09/03/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10107

Al-QAIDA VIDEOTAPES

Videotapes made by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network graphically illustrate the extent of the training it gave to terrorists from across the globe.

The United States-based Cable News Network –- C-N-N -- broadcast excerpts from the sixty-four videocassettes, including previously unseen footage taken at terrorist training camps in Afghanistan. Those camps were run by al-Qaida under the auspices of Afghanistan’s former Taleban rulers, who were toppled from power by the Afghan resistance and U.S.-led coalition.

One of the cassettes is described as a three-hour training video for select al-Qaida recruits. It features an instructor explaining how to make high-explosive bombs, including fuses and detonators, from easy-to-get materials. Training of this kind undoubtedly helped al-Qaida terrorists plan and execute a series of deadly attacks. Among these were the August 1998 truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed some two-hundred twenty civilians and wounded more than five-thousand others. Another was the October 2000 attack on the U-S-S Cole in Yemen, which killed seventeen American sailors.

Other al-Qaida videotapes obtained by C-N-N make clear the terrorist network’s global reach. One shows Arab fighters in Chechnya ambushing a Russian military convoy. Still another tape shows fighters in Eritrea declaring a jihad, or holy war, to drive infidels out of the country. Other al-Qaida videotapes contain similar footage from Uzbekistan, Algeria, Bosnia, and other countries.

Al-Qaida’s history of terrorist operations worldwide means that despite having lost its safe-haven in Afghanistan last year, it may now be planning new attacks. Indeed, as U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney recently put it, the terrorists who murdered thousands of people in New York and Washington last September 11th are ruthless, resourceful, working to acquire "the very deadliest weapons," and undoubtedly wish to strike again.

Against such enemies, Mr. Cheney said, "America and the civilized world have only one option: wherever terrorists operate, we must stop them, stop them in their planning, and one by one bring them to justice."