[Blitzer:] Very bold and very risky. The United States carried out twin special operations raids against high value targets in Africa this weekend. One team grabbed a key al Qaeda suspect in Libya, the other failed to snatch an al Shabaab leader in Somalia. Let's bring in our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. He's got the very latest. Bold, indeed, and very risky.
[Jim Sciutto, Cnn Chief National Security Correspondent:] No question. Both these attacks show the administration's new focus on terror threats emanating in particular from Africa. The Libya raid connected to an attack that took place there years ago, the 1998 embassy bombings. The Somalia raid, however, more forward-looking, driven by U.S. concerns about al Shabaab's growing focus on attacks abroad, including targeting U.S. interests in the region with sophisticated attacks like the one we saw in Nairobi.
[Sciutto:] The Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, left dozens dead, a luxury mall destroyed, and a country terrorized. It is attacks like this, bold, sophisticated, and beyond Somalia's borders that helped lead the U.S. to target al Shabaab on its home territory. It was a daring operation. Late Friday night, SEAL Team Six, the same team that killed Osama Bin Laden, launched from a commercial ship towards shore, aiming to capture the al Shabaab leader known as Ikrima. Met by a hail of gunfire at a shoreside villa, the SEAL team withdrew without their men. Just hours later and 3,000 miles away in Libya, another daring operation, this one in broad daylight in downtown Tripoli. The target, Abu Anas al-Libi, picked up by members of the elite U.S. delta force. His family said they surrounded his car, many in masks, and rushed al-Libi away as his wife watched in terror from a window. She spoke exclusively with
[Cnn. Unidentified Female:] Everything happened rapidly. They grabbed him and shoved him in the car. I saw them doing this and saying get in, but wasn't sure that was my husband. The cars then sped off like a rocket.
[Sciutto:] Al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda operative wanted for the 1998 embassy bombings in Africa, is now on a U.S. navy ship in the Mediterranean. Ikrima, the target of the Somalia raid, remains at large. The operations show America's increasing focus on the growing terror threat emanating from Africa. In Mali and Algeria, al Qaeda and the Islamic Maghreb, in Nigeria, Boko haram, al Shabaab in Somalia, and just across the gulf of Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, now the U.S. is relying on smaller, swifter operations. James Liddy is a former Navy SEAL commander. CMDR. JAMES LIDDY,
[Former Navy Seal:] The United States is showing once again that it's not going to let terrorists dictate the war on terror. A surgical strike makes a lot of sense to try to minimize the casualties that would ensue if you had a larger footprint or bigger operation.
[Sciutto:] Still, these two raids show the difficulty of that strategy. One team gets its man, the other does not. Both in high risk operations. That said, a U.S. official told me today emphatically the U.S. does not see the Somalia operation as a failure, rather Wolf, he told me it shows that we can, quote, "knock on their door" anywhere in the world. It showed that we can get eyes on them and guns on them very quickly.
[Blitzer:] It also shows a lot about this president, President Obama. He had to authorize both of these raids at the presidential level, and it basically says to terrorists out there, it may be 15 years, 15 years since the U.S. embassy in Tanzania and Kenya were destroyed and a lot of people were killed, but the U.S. is going to come and get you, so just be aware of that. It sends a powerful message of where this president is coming from.
[Sciutto:] No question. Bin Laden caught ten years after 911. But these are very risky operations, too. They'll put boots on the ground, maybe not tens of thousands, but a SEAL Team Six with life and limb at risk.
[Blitzer:] And I think he also is trying to send a message to Ayman al- Zawahiri, the new leader of al qaeda, used to be the number two under Bin Laden and others, especially those terrorists who killed the U.S. ambassador, Chris Stevens, in Benghazi and three other Americans. The U.S. is going to be patient, the U.S. is watching. Just be ready, be nervous the rest of your life, because the U.S. is not going to forget and there's going to be an order to either capture or kill. I assume that was part of the thinking on U.S. officials.
[Sciutto:] Absolutely. To send a very powerful message. And that's what they're saying now. They got one man. They didn't get the other, but they've been successful in sending that message.
[Blitzer:] Yes. As soon as I heard that the president authorized these two missions, especially to get al-Libi 15 years after that, I thought this president was out channeling in Golda Meir after the Munich Olympic massacre. She called in all of her security commanders and said, whatever it takes, no matter how long, you will find and either capture or kill those responsible for killing those Israeli athletes. The movie, you know, "Munich," was a result, depicted all of that. I immediately said to myself well, this president has got that Golda Meir instinct in him as well.
[Sciutto:] Lots of movie material here, too.
[Blitzer:] Yes. I think you're right. All right. Thanks very much, Jim Sciutto reporting. Coming up, some say it's a fiscal doomsday scenario. We're taking a closer look at what really happens if the government defaults on the debt in the coming days. And we also have two lawmakers here, they're getting ready to debate, a democrat and a Republican. Our debate with them and more coming up.