afghanistan. agents set up electronic surveillance of roads and villages which was still active just days before september 11th. but al qaeda members stayed one step ahead and used technology to their advantage. monitoring internet chat rooms and anonymous e-mails became part of an ongoing, highly sensitive intelligence operation. what we have to strive is to be as innovative and as creative as the terrorists are. almost to think out of the box. reporter: the hunt for bin laden became america s top priority the day after 9/11. there is an old poster out west, as i recall, that said wanted, dead or alive. reporter: u.s.-led forces began months of withering air and ground assaults at al qaeda s strongholds in afghanistan. special forces spread throughout the country, acting on realtime intelligence. osama bin laden was a man on the run.
reasonable people who are really trying to get a particular message out? who are these folks? they are you can talk to them on internet chat rooms essentially. they are willing to talk. it s interesting, it wasn t just a two-way conversation. there are four or five people jumping in, none much them identified. all of them say they are anonymous. but basically they say they compared it to a protest. for example, a strike that stops, you know, production, for example, they used the exam of striking farmers in france, for example. they basically want to make a point and make sure that gets across. once they feel that point has been made, then they ll call off these attacks. the problem is anonymous has no leadership. so there s nobody exactly calling these attacks, and tells them when to stop. so you re never quite sure when it s going to begin and end. and this could go on for some time. all right. we appreciate you, as always. thanks so much. is this a place you d like to be rig
reporter: faisal had lured cnn to his island part of a shakedown. cnn does not pay for interviews. the sheik was asking for $15,000 just to talk. why are you charging us so much money just to talk to you? most recently arrested in kenya, authorities say this 46-year-old jamaican was encouraging young muslims to fight in somalia. his arrest sparked riots, leading to five dead and leading kenya to deport al faisal back to his native jamaica. u.s. intelligence officials and jaica s justice ministry tell cnn they are carefully watching. the caribbean and its poverty has long been thought to be a potential new home for a terrorist message. and the sheikh has never stopped preaching. through internet chat rooms. and sending out tapes. the fear is that even isolated down that road in a home that this islamic scholar, this preacher of radical islam could have an effect on the polation here, gather a following, and perhaps influence others to follow the paths of
yes, they were. what they say is in this interconnected world in which we now live, it is very easy for men like anwar al-awlaki, remember, he is the radical u.s. born and now yemen based cleric who was behind the fort hood shootings and connected with the times square bomber. very easy for men like that to reach out via internet chat rooms to find disaffected young muslim american men, inspire them with rhetoric and recruit them to the cause. listen again. these people can recruit on the internet. some of them are very charismatic. they seem to be able to speak particularly to young and impressionable people that happen to be muslims. that certainly is one factor. second, i think is, a change of strategy as the report points out. i think al qaeda is trying to do this because they have been unsuccessful in doing the big threat, which they like to. they are deciding they can disrupt us this way. and the report says the
is the sheik in? abdullah el-faisal lured cnn to his island for shakedown. the sheik was asking for $15,000 just to talk. why are you charging us so much money just to talk to you? most recently arrested in kenya, this 46-year-old jamaican was encouraging young muslims to fight in somalia. he led kenya to deport abdullah el-faisal back to his native jamaica. u.s. intelligence be officials tell cnn they are carefully watching the caribbean and its poverty have long to be thought of a potential new home for a terrorist message. and the sheik has never stopped preaching from internet chat rooms and sending out tapes. the fear is that even isolated down that road in a home that this islamic scholar, this preacher of radical islam could have an effect on the population