ABC’s Brian Ross broke an exclusive story Monday, first at his blog “The Blotter,” and then on “World News with Charles Gibson,” concerning teams of well-trained al Qaeda suicide bombers supposedly heading to the United States and Europe.
This report included video-clips of a Taliban “graduation” ceremony (video available here), with still-pictures of the event available here.
Yet, despite the seriousness of this report, LexisNexis and Google News searches identified few media outlets covered the story.
As most people likely didn’t hear about this given the paltry amount of coverage, what follows is a full transcript of the segment (h/t NB reader Gil Andrews):
CHARLES GIBSON, ANCHOR (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) We're gonna turn next to a sobering development on the war in terror.
GRAPHICS: MAP OF AFGHANISTAN-PAKISTAN BORDER
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) ABC News has obtained pictures from Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan, of a Taliban graduation. Young foot soldiers being sent in to battle against the US and other western nations.
GRAPHICS: TRAINING FOR TERROR
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) The tape suggests that five years after the US military removed the Taliban from power, it is far from powerless. Here's our chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.
GRAPHICS: ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) The ceremony was held just nine days ago in a large field at the end of a dirt road. A Pakistani journalist says he was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including some very young boys, were supposedly sent off on suicide missions. The Taliban military commander, Mansoor Dadullah, whose brother was killed by the US last month, arrived in what appeared to be a local police car. Surrounded by a heavy guard, Dadullah then delivered his version of a commencement address, a warning to the west. 'Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from far away places," he said.
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) 'Why shouldn't we go after them? We should perform suicide attacks and, God willing," he said," destroy their establishments in their own country." Instead of applause, the recruits waved white flags, a Taliban symbol.
RICHARD CLARKE (FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY OFFICIAL)
It doesn't take many who are willing to actually do it and able to slip through the net and get in to the United States or England to cause a lot of damage.
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) The recruits appeared to be organized in teams or brigades. Each assigned to a different country. This team was described as being responsible for suicide attacks on America. This group was being sent to Canada. These men were described as going to Germany. The man heading the British attack seem to know English.
TALIBAN MEMBER (MALE)
Let me say something about why we are going along with my team to tell a suicide attack in Britain.
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Voiceover) After all of the speeches, there was a reception line with the military commander Dadullah greeting and hugging the men as they passed through the line, many with their faces showing, faces which, no doubt, will now be of great interest to US and European intelligence agencies.
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) A US intelligence official said tonight the event appears to be another cog in al Qaeda's increasingly sophisticated propaganda campaign. He dismissed it as Jihadist bravado.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, a couple of things occur as you see this. Number one, is it released for any other purpose than to - try to scare people, I guess, in the west? And secondly, is there any evidence that any of these people have actually been dispatched in the countries involved?
BRIAN ROSS (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) Well, clearly, clearly, Charlie, it's a propaganda event. We could see on the tape other cameramen - roaming around from the al Qaeda propaganda operation. But the fact is, last week, Pakistan announced it picked up three foreign militants crossing the border. Two of them had German passports with documents and radios and equipments suggesting they were on their way to Europe.
CHARLES GIBSON (ABC NEWS)
(Off-camera) All right. Our chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross, thanks.
—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.
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Comments Policy
As I stated in an e-mail to t
June 19, 2007 - 21:30 ET by MikeBAs I stated in an e-mail to the Whitehouse, Bush's failure to even attempt to secure the border is a violation of his oath of office. And now, we have these yahoos heading our way. Now, just where do you think they might come in?(Rhetorical question) If they succeed in their mission I think Bush should be impeached for nonfeasance of his duty to enforce the laws of this country, especially the laws that are supposed to protect us from invasion.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Very very good report Noel S.
June 19, 2007 - 21:45 ET by bigtimerVery very good report Noel S.
Thank you.
It is outrageous this is NOT being reported...as it should be.
Lord knows I know this is not the first, second or third time... this is around the 300,000th time that things like this not get reported....
We do not want to scare the American people...we do not have any real evidence.....we do not want to spread propaganda...
....Unless it is OURS...one way or the other...even by omission...as they chose to do quite a lot.
Unfortunately....it will take another wake-up call to really wake people up in this country...far bigger than the one we had on 9-11.
JMO
one also has to keep in min
June 19, 2007 - 23:39 ET by treshanone also has to keep in mind that some of the 9-11 terrorists came on STUDENT VISAS.
also if we can't even keep people with flagged passports from crossing the border from canada, how are we supposed to keep people from coming through mexico? a fence seems so out of date, unless its electric or nuclear.
so much for fighting them over there.
I don't know what it's going to take.
June 20, 2007 - 06:12 ET by OldSailor88This is just another example of the MSM and the LIBS keeping the bogey man in the closet. They really believe that if they just ignore the problem, it will simply not be there. I don't know what it's going to take to convince Liberal Americans that these people not only want to kill us, they relish in the fact that they will eventually kill some of us. I had my eyes opened recently when a good friend of mine came back from a temporary duty stint at Gitmo. He worked with the more hard core prisoners down there, and he told me about relating with them on a daily basis. Long story short is this. These prisoners would look him straight in the eye and tell him how much they looked forward to being released so that they could go back to killing Americans. That's why the irony of the terrorist attack situation scares me the most concerning our media. If we DON"T have a terrorist attack in America, there is no threat, and the war is pointless. If we DO have an attack, it's President Bush's fault because he has a lousy program against terrorism. Until we can convince people that the threat is real, be afraid. Be very afraid.
you really place all the bl
June 20, 2007 - 08:45 ET by treshanyou really place all the blame on liberals for not controlling the border? it doesn't look like the republicans did an oustanding job with that issue all the while controlling congress. it looks like nobody has the balls to get their party together and pass something. because they're all protecting some kind of donation from a public interest group.
Read The Post Carefully, tthomas
June 20, 2007 - 13:45 ET by OldSailor88Nope. What I stated had nothing to do with securing the border. The Republicans suck at that too, but it's not what I meant. The Republicans, as poor as they are with border security, at least "have the balls" to acknowlege that there is a terrorist threat. The Democrat Party wants to stop fighting them because that's what makes them attack us. We need negotiation. Horse Hockey. Ask Israel how well negotiation works against an enemy that wants your complete anihalation at any cost. They'll sit at the negotiation table with you smiling all the way when they know full well that one of their operatives is now riding on a public bus and is 30 seconds away from committing homicide for the greater cause.
The old "head in the san
June 20, 2007 - 07:16 ET by HelenSThe old "head in the sand" syndrome - it's as old as time:
"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war" - Shakespeare
Noel,Wasn't it already common
June 20, 2007 - 07:58 ET by LeonNoel,
Wasn't it already common knowledge that Al Qaeda was training teams to come to America.
Didn't they already do that once on 9/11? Isn't this something we should have been preparing for for the past 6 years?
Hi Leon,You are absolutely ri
June 20, 2007 - 11:03 ET by Darth DutchHi Leon,
You are absolutely right on that. One area I absolutely disagree with Bush on is the open borders problem that we have. I live in southern California and have for about the last 10 years. Even in that time, I have seen the quality of life go down and neighborhoods go to pot.
That's not even talking about the security aspect of it. After 9/11, Bush had the ability and support of the people that if he wanted to secure (not necessarily close down) the borders, he could have done that. But he didn't and for the life of me I can't understand why not.
Dutch
Leon
June 20, 2007 - 11:14 ET by Noel SheppardLeon,
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that this shouldn't have been reported? ns
Not at all Noel,I interpreted
June 20, 2007 - 11:17 ET by LeonNot at all Noel,
I interpreted your post as saying, this is a new development, let's see if the MSM reports on it.
I guess my point is that we've known that this was the goal of Al Qaeda since 9/11. Why would it all of the sudden be newsworthy?
I don't know, sometimes I feel like people at the NB demand coverage from the MSM for things that are either old news or common sense.
'common sense''msm'the two wi
June 20, 2007 - 11:20 ET by kathleenirish'common sense'
'msm'
the two will never meet, dude.
Anyone who says they support the troops but not the mission is a liar.
Leon
June 20, 2007 - 11:25 ET by Noel SheppardLeon,
Have you ever seen a video of a Taliban, suicide bombers' graduation ceremony prior to now?
Furthermore, aren't you interested in any news about our major enemy? Or, are you only interested in hearing about what's going wrong in Iraq? ns
Noel,I think the graduation v
June 20, 2007 - 11:31 ET by LeonNoel,
I think the graduation video is newsworthy and highly interesting.
However, I was talking more about your emphasis of the reports' obvious finding that Al Qaeda is training units to attack America.
and come on Noel, your closing Iraq line was out of character for you. You're normally not into those cheap little one line zingers.
New targets
June 20, 2007 - 11:37 ET by dagdaAccording to the MSM they were all being trained to go to Iraq. And according to John Edwards they would never be coming here. Terrorists attacks on the USA are a thing of the past.
Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. Dwight Eisenhower
Leon
June 20, 2007 - 12:00 ET by Noel SheppardLeon,
You're right. It was a tad snotty. My apologies.
However, it seems to me that when you're at war, every bit of information about the enemy is to be disseminated. In this case, Ross had not only uncovered a videotape of these proceedings, but also a number of still-pictures. How could the media possibly view this as common knowledge and not newsworthy?
Put this in perspective, Leon. If this was 1944, wouldn't you want the media to report EVERYTHING about what the Japanese and the Germans were doing? Or, would you want them to make editorial decisions concerning such being old news?
Furthermore, if some reporter in 1944 had gotten a videotape of a German or Japanese military training facility along with pictures, wouldn't you have expected that this would have been headline, lead story news? Or, would you have been okay with news divisions not airing it because the fact that these are our enemies and they have such facilities is common knowledge?
C'mon! You're not at all shocked that NOBODY other than ABC and CNN aired this videotape?
C'mon! We're at war with these people, Brian Ross got a videotape of a military training facility, and only ABC and CNN thought it was newsworthy. Yet, if there was some small wrinkle to what occurred at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, this would have been newsworthy.
C'mon! ns
}}----> That was then, Noel
June 20, 2007 - 12:08 ET by Cool ArrowBack then, Churchill had to make a tough decision to keep decoded information from a town about to be rocket attacked. To warn them would revealed Britain's posession of ENIGMA.
Now, however, MSM plays the same game to protect its sources and they'll record the slaughter rather than go back channel to prevent it every time.
"However, it seems to me
June 21, 2007 - 10:07 ET by MikeB"However, it seems to me that when you're at war, every bit of information about the enemy should be disseminated." Not necessarily, Noel. In this case, when the information was acquired by a reporter, yes it should be disseminated. But when information is acquired through intelligence organs, no it should NOT necessarily be disseminated. If dissemination reveals how the information was acquired (elint, photorecon satellite, human intelligence), then the information should not be disseminated, but carefully used so that the source of intelligence is not compromised. In the case of humint, the source being compromised means the source is turned, at best, or hideously killed at worst.
In this case, yes, the information, including the video and the still photos should be as widely distributed as possible in order to put the sheeple on notice that they are targets no matter how many verses of Kumbaya they sing.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Where's a Preditor and a co
June 20, 2007 - 08:57 ET by MightyMouthWhere's a Preditor and a couple of HellFires when you really need em?
I mean really, a sunny day, graduation announcements were probably sent out. They were sitting in a circle like the Target logo for crying out loud! And we couldn't "take em out"? Who dropped the ball on this one?
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
MM, I checked into that one f
June 20, 2007 - 09:12 ET by Airforce_5_OMM, I checked into that one for you. Turns out we had the intell but since Harry Reid and the Dems drug their feet on the budget, we didn't have the fuel to get the Preditor up.
Sorry.
Oh that Reid guy again. I
June 20, 2007 - 09:21 ET by MightyMouthOh that Reid guy again. I thought it was something really stupid like one of the Saudi Crown Prince's nephews-sons-friend was in attendance. We can't be taking out terrorists who might know someone who might have Saudi royalty in their blood, now can we?
"There are two types of people in this country; those who provide freedom and those who enjoy it." MM says...
Interesting thing heard yesterday on AM Talk Radio
June 20, 2007 - 10:00 ET by Ole_SargeYesterday morning, one of the WMAL show hosts (local) had Brian Ross on-air. It was a shorter 30 minute segment on the topics Mr. Ross reported. The were a few "yahoo-head in the sand types," that called in response.
I have to ask, I've been retired for 6 years now, many of my friends are those I made while on active duty, and they, like me, are retired. But this story was not a shocker, I was "oh FINALLY!"
I think there are some individual reporters in the Main Stream Media that are starting to develop a clue. Can't really be sure... just that a few that HAVE gone over, and were with our troops, returned with a slightly different tune, and were silenced or reassigned "other" duties...
ABC has this, CBS had the orphange (this is just ONE example that an embedded reporter witnessed.) What's up, why not NBC now???
Considering the stink that
June 20, 2007 - 11:00 ET by FlashmanConsidering the stink that the MSM and the left, which I'll admit is a bit redundant, raised about the President's daily briefing with the headlines "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S", their wilful disregard of this is especially galling.