Interview With A Former(?) Terrorist

Bob Simon from 60 minutes interviewed Abu Jandal, Osama bin Laden's former bodyguard, now living in Yemen. Its a very interesting interview.

Simon asked Abu Jandal for his take on bin Laden's last audiotaped message. In January, bin Laden offered the Americans a truce. If Washington doesn't take him up on it, he said, there will be consequences.

"He made a similar proposal to the Europeans. He warned them and gave them six months," Abu Jandal says. "When there was no response, he started with the Madrid bombing, then London. So I believe Osama bin Laden is planning a new attack inside the United States. This is certain."

Asked if he is sure Osama is preparing a new attack, Abu Jandal said, "When Sheikh Osama promises something, he does it."

Jandal is quite certain he knows were bin Laden is right now and it isn't Pakistan.

Abu Jandal hasn't seen bin Laden since the summer of 2000, but he says there is no question as to where he is hiding: Afghanistan.

This little bit was particularly interesting. Bin Laden might have been killed, but for a pure freak of chance.

Abu Jandal says America’s best chances to kill bin Laden came and went before 9/11. Paramount among them, August 1998, right after bin Laden bombed two U.S. embassies in East Africa. The al Qaeda leaders knew the Americans would retaliate, so they left their compound at Tarnak Farms and drove north.

"There was a fork in the road. One road leading to Khost and training camps, and another one leading to Kabul," Abu Jandal recalls. "I was with Sheikh Osama in the same vehicle with three guards, so he turned to us and said, 'What do you think? Khost or Kabul?' We told him, 'Let’s just visit Kabul.' So Sheikh Osama said, 'OK, Kabul.' "

Kabul it was. The next evening, 75 American cruise missiles slammed into the training camp near Khost, the road not taken. The CIA had intelligence that bin Laden was going to be at the training camp that night.

"Kinda makes you wonder whose side God's on, doesn't it?" Scheuer* says.

*Mike Scheur is head of the bin Laden unit at the CIA. He says he believes the things Jandal said in the interview based on classified and other info the CIA has.