more operationally involve than anybody really thought, that he continued to exert command and control over the al qaeda organization. some of this information may be helpful for u.s. authorities to go back after senior al qaeda leaders, perhaps ayman al zawahri, he remained in close contact with bin laden in recent years and was perhaps in relatively close geographic proximity, so someone like zawahri may be in some jeopardy right now. the mid level commanders of al qaeda in the tribal areas of pakistan, al qaeda kept some fire walls between them and zawahri and bin laden. western recruits who went to the able to lar tribal areas of pakistan, but this may help the united states go after some of these top leaders like zawahri who continued to be in contact with bin laden. it struck me at the time that
we learned about osama bin laden supposedly being involve in the operational role, and all this material was found, thumb drives, descriptive plans being written down. it gave me the feeling of this is it? this is where al qaeda has been run from for the past five years? and i would think that would be somewhat of a letdown for all of this man s followers. he was basically isolated, running his information in and out with couriers and with very limited technology. did that strike you at all or am i reading this wrong? well, that s right to some degree and his death is a huge blow to al qaeda. he was the charismatic figure within the organization, the guy who was really inspiring all these recruits to join the organization, to launch attacks, even individuals who didn t join the organization were inspired by bin laden to launch attacks and some of the people that we reported together on, even here in new york city, inspired by bin laden, loving bin laden and