or al-qaeda may be considering using small arms, home made explosives or even poison that would help t. >> probably al-qaeda is down to few hundred peoples but it doesn't take many people to do this kind of attack. >> officials say the threat is credible, they say it's not cause for panic. >> we do live in a world where we must take the threats seriously and we certainly will. >> in new york city, and here in washington, we will see more police, more vehicle stops and more searches. in new york we also saw mayor bloomberg ride the subway to work this morning. he says he felt just as safe as he did yesterday. >> before you go, what has the white house said publicly or privately about the threat? >> president obama was briefed on this yesterday morning, he hasn't said anything publicly. privately he has told people to redouble their efforts, to find clues in the next few days, vice president biden this morning and he said again, in is a credible threat but he said there is no smoking gun. >> reporting live from washington. thanks very much. >> we'll find out if there is a smoking gn. le

don't wait to call 911. >> it could involve a car or truck bomb similar to times square last year or al-qaeda may be using small arms, home made explosives or even poison. an attack that would help the weakened terror group stay relevant. >> al-qaeda in afghanistan and pakistan is down to a few hundred people but it doesn't take many people to do this kind of an attack. >> while officials say this threat is credible, they say it's not cause for panic. >> we do live in a world where we mistake these threats seriously and we certainly will. >>> in new york city, i'm in washington but we'll see more vehicle stops and more searches. in new york we saw the mayor ride the subway to work. he said he felt just as safe as he did yesterday. >>> we will carry special coverage of the nation's commemoration of 9/11 and this will be happening all weekend beginning tonight. wayne freedman will report live from new york city and lilian kim from shanksville, pennsylvania. on sunday, abc news begins our live coverage of the ceremonies with a special three hour edition of "good morning america" at 5:00. that wi

three attempts on his life in a matter of weeks by al qaeda, or al qaeda affiliated organizations while he was still president. >> another question? yes, sir.

al-qaeda. >> the good al-qaeda. you have al-qaeda on the arabian peninsula. they think it is much more serious. you have radical islam, whether it is al-qaeda or another group, they are here to stay and we will be fighting them forever. >> should the white house be saying that we have all but defeated al-qaeda? or does that give them locker room material or as we in the sports world say, it might want to make them prove us wrong. >> expresident bush he liked to put it down our throats and keep us in fear. fear the terrorists. fear people who are brown with beards. and oat bo ma administration is not like -- the obama administration is not like that. if there is a victory, everybody knows about. it chill out and relax and forget about terrorism. >> so we shouldn't fear the people that want to kill us? >> i missed the color chart. i miss that whether we were orange or burgundy. i kept waiting for pink. >> and from bush's perspective, the president gets a threat matrix. every threat levied against the united states in 24 hours, that's got to scare you and make you want to warn the people. i don't think he is trying to make you scared and think --

afghanistan and you know afghans don't take kindly to outsiders regardless whether the americans or al-qaeda. so this was building up with the russians and anyone else a list of thirty forty players this you know but thankfully and so this is growing and mustard warns us about this and when all kind of assassinated killed sued september ninth one of the reasons was to give a present to the tell about them because they'd already taken eighty percent of the country and mehsud was was the last significant commander to resist the taleban but they were also afraid that the taliban were in the process of collapsing and that this might have happened but this was ignored by the bush administration and by blair tony blair in the u.k. . and after nine eleven. but you have to know the taliban were primarily illiterate people they're called taliban that means scholars they weren't scholars they were illiterate you had a leadership perhaps of thirty forty people who probably knew what bin laden was up to globally but most mossad one had no clue and really didn't care you know they they they really didn't

the author of explained that it's pointless to target just one group of radicals like a mosque or al-qaeda and so he suggested the best way to protect the country is to go after islam itself i was speaking of course from a non religion it standpoint he's also got a loophole to continue his battle against islamics planing how holy books are let's not religion then government and offered a ratio where seventeen percent of the text is religious while eighty three percent compromises of islamic law so basically he's finding ways to encourage law enforcement to engage in racial profiling here in the us by declaring that they're really just fighting a system of government not infringing on people's first amendment rights and now just to make sure they hold his audience as attention check out this comparison that he makes to star wars. the ohio . as you can imagine many other counterterrorism teachers are just outraged that gotham's lecture one even dubbed his ideology as mccarthyism on steroids and as you reported last time some members of congress like senator joe lieberman are now questioning

or even thought. he did it to change it affect his reputation inside al qaeda. that gives us a small window into the man and our hopes to open other windows as i talk today. inside al qaeda it is not as monolithic as you might imagine. i wrote the book "mastermind" to answer three questions. the old saying that you write a book when you spend a couple years studying something and want to teach yourself something. the three question the war on terror way john, dog to be in the back of my mind. these were the questions. how does an educated, successful person, educated in america in western universities become a remorseless killer? of our society and its own? what is that pattern of transformation? what are the choices that person makes to become a terrorist? how does that happen? secondly i wanted to know how does al qaeda function on the inside? what is it like to work for al qaeda? what are the internal dynamics? and third, what techniques in the war on terror work and don't work? obviously this leads into the territory of interrogation, rendition and what some

. >> bottom line, go back to work and leave it to the professionals because you don't want al qaeda or any other organization, i don't know if this is al qaeda or some other terrorist organization, you don't want them to take away the freedoms without firing a shot. >> he says there will be an increased police presence along with security measures you might not notice, among them bomb sweeps at parking garages and more towing of illegally parked cars. >>> because of this many organizationers of 9/11 ceremonies are having to make adjustments. this sunday will be marked with several events. later in the newscast we will have a report from new york city for the memorial service at ground service. >>> here bart is tightening security ahead of the 9/11 anniversary, commuters will see a bigger police presence, it is happening even though there is no specific threat targeting the bay area. >>> bart officials confirm to ktvu channel 2 news this morning that vandalism at the glen park bart station in san francisco late last night was tied to protests downtown earlier in the evening. bart offici

al- qaeda, but the left in the country wanted to lose. they wanted to give that up and we bet the hell out of them. >> exit question, is al-qaeda a spent force? yes or no? >> al-qaeda is decapitated, and it is badly damaged in afghanistan and pakistan, but it is now decentralized, john. and you've got a lot of these separate groups in yemen and somalia, in libya, and all these places, so it's a dangerous thing. it's like one of these snakes that that carved up into a couple pieces and they become smaller pieces. >> eleanor. >> spent but since the millenia people will use terrorism and use violence to achieve their means, we're not to be able to eradicate all of that. >> much reduced but still dangerous. >> yes, and there is just an explosion of radicalism, and that part of the world that gave birth to al-qaeda and this won't go away. and we'll still be the principal target. >> our cause of that quite frankly, our intervention has exacerbated that problem and increased the hatred of this country, across that part of the world. >> exactly. but it also gave birth to the arab spring. there's a narrative american,ing. >> good narrative? >> good night 95

al qaeda that's one of the mistakes which our friends in the letter said are. welcoming in the people who are going to come there will never have gone to deciding with al qaeda or the islamists it is it is run of those fallacies which i think our friends in the states now realize the point is to make here is that our people are the people in the west and they have got to learn a new way of dealing with yemen why always they want only it could deal with one person they have got to deal with institutions we are trying to build institutions and the west have got to learn to. get involved and address institutions of getting just autocrats or deterred us ruling that the countries of the middle east so building institutions is one of the of the revolution now in yemen and a lot of people there on the ground who are democrats who are pro western in their mind and who are looking for. here to be a target if you can build civil society during the civil war after a short break we'll continue our discussion and stay parky. kicking against spurs. and. lead loads of the weapons grade plutonium is turned into a vital new recently nuclear waste becomes a fuel searingly to the

experts, who have suggested it wouldn't necessarily even be out of the realm of possibility that al qaeda or al qaeda sympathizers are deliberately pretending to do something like this to get the u.s. maybe on the wrong track, this being some sort of diversion. is that something that the fbi counterterrorism experts and homeland security and elsewhere would even start to consider, that scenario, something sophisticated like that? >> certainly, they've been considering that all along, but not only, you know the threats coming against new york and washington are logical, but the threats could also come to other large cities throughout the country or smaller cities. so the fact that the threat could be anywhere, it could be committed by anyone, it could involve a small group of people or even an individual acting on his own is what really scares the authorities. i think most experts believe that it's next to impossible for a scale and scope of 9/11 to occur again. the internet financing that occurred in that case, the coordination, command and control by bin laden himself and khalid shaikh moha

>> i felt this sense that it was good we got the titular head, as it was, or al qaeda. was one piece of the disease. and unfortunately, it has tenacles that reach far beyond that one man. >> well, lauren, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. i've got to say, this is one of the most extraordinary books i've read in a long time. "unmeasured strength". i recommend everyone go and read this because it's a tale of inspiration and courage when i think many would have just packed it in. so i congratulate you on that. and i hope that sunday isn't too painful for you and your old colleagues. >> thank you very much, piers. >>> lauren manning. coming up, another new yorker's life was changed by 9/11. this one works. ooh, the price sure doesn't. i'm tired of shopping around. [ sigh ] too bad you're not buying car insurance. like that's easy. oh, it is. progressive direct showed me their rates and the rates of their competitors. i saved hundreds when switching. we could use hundreds. yeah. wake up and smell the savings. out there with a better way. now, that's progressive. to help y

>> i felt this sense that it was good we got the titular head, as it was, or al qaeda.as one piece of the disease. and unfortunately, it has tenacles that reach far beyond that one man. >> well, lauren, it's been a pleasure to talk to you. i've got to say, this is one of the most extraordinary books i've read in a long time. "unmeasured strength". i recommend everyone go and read this because it's a tale of inspiration and courage when i think many would have just packed it in. so i congratulate you on that. and i hope that sunday isn't too painful for you and your old colleagues. >> thank you very much, piers. >>> lauren manning. coming up, another new yorker's life was changed by 9/11. ♪ my subaru saved my life. i won't ever forget that. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. love. if by blessed you mean freaked out about money. well, we suddenly noticed that everything was getting more expensive, so we switched to the bargain detergent, but i found myself using three times more than you're supposed to and the clothes still weren't as clean as with tide. so we're b

his killers were not taliban or al-qaeda.ut a small group of mexican drug cartel bandits heavily armed with ak-47 assault rifles. >> sean: the family is not just left to grieve but also to look for answers. >> every one of the men and women involved in fast and furious, based on my experience are men and women of good faith who wanted to do the right thing. but they hadn't fully thought about the consequences of their actions. and that inablility to look into the future to understand the risks that they were taking, is their down fall. and maybe, although we don't yet know, the reason for brian terry's tragic death. >> sean: very sad, very unnecessary story. if you would like to help the terry family and the families of other fallen border patrol agents go to borderpatrol foundation.org. next william la jeunesse takes us inside mexico to explain where those guns end up once they cross the border. [ male announcer ] in blind taste tests, even ragu uss chose prego. prego?! but i've been buying ragu for years. [ thinking ] i won

three attempts on his life in a matter of weeks by al-qaeda or al-qaeda-affiliated organizations while he was still president. .. >> well, it's difficult to judge the quality of the current effort without having to speculate about what's going to come out. the far end of the process. and, frankly, i don't have answers to a couple of key question. i don't know who will be in charge when the dust settles, new governments are established, what are these regimes going to be like, how are they going to look at the u.s., what kind of relationships are we going to have. in some cases some of the regimes have been replaced, like president mubarak in egypt, for example. has been a good friend and ally with united states for years. we were together in the first gulf war, for example. so if you're evaluating the outcome in terms of u.s. interest, i think there's a lot we don't yet know about the outcome. in terms of whether or not we should be supportive, i think that it is important for us to continue to express our support, certain values that we believe people ought to have the opportuni

yet the iraq war -- i was never asked about afghanistan or al-qaeda in my confirmation hearing.it suggests that the -- a president and his cabinet are faced with the way the world works and they have to live with that. you are right, president bush i'm sure came in thinking he would be focused on domestic issues. >> greta: you mentioned vice president cheney there's been a lot in the news about his book and the spat between him and colin powell. there's tension before defense and state for decades. what do you make of that between those two? >> of course, i read about half his book so far. he had a close relationship with colin powell. when they were in the pentagon in the george herbert walker bush days. i've not gotten to the last portion of the vice president's book yet, i'm looking forward to reading it. s , other than there are in a national security council, as you point out, there were difficulties teen -- teen schlessinger and kissinger, they represent different view points, perspectives. i of course worked with both during that period. as well as with secretary rice whe

you know, there's no 100% guarantee in this business, but it is believed to be an al qaeda threat or an al qaeda-inspired threat. based on the fact that al qaeda statements made after his killing was that they were going to strike against the u.s. this was picked up. they were going to strike on the anniversary of 9/11 and they were going to try to kill as many americans as possible. basically, you know, in large concentrations. particularly they had mentioned transportation systems. they talked about certain cities -- >> steven emerson, i'm going to have to leave you there. thank you very much indeed. we're going to go back to wolf blitzer. wolf, bring me up to date on where things are. we have this press conference in about 20 minutes involving michael bloomberg. it would seem that this warning is now gathering some momentum. clearly potentially a very serious threat. >> you know it's very serious when they start briefing, not only mayor bloomberg, ray kelly, the police commissioner, in new york, but they're also in the past several house now, they have briefed key members of the ho

the appeals court said the sentencing judge didn't factor in his criminal history or al-qaeda camp trainingsley earhardt. now back to on the record with greta. thanks for watching. >> greta: is there a fix that -- we spoke with steven brill founder of court tv who just released the book inside the fight to fix america's schools. nice to see you. >> same here. >> greta: where are we? >> we are in a schoolroom at a very successful charter school in harlem called harlem success. if we were allowed to walk about 50 feet that way, we would be on the other side of the bidding which is a public school, a conventional public school this is like a science experiment. was when you remove the burdens of -- what happens when you remove the burdens of a union contract and bureaucracy. take the same kids in the same community. here they perform on tests and otherwise the way can is in scarsdale a well to do suburb of new york do. on the other side of the building they perform, unfortunately the way you would expect the stereotype of a harlem kid who comes from an impoverished home, maybe even a broken ho

the suspicion here in kenya is that either somali pirates or the al qaeda linked islamist group al-shabab carried out the attack. the foreign office says officials are focused on trying to save judith tibet's life. >> this is tuesday on the bbc. i'm in sing singapore. >> in london, our headlines, the head of libya's national transitional council has appeared in front of crowds in tripoli to outline plans for the future. >> an explosion at a leaking fuel pipeline in kenya's capital has claimed more than 120 lives. more, now, on the situation in libya. outside one of the former libyan leader's last strongholds, the resistance continues. nato confirmed that its planes have hit targets around bally walid and residents of the desert town are trying to flee the fighting. our correspondent sent this report. >> the last few miles to bani walid is a dangerous stretch of road. but today, anti-gaddafi fighters agreed to take us to the town. take a good look. this is the first glimpse of bani walid. it's like one of those famous frontier towns in cowboy films -- small, dusty and arid. there's no land

of the operational recruit hes, it's a very significant loss to al qaeda. >> was he able to get things to -- secure plots outside yemen? or was he strictly an internet promoter of al qaeda views? >> he certainly used the internet very well, and he was very strong in technology, strong in his understanding of the west. that's what made him so dangerous. he had communication with the ft. hood shooter, so he was able to help radicalize, help give a religious respectability in terms of committing those acts of violence. he did certainly have an effect beyond yemen's borders, also in terms of hatching plots in yemen, like the underwear bomber that could have killed many people outside of yemen. and i think the real significance is in the context of two things, one is his killing is the most recent of a series of devastating blows to al qaeda. then you have the dual blow to the ideology of al qaeda, that we see in the arab spring. these two things put together are really quite devastating to al qaeda. the loss of their nartive, the whole arab spring, the idea that you can bring about change without these acts of terrorism as we

in the latest issue of inspire which is the al qaeda magazine there's a writer that basically is railing on. and you know telling him to stop being a truth or because al qaeda really really wants the credit for nine eleven i mean i worked really hard and i are you going to take their phone i'm already it was a lot of work maybe it's not a laughing matter but it's well i mean if you're i mean i think the funniest part that they have that magazine there's some angry guy and then use on deadline and then you are going to your magazine i would think about that if they laid out. a clear no that said guys that on the ground well as i do but you know the other thing about iran i read today that there are people ships off our coast if you heard this that's right it's going to get out that this is more of the. i think we can agree that. pretty entertaining yes always always always always good for a laugh fire is adding a little more humor into the mix right you guys thanks for joining me tonight directed at that's it for tonight shall thanks for tuning in to make sure the come back tomorrow wall street journal columnist kelly evans can be on a talk

and its allies decided this real or imagined threat of al qaeda in yemen is far more important then democratic values in protecting the rights of people on the ground i'm sorry to be very straightforward it is advocate yes yes yes yes i don't think that's only the kiss i think the our friends in the united states have left this file in order for it to be treated or to be confronted by c.n.n. specially our neighbors the saudis and the saudis have been a little bit hesitant as regards you know their position i mean they have been reports of one kind of they're worried about the crystallizing the president but we have been hearing reports that sometimes the family the people who are you know are having second thoughts about that ok well. let's talk about saudi arabia later because there are reports that the saudis are arming this regime here david if i can go to you again we started out with the program with the word dilemma i mean what is the dilemma washington has right now because it would seem to me the more they try to pursue their war on terror and al qaeda in yemen the more it creates terr

al qaeda english language online magazine. president obama said it's proof u.s. anti-terror efforts are working. >> earlier this morning, anwar al awlaki, a lead or of al qaeda in thes killed in yemen. the death -- the death of al awlaki is a major blow to al qaeda's most active operational affiliate. al awlaki was the leader of external operations for al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. and in that role he took the lead in planning and directing efforts to murder innocent americans. he directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on christmas day in 2009, he directed the failed attempt to blow up u.s. cargo planes in 2010, and he repeatedly called on individuals in the united states and around the globe to kill innocent men, women, and children to advance a murderous agenda. >> cnn's tom foreman working breaking news for us. learning more about how this went down. >> yeah, exactly. joe, the simple truth is, of all 0 the places in the middle east where al qaeda has been a concern, the place where authorities have hunted al awlaki has always been in yemen, which has been a troubled place in many, many different ways, and they've tried very hard to get him there

while they have not identified any specific threats from al-qaeda affiliates or al-qaeda allies, they say that citizens should be aware that al-qaeda affiliates and allies have demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks against the u.s. and our interests around the world. they go on to say that oftentimes they've seen that these plots coincide with significant dates on the calendar and, obviously, this tenth anniversary would be one of them. just a word of note regarding this alert, it does extend past the anniversary all the way until past the first of the year, so it's a travel alert not just for the next week, week and a half, but far beyond that as well. >>> in the meantime, right now more trouble looms on the horizon for major american wang banks. the u.s. government plans to sue some of the country's largest financial institutions, and it's all over their involvement with risky mortgages. as you probably know, those were at the heart of the financial meltdown. they call it a housing crisis and credit cry crisis -- crisis for a region. jim angle has the details.

violence that's happening now in yemen is not has nothing to do with tribal alliances or the struggle over between al-qaeda or political party loyalties but it's the lives of people there. we've been affected by such kinds of interventions in what would they call in the i.m.f. world in the world bank and structural adjustments are actually causing significant structural. chaos in these kind of rule societies that have been targeted they have wonderful assets so i'm sure particularly valuable and they're used to of course. uses collateral for these micro loans out of the assets and you haven't learned labor rights we have these kind of people who are receiving these grants who are somewhat responsible for the community and in many ways there's they're not powerless they were able to leverage some kind of. access to to the labor and the capacities of the community in order to gain political sustenance usually through this great because a kind of game in which locals are able to negotiate with the state for receive a little bit of rent from the state in return for compliance what is happening here is that the

he wouldn't be that significant a figure in al qaeda or even al qaeda and arabian peninsula, he's nothe leader of that group, he's not the bombmaker that got the underwear bomb on the flight. he's not the maker who put the two bombs in 2010. the bombmaker is still out there, which is sort of government shorthand for al qaeda and the arabian peninsula. the leaders of this group is still out there and the fact that he's no longer with us certainly makes everybody safer. >> does it weaken the recruiting? how much of an impact, peter? >> he's had a long record of almost near misses and eventually he'll get some very hard to detect bomb on to an american plane or western plane somewhere. >> you are making the point he wasn't the bombmaker and this isn't the guy you see holding the ak-47 in all the videos. he was the supreme recruiter, as he's been referred to. how much of an impact does taking al awlaki out, the fact that he's gone now, how much of an impact will that have on recruiting young radicals? >> i think it's going to be, you know, he was the principal recruiter in the english-spe

al qaeda's weaknesses. in july 2007, the national intelligence estimate was forced to conclude that al qaeda had in fact projected or regenerating key elements of its homeland attack capabilities. there's no reason to think that right now the intelligence community has so much better understanding of al qaeda. the consensus view that the law and could be funded to federally administered areas of pakistan and the majority view the he was merely a figurehead -- he was not. in fact, peter referenced his death. john britton said that we do not know who will replace him. this shows the weakness of our intelligence. moving from these shall we unverifiable proclamations about whether i'll fight it is on the votes, let's turn to objective indicators. in the 9/11 commission report, in analyzing what al qaeda and other groups need to execute catastrophic aacks against the u.s. concluded that they require physical sanctuary. 10 years ago, they had won in afghanistan here today, al qaeda affiliate's enjoy four -- somalia, yemen, pakistan. you look at the geography, it is not going in our favor. nobody has the plans to dislodge

. >> you don't want al qaeda or any other organization... i don't know if this is al qaeda or some other terrorist organization-- you don't want them to take away the freedoms without firing a shot. it's just ridiculous. >> woodruff: back at the white house, officials insisted president obama isn't changing his plans either. he will mark sunday's anniversary by attending ceremonies at all three of the 9/11 attack sites. for the latest on all of this we turn to dina temple-raston, counter-terrorism correspondent for npr. dina, thank you for being with us. tell us just exactly what do authorities know. >> well, actually, there's more that they don't know than what they know. but there was a source in pakistan that had suggested sort of a vague plot. the vague plot involved at least three operatives, perhaps one american, perhaps a car bomb, something to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary, and it also seems that it was something that they had started. and that's what intelligence officials are trying to figure out now-- what does started mean? d

al qaeda, i mean, we know they are severely weakened. when you look at the potential threats out there, is it al qaeda central that you look to or is it morethe al qaeda peninsula, the u.s. born cleric and groups in yemen or elsewhere? >> there are two threats that i see that are real. amwaralaki i think is a very dangerous individual. he was involved in al qaeda, i'm convinced, early on. the first two al qaeda hijackers who came to america in january of 2000 went to san diego where he was an iman. they followed him all across america when he went to virginia. so i think that he was closely tied into al qaeda then. 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

witness the take down of bin laden and the high number of al-qaeda leader killed or captured recently. in fact, more than one-half of al-qaeda's top leadership has been eliminated according to a speech in june by john brennan, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. consider the following top aqi leaders killed or captured since last summer. bin laden, al-qaeda's number two -- and unis, the number three leader, and in yes , yemen including fasal the leader of aq in africa and the master mind of the 98 bombings in africa killed by smoal ya security forces. all told, over the past two noof years, virtually every major al-qaeda affiliate lost a key leader or operational commander and more key al-qaeda leaders have been eliminated in rapid succession than any time since 9/11. other post-9/11 reforms include a new counterterrorism focus at the fbi where the number of joint terrorism task forces, we call them jttf's, have grown from 35 to 104 around the country, and the number of jttf personnel increased approximately from 1,000 before 9/11 to nearly 4500 toda

nsa picked up chatter or conversations from al qaeda or other groups in pakistan, afghanistan area.ut they also had apparently a tip from someone who knew or heard of the conspirators and heard of the plan. so putting the two together, human jenls and technical intelligence, we apparently have at least leads on those who may be threatening either washington or new york this weekend. >> let me bring in governor rendell on that. i guess that comes down to hunches and instinct and not just the data, but it looks to me, we must be getting pretty good at reading the chatter i would think. they were able to say it might be bridges and tunnels and you immediately think of the lincoln tunnel. >> i think governor thompson is exactly right. the improvement here has been as dramatic as improvement anywhere. the walls have come down, the technology is better, we've made more in roads among people who tip us off. so we are significantly safer than we once were. >> i noticed that mayor bloomberg was taking the subway the other way as a way of putting it in perspective. but at the same time, you t

the last few years, are there other organizations that you think may or even lone individuals who pose a bigger threat? >> well, al qaedathreat to killing americans on u.s. soil or overseas in rapid operations. there are other threats, national security threats, and the cyber threat which is a slow and very expansive creeping threat, but when it comes to who is going to blow a plane out of the sky and who is going to put a truck bomb in a u.s. city or attack an embassy overseas, al qaeda is still number one on the hit parade. >> how convinced are you by what we have seen in the arab spring and while it looks terribly exciting, no one really knows who is taking over in places like egypt or libya with the rebels and so on, and if you were in your job, would you be pretty concerned about the situation would you think that we need to be finding out quickly who is going to be running these countries? >> well, power abhors a vacuum, and when you topple a government and there is a vacuum, it is not always filled by the people that you planned it to be filled by, that you desired it to be filled by or intended to fill it on the

al qaeda, i mean, we know they are severely weakened. when you look at the potential threats out there, is it al qaeda central that you look to or is it moreeda peninsula, the u.s. born cleric and groups in yemen or elsewhere? >> there are two threats that i see that are real. amwaralaki i think is a very dangerous individual. he was involved in al qaeda, i'm convinced, early on. the first two al qaeda hijackers who came to america in january of 2000 went to san diego where he was an iman. they followed him all across america when he went to virginia. so i think that he was closely tied into al qaeda then. 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