FRONTLINE: HUNTING BIN LADEN {TWENTIETH SEASON PREMIERE} (TV)
Summary
One in this documentary series. In this episode, hosted by Bill Moyers, reporter Lowell Bergman revisits some of the interview subjects who have participated in past "Frontline" episodes about terrorism and al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bergman also interviews some new figures and explores the history that has led authorities to believe that bin Laden was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon two days before the broadcast. The program opens with an interview with Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, who was in the Embassy when terrorists detonated a bomb there in 1998. Bergman also speaks with Said K. Aburish, an author who says that, after defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, soldiers like bin Laden became confident and radicalized and returned to their countries of origin to try "to have a say in how things were being done." Bergman then asks former CIA agent Frank Anderson why so many Middle Easterners seem to resent the U.S. and view the country's military forces as no better than dictatorial colonialists. Bergman also explores the friendship between bin Laden and Sudanese President General Oman Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir. He speaks at length to Al-Bashir, who appears vague about his feelings toward bin Laden. A portion of a previous "Frontline" episode is aired, dealing with the World Trade Center bombing of 1993 and the man tried for that crime, Ramzi Yusef. In another clip, ABC journalist John Miller is seen interviewing Osama bin Laden a few years earlier. The program ends as Bergman asks former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger whether he thinks that they way in which President Bill Clinton dealt with the bombing of a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory in 1998 inspired hatred in aspiring terrorists.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: September 13, 2001 Thursday 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:57:06
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:69981
- GENRE: Public Affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001; Terrorism; U S - Foreign relations - Middle East; U S - Foreign relations - Sudan
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV series, 1983-
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- David Fanning … Executive Producer
- Martin Smith … Producer, Director, Writer
- Ivana Damjanov … Associate Producer
- Oriana Zill … Associate Producer
- Lowell Bergman … Writer
- Christina Biddle … Researcher
- Bill Moyers … Host
- Will Lyman … Narrator
- Lowell Bergman … Reporter
- Said K. Aburish
- Al-Bashir, Omar Hassan Ahmed
- Frank Anderson
- Berger, Samuel R. (see also: Berger, Sandy)
- bin Laden, Osama
- Prudence Bushnell
- Bill Clinton
- John Miller
- Ramzi Yusef