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CNN analyst: Tapes a how-to terrorism manual

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen

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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Al Qaeda videotapes obtained by CNN in Afghanistan strongly suggest that Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network were testing deadly gases.

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, who has seen the tapes, discussed their wider implications Monday with CNN anchor Paula Zahn.

ZAHN: We talked a little bit with [CNN Correspondent Nic Robertson] about this being the first real direct evidence about the level of sophistication of al Qaeda when it comes to experimentation with what we believe were gases potentially. What struck you about these tapes?

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BERGEN: First of all ... it's really the first direct evidence of them experimenting with these kinds of agents. I mean we've heard there have been documents that have referred to these things that have been discovered since the fall of the Taliban. U.S. officials have said that they were experimenting with these kinds of materials. But I mean here we've got visual evidence of the fact. It's not clear what the agent was exactly, but it's clearly not good for your health.

The second thing that struck me about watching these tapes: We had heard from the testimony of Ahmed Ressam, who is linked to al Qaeda, a terrorist who testified last year, that this group had experimented with cyanide.

And in February of this year, a group of Moroccans were arrested in Rome with a cyanidelike compound planning, it looked like, to introduce the cyanidelike compound into the water supply of the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

So not only was there actual experimentation with these kinds of compounds, it seems that al Qaeda was actually trying to put this into practice.

ZAHN: Let's talk about what else they'd have to be capable of doing to weaponize these agents. What do the tapes reveal about their level of sophistication about using some sort of delivery system to sicken a whole lot of people or kill a whole lot of people?

BERGEN: You know, it's one thing to experiment with these kinds of agents. It's quite another thing to turn them into an effective weapon. Aum Shinrikyo, which was a Japanese terrorist group, in 1995 introduced sarin gas into the Tokyo subway, killing five people. They had a very sophisticated chemical weapons program.

Even if you develop these kinds of things, it's quite another thing to actually turn it into a weapon that would kill a lot of people. But we saw with the anthrax attacks last year, which only killed five people after all, that a relatively small number of deaths from these kinds of agents causes a large amount of disruption. I mean they're not weapons of mass destruction; they're weapons of mass disruption in a sense.

So if indeed al Qaeda was able to introduce chemical weapons, let's say, into this country, although it would be unlikely that they would kill very many people, probably very few people, it would cause obviously a huge amount of panic. So that's really why these weapons are a worry.

ZAHN: To put this in perspective, we should make it clear that it is believed that this library housed some 251 tapes. Nic Robertson obtained 64 of them. I know you've seen a lot of the tape. What else have you learned? You're a guy that's been studying this stuff around the clock for many, many years now. What else did you learn?

BERGEN: Well, the thing that struck me about watching a lot of these tapes is I'd seen other videotapes that they'd made which were really for propaganda purposes, kind of recruiting people, showing how great we are, etc.

These groups, these tapes are really how-to tapes, how to build bombs, how to launch SAM-7 rockets, how to create ambushes, how to kidnap people, these kinds of things.

So they're really, they're kind of Terrorism 101, as it were, tapes, instructional tapes. That was really the thing that struck me. The worrisome fact is that a lot of people probably have seen these tapes and will maybe put some of the things they've learned into practice.

ZAHN: So how should the average American react to this information? Does it, based on what you've seen on these tapes, indicate that they're even a greater threat than was believed previously?

BERGEN: Al Qaeda obviously represented a big threat, you know, anyway, with or without these tapes. I think these tapes are further reinforcement that al Qaeda really had -- the reason al Qaeda is a big threat is not that they are anti-American or all the obvious things that we can say about them.

It's that they actually trained a lot of people, and they trained them in quite a sophisticated way. And I think these tapes are a further demonstration of that fact.

You know, people that can manufacture their own high-tech explosives, that represents a real threat. It's one thing to dislike the United States. It's quite another to have learned how to manufacture your own explosives. So I think that's why these tapes are worrisome.