being unconcerned or too weak on terrorism. they were trying to do a job. and clinton himself was fascinated with bin laden, considered him an entrepreneur of terrorism, and at one point, you know, he tried to drop a missile on him. so he did, but they missed opportunities. they missed opportunities to kill him in some case, missed opportunities, never responded to the cole. there were a number of things the clinton administration didn't do in retrospect we wish they had. bush administration took a while getting its feet on the ground, but they had a long-range plan which they thought was going to be more effective than clinton's, but they were taking a year to develop it. turned out we

bin laden of the internet.e was a master of online recruiting. awlaki is linked to a number of attacks. he was a spiritual adviser to three of the 9/11 hijackers and communicated frequently with the american accused of the deadly shooting spree at ft. hood. he is also linked to the underwear bomber in 2009 and the attempted car bombing in times square last year. he had been targeted in several air strikes over the past several years, but there was some concern among analysts that could he be more dangerous dead than alive. a view that drew griffin has reported on extensively. drew joins us on the phone to talk more about that belief. what is the take this morning from your sources? >> overall, the u.s. government felt it had no choice, kyra. that is because in the last two years since the middle of 2010, this guy has gone from being the spiritual or religious kind of radical cleric who recruits people online to becoming much more operational, deeply involved in pellaattacks and mo recently, i think, was the att

a few days after osama bin laden was killed, we heard from u.s. and yemeni officials that a drone strike had targeted anwar al awlaki, but he narrowly escaped that. the yemeni officials have been trying to capture or kill al awlaki for some time. u.s. officials have been trying to kill him for some time. they consider him to be one of the most dangerous al qaeda members there is because he's such a popular figure and because he was able to really rally people to the cause and bring people to yemen and inspire them in trying to launch attacks on the west. >> just want to share this with americans. awlaki was expected to have a key part in the underwear bomber. also of encouraging nadal hasan to kill 13 fellow soldiers at fort hood in 2009. so that this guy may be dead is important for american security. how likely is it, mohammed, that the united states played a role in al awlaki's death? >> reporter: i would say it's likely. you probably won't hear that right away, but we know that u.s. drones, whether they are operated by the u.s. or whether it's