New Seized Files Provide Vast Insight into Al Qaeda's Attack Plans
ANDERSON: You're watching a special edition of Connect the World here on CNN with me Becky Anderson. Welcome back. Returning to our top story, the secret documents that expose the inner workings of al Qaeda. I've got here with me in the studio our senior international correspondent Nic Robertson who did much of the leg work on the exclusive reporting that we had tonight. I want to bring in two counterterrorism experts for a reaction to some of Nic's reporting tonight. Charles Allen is a former undersecretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He also served 40 years in the CIA. And Micheal Clarke is director general of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies here in London. Charles, let's start off with you, your reaction to what you heard from Nic's reporting.</s>CHARLES ALLEN, FRM. UNDER SECRETARY, U.S. DEPT. HOMELAND SECURITY: I think the documents are genuine. I believe that it shows the change in al Qaeda's tactics, not al Qaeda, but also the affiliated networks. I think we are facing smaller, more disciplined attacks. The attacks in Mumbai in 2008 I think reflect the kind of great psychological damage that was done by that attack. It sort of paralyzed India for several days, shut down the economic and entertainment capital of India. I think that could be replicated in Western Europe.</s>ANDERSON: Michael, many of our viewers will have been, I'm sure, surprised by what Nic was reporting. Were you?</s>MICHAEL CLARKE, VISITING PROFESSOR, KING'S COLLEGE LONDON: Not really. We've -- we knew quite a few of the details, but what's very valuable about these reports is it shows how much people like Rashid Rauf were writing down and how much of this was being documented by al Qaeda. For an organization that knew that a lot of their communications were being monitored, that knew that they were being tracked and followed, it's astonishing how bureaucratic they were. And so these reports actually give us a lot of chapter and verse on things that we certainly have a strong belief in. We knew that Rashid Rauf was behind 7/7 and the 21/7, the attacks two weeks later, but not quite the extent of it. And this is actually very interesting to see some of the documentary evidence of this and also the airline plots, the Bojinka plots as they're called, the following year in 2006. They were the most potentially devastating plots since 9/11. And although they were not close to fruition their intention was absolutely clear. These guys were going to bring down six or eight aircraft over the Atlantic and do as much destruction as 9/11 had done.</s>ANDERSON: Let's through this forward guys. Nic is with me here in the studio. The death of Osama bin Laden, of course, may have damaged al Qaeda's core, but loyal offshoots of course are still dangerous it seems. The United States increasingly concerned about al Qaeda's expansion in Yemen, particularly the province of Shabwa and Abyan. Recently the Yemeni government announced a full-scale operation against al Qaeda militants in those areas. Just last week, U.S. drones strike killed the fourth most wanted al Qaeda leader in Yemen. It crossed the Gulf of Aden in Somalia, militants from the al Qaeda affiliate al Shabaab are trying to expand their foothold. And earlier this month al Shabaab claimed responsibility for bombing a market in the town of Bidoua (ph) killing several people and injuring dozens. Nic, the future.</s>ROBERTSON: Well I think it's not just the future for al Qaeda isn't just a strong footprint in base -- being able to take advantage of the remnants of the Arab Spring in Yemen as it was, but also kind of take advantage in other places like Libya in the east of Libya where al Qaeda is known to have set up camps, and Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, sent operatives to establish camps where they can rapidly recruit people and train and that potentially threatens Europe. So it is these offshoots that are working to the sort of core ideals and values of al Qaeda, maybe not under the day by day direction, but under those core ideas and the potential also of al Qaeda exploiting the situation in Syria is very real.</s>ANDERSON: Charles, does that resonate with you?</s>ALLEN: It resonates very well. I think al Qaeda was taken aback by the Arab Spring, but I think now it's beginning to catch up. I certainly agree with the point of view that Libya where there's 100 militias and clearly a very chaotic situation is ripe for al Qaeda training camps to be established. It's also ripe for al Qaeda and Islamic maghreb to rearm itself with weapons and materials from the weapon sites that are scattered all over Libya. So I think we have a real problem. I think we have a real problem potentially longer term in Egypt. So things are going finally more directly towards al Qaeda following some setbacks over the last year with the al Qaeda spring.</s>ANDERSON: Which surprise our viewers. Michael, do you concur?</s>CLARKE: Yes. In the long run I think that's true, because al Qaeda were wrong-footed, as Charles said, by the Arab Spring. But the fact is the Arab Spring is all about alienated Arab youth. And most of societies in the Middle East have found that they get 30, 40 percent of the population are under the age of 25, under the age of 30. If these people can be found jobs, then they are a force of prosperity. If they can't, then they are a force of instability. And alienated Arab youth is turning some ways, going to turn somewhere. And so al Qaeda realized -- not al Qaeda core, but the al Qaeda movement more generally realized, that in the next two or three years a lot of alienated youth will want to turn somewhere and they are thinking about, actively thinking about, how they can manipulate that and use it. They won't be able to use it quite in the way that they did in the 1990s, the early-2000s, but they are nothing if not innovative. And the threat will mutate through several more iterations yet. And I think our security services are aware of that. They're trying to keep up with it and anticipate the trends.</s>ANDERSON: And how will the U.S. be anticipating this, Charles?</s>ALLEN: Well, I think we'll continue our current strategy. Our strategy is not to simply put up defenses everywhere, which we've done extremely well, but continue to lead an attack offensively on al Qaeda including the affiliated networks working with our allies in a very close attack comprehensively globally. And that's -- it has to be global, it can't be just in one country or the other, it has to be a very comprehensive attack. And we work very closely with our closest allies in conducting these kind of continuing offensive operations. Al Qaeda must be kept on the back foot.</s>ANDERSON: Charles, Michael, and Nic, let me just bring your attention to one point I think is important here, or one sort of constituency, as it were, and that is the so-called lone world tactic. Nic mentioned in his report Mohammed Merah, the self-described al Qaeda follower who admitted shooting dead seven people including kids in France last month. He was killed during a police siege into his apartment in Toulouse. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, dubbed the underpants bomber, he was convicted of trying to bring down an airline with a bomb concealed in his underpants. And Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani American who pleaded guilty to attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in May 2010. He was sentenced to life in prison. Nic, lone wolves, how concerned should our viewers tonight -- the security services around the world be of these sort of (inaudible).</s>ROBERTSON: The lone wolf can be very hard to spot, and that's the concern that they self-radicalize, they do it on the internet, nobody really knows about it. So there's a difficulty in stopping them, but the lone wolf will be relatively limited in what he can do. We know the intelligence services watch for people buying certain chemical products that could possibly make bombs. If the al Qaeda -- new al Qaeda mantra as we understand it to be to go for the Mumbai, the gunmen type attack, all one needs to watch out for, all one needs to be concerned about, is the possibility that this lone wolf could get a weapon and go shoot somewhere up. It is not going to be the old al Qaeda that was so devastating, but that is a concern. And it's a hard one for the security services.</s>ANDERSON: And Charles, the lone wolf, the unit that is one man, or one woman, how concerned would security services in your neck of the woods be about that sort of terror as it were?</s>ALLEN: Well, we remain very concerned. The Bureau works extremely hard with state and local police officials, law enforcement to try to identify people who have become radicalized, but it's really -- it's really going to be very difficult to find these people. We don't know that they're becoming radicalized in many cases. The point is, it's a very tiny minority of American Muslims, or converts to Islam who conduct this very tiny. Most American Muslims are mainstream, middle class and upper middle class. And for that we are very pleased.</s>ANDERSON: You make a very good point. Michael, the last word is yours.</s>CLARKE: Yeah, the lone wolf problem is a genuine problem, because these people have very low trade craft. They're not well trained, but Al- Awlaki -- Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen urged people to go out and have a go, just have a go. And if enough people try it, then a few of them will get lucky. And that's what the security services, certainly in Britain, are facing more than anything else, people who may be trying something individually. They're not very skillful. They leave trails of forensics, but if enough of them try, some will get through, and the psychological impact is very high. And al Qaeda know that they only need a couple of successes to keep the sense of anxiety high, particularly in Britain in 2012 when you've got the Olympics coming up. The Royal Jubilee, all the rest of it.</s>ANDERSON: Michael Clarke, Charlie Allen, and with me here in the studio tonight, our senior international correspondent, always a pleasure to have you on the show. Nic Robertson here with me in London. A fascinating discussion. Thank you guys for that. Lots more on this exclusive CNN story online. Head to CNN.com for a special article in what are revelations. That's CNN.com. Your eyeballs there. There's a lot more to come still on Connect the World. I'm Becky Anderson. Including tracking down one of the world's most wanted warlord, how U.S. troops are helping in that hunt. And saving the world one click at a time, we follow a Lebanese photojournalist from Beirut all the way on his bustling holiday to the Arctic.