Interviews | In Search Of Al Qaeda | FRONTLINE

FRONTLINE

London



		He is an Egyptian cleric who preaches at the Finsbury Park Mosque in Central London. Among those who attended his mosque were Zacarias Moussaoui, whom the U.S. has accused as being the intended 20th hijacker on Sept. 11, Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber," and James Ujaama, who was arrested in Seattle and accused of attempting to set up Al Qaeda training camps in the U.S. Abu Hamza is wanted in Yemen on terrorism charges relating to the bombing of the USS Cole. He tells FRONTLINE that Al Qaeda is structurally dismantled but that U.S. action in Afghanistan has created a "time bomb" among sympathetic Muslims.





		A Saudi Arabian dissident living in exile in London, Dr. Saad al-Fagih heads the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia. He tells FRONTLINE that the Saudi regime's claims that they have eradicated Al Qaeda within the kingdom are false and that every Saudi is a potential bin Laden. He also says that sources in Saudi Arabia have told him that the bulk of Al Qaeda leaders are alive and probably hiding in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan.




Pakistan



		As interior minister, he coordinates the war on terrorism inside Pakistan. He tells FRONTLINE that although there have been arrests of low level Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan's tribal areas, there is no evidence that Al Qaeda leadership is hiding in there. He also recounts the March raid in Faisalabad that led to the capture of Abu Zubaydah and the Sept. 11, 2002 raid that led to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh.





		He is a Pakistani journalist and special correspondent for the Washington Post, based in Karachi. He maintains that Al Qaeda definitely moved into the tribal areas of Pakistan after the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, but that Pakistani officials deny it because they fear U.S. intervention. He argues that at the same time Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has allied himself with the U.S., he also has made an "unwritten compromise" to give more political power to Pakistani Islamist groups.





		The president of Pakistan, Musharraf has come under pressure from the U.S. since Sept. 11 to deliver results in the search for Al Qaeda on the ground in Pakistan. Domestically, he faces an increasingly powerful Islamic opposition which sympathizes with Osama bin Laden. He tells FRONTLINE he does not believe that a large number of Al Qaeda fighters are hiding out in Pakistan's tribal areas.





		He is the Islamabad bureau chief for Al Jazeera television, an Arabic-language news channel based in Qatar. Zaidan was one of the last journalists to interview Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and he has been the recipient of several of Osama bin Laden's communiqu�s, including an audio recording released in November 2002, in which bin Laden allegedly applauds the recent terrorist attacks in Bali and Yemen. Zaidan believes Al Qaeda is regrouping and that sympathy for them in the Muslim world is increasing.




Yemen



		He is the foreign minister of Yemen. In this interview he describes the Yemeni government's efforts to track down Al Qaeda terrorists in collaboration with the U.S. military. However, he tells FRONTLINE that he believes poverty is a breeding ground for terrorism and criticizes the U.S. for not delivering on promised financial aid.





		He has twice served as Yemen's prime minister (1980-1983 and 1998-2001) and currently is an advisor to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. In this interview, Eryani describes how many veterans of the Afghan jihad against the Soviets returned to Yemen to fight the communists during Yemen's civil war.





		Hugira is a Yemeni journalist who writes for The Yemen Daily. After she interviewed seven Al Qaeda suspects in prison, she became sympathetic to their cause. She tells FRONTLINE that Muslims view U.S. policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine as personal attacks. She wrote an essay, "The United States and Us--Who is Attacking Whom?" for FRONTLINE, in which she pleads, "Refrain from sending your sons to kill us in our homelands and loot our resources, so that our sons do not come to you in search of revenge."





		The U.S. ambassador to Yemen, he previously served as the State Department's acting coordinator for counterterrorism. Hull coordinated the Nov. 4, 2002 missile strike that killed Al Qaeda's top operative in Yemen. He tells FRONTLINE that prior to Sept. 11, the Yemeni government had a "laissez-faire" attitude towards Islamic dissidents and extremists, but that has changed. He believes that since Sept. 11, Yemen has become "a less hospitable place than the Al Qaeda operatives anticipated."




Saudi Arabia



		The son of the late King Faisal, he is the Saudi foreign minister. He argues that Saudi Arabia has been an active participant in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. He tells FRONTLINE that in Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda are "pursued people. They are people under the microscope."