Terrorism: A Reporter’s Notebook

By Christopher Harper
Roy H. Park Distinguished Chair of Communications

Delivered September 25,2001

Let me give you a reporter’s montage of dealing with terrorism. I first met Bassam Abu-Sharif in 1979 in Beirut. As we sat down for an interview, he reached behind his back and pulled out a pistol. He put the gun between us on the table. Somehow my questions lost their edge.

Abu-Sharif was a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He had helped recruit Carlos the Jackal to run terrorist operations. Abu-Sharif had been the victim of an Israeli letter bomb that left him blind in one eye.

A decade later, Abu-Sharif was one of the chief intermediaries between Yasser Arafat and Shimon Peres, who brought about the 1993 Oslo peace accords. He had gone from being a terrorist to being a peacemaker.

That’s a good story. Now let me tell you a few bad ones. Exactly 20 years ago, I was covering a story outside of a ramshackle mosque in Egypt. The spiritual leader was blind. His name was Omar Abdul-Rahman.

Egyptian security police clashed with his followers, and eventually arrested hundreds of people in a sweep of Islamic fundamentalists.

I was expelled from Egypt for my reporting. Days later, on Oct. 6, 1981, the relatives of some of those arrested assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Abdul-Rahman eventually made his way to the United States, where he is now in prison for helping with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

On October 23, 1983, two bombs went off simultaneously at the U.S. Marine and the French military compounds in Beirut. The next day, I surveyed the rubble of the compound, where 241 Marines had died. Two years later, I stood at the Beirut airport, where TWA 847 sat on the tarmac. One U.S. Navy Seal was dead, and dozens remained hostages on board the plane.

You may have heard the name, Osama bin Laden, many times during the past two weeks. But there are two names you probably don’t know: Ayman al Zawahiri and Imad Mughniyeh.

Al Zawahiri was one of Sheikh Abdul-Rahman’s followers and spent three years in an Egyptian prison. Mughniyeh is the terrorist leader of Lebanon’s Hizbollah and is considered the most dangerous terrorist in the world.

Zawahiri was in jail, and he was set free. Mughniyeh was the architect of the attacks against the Marines, the French and TWA. I did a story about him for ABC 20/20 a long time ago, but until September 11, 2001, terrorism was not a top priority for many of those in government and the public.

Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mughniyeh underline the complex outlines of terrorism today. Osama bin Laden comes from a wealthy family in Saudi Arabia and is relatively new on the terrorist watch. Zawahiri is the son of an Egyptian spiritual leader. Mughniyeh is Lebanese and lives in Iran.

For more than 20 years I worked in a variety of news organizations --- the Associated Press, Newsweek and ABC News. For much of that time, I reported about terrorism. I have talked with terrorists. I have watched what they have done. I have seen how these actions have affected other people.

I hope I can provide some insight into how terrorist organizations work, how the news media cover them and how both affect us.

If I can offer you any comfort: Even I had difficulty coping with what happened on September 11 in New York City, Washington and Pennsylvania.

At the outset, it is important to have an understanding of what terrorism is and is not. The U.S. Department of Defense has a relatively good working definition of terrorism:

The calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious or ideological.

The definition is intended to distinguish between terrorism and other kinds of violence. An act of terrorism is defined independently from the cause that motivates it. People employ terrorist violence in the name of many causes. The tendency to label as terrorism any violent act of which we do not approve is wrong.

Terrorism is a specific kind of violence. Terrorists know what they are doing. Their targets are planned and rational. The violence is neither spontaneous nor random. Terrorism is intended to produce fear. Simply put, terrorism is a psychological act conducted for its impact on an audience. ("The Basics: Combating Terrorism," The Terrorism Research Center, available at www.terrorism.com.)

As my students know, I always like to start with some history. It puts into context where we have been and where we are today.

The word "assassins," for example, was used to describe the Nizaris, a small sect of Islam that ruled areas in northern Iran and Syria in the 11th and 12th centuries. From their hideouts, the assassins would come down to kill their Mongol enemies. The tactics enabled the Nizaris to survive under the leadership today of the Aga Khan.

Carl von Klausewitz, the noted military historian whose books are still used to discuss tactics, analyzed guerrilla warfare during the Napoleonic Wars. Simply put, guerrilla tactics were used when a group faced a superior enemy. Small attacks against military targets were used frequently during World War II by the resistance movements in France, Poland and elsewhere. Jewish guerrillas used tactics against both military and civilian targets to force Britain out of Palestine in 1948.

Modern-day guerrilla warfare saw its beginnings in the Algerian civil war when the French finally were forced to leave that country in 1962.

After the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which saw the armies of Syria, Iraq and Egypt routed, modern terrorism saw its beginnings. Many Arab regimes were overthrown, and the Palestinian movement began with the creation of Yasser Arafat’s al-Fatah.

In September 1970, the Palestinians tried unsuccessfully to overthrow King Hussein of Jordan. After those bloody battles, the use of attacks against foreign governments and civilians began. Named after the events in Jordan, Black September launched an attack against Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. All the hostages and their captors were killed.

The object was: "To write the name of Palestine in blood across the sky." Simply put, the Palestinians believed their cause was not being noticed by the world. Now --- despite the bloody manner in which the cause was carried out --- the world knew about the Palestinians.

A variety of terrorist activities occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, often as part of the battle between the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviets supplied and trained guerrilla operations to disrupt U.S. allies in the Middle East and Europe.

In 1983, however, the nature of terrorism changed with the introduction of the "suicide bomber" --- an individual who was willing to die in an act of terrorism. The attacks on the U.S. embassy and the U.S. Marine compound in Beirut in April and October 1983 were among the first uses of these bombers.

I will never forget what Sergeant Steve Russell, who was guarding the entrance to the U.S. Marine barracks, told me about the bomber: "He smiled, revved the engine and headed toward me." Fortunately, Russell survived the massive attack, but 241 others died.

Until that time, it was possible to negotiate with most terrorists --- the release of political prisoners or safe passage to another country. The guerrillas were willing to die, but only if necessary. That changed with the introduction of the suicide bomber.

Bin Laden’s operation works like many of its predecessors. The bombers work in small cells of less than 10 individuals. Other cells may be working in coordination, but each is unaware of what another is doing. That way there is little danger of someone who is arrested giving away the details about another cell.

There are those who do surveillance, for example, examining security precautions. A second group will provide logistical support, explosives and identification cards. A third group will launch the attack.

A general commander oversees the cells in operation --- often without direct consultation with the top leadership of al-Qaeda or bin Laden.

But al-Qaeda, which means "the base" in Arabic, is one of 28 large terrorist organizations designated by the U.S. Department of State.

What is most important, however, is territory. A terrorist group needs access to a safe haven to train and plan. Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria are designated as governments that sponsor terrorism. Without these governments, terrorist operations would not be able to function.

Let me turn to the media. When CBS anchor Dan Rather was asked whether this was the most important news event of his lifetime, he said without hesitation: "Yes." Rather was there when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. He reported on Vietnam, Watergate and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon and even traveled to Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion.

Why is this story so important? Because it involves safety, fear, money and a host of other elements. It pits the world’s strongest country, the United States, against determined terrorists. The story involves the deaths of thousands of people with commercial airlines live on television.

How do you report events such as September 11, 2001, and the days beyond the initial attack?

It is like fighting a war without weapons. It involves finding your troops, deploying them and keeping them motivated and rested.

Here is what happened when the first aircraft slammed into the World Trade Center. At the television networks, few people were working at the time. The morning programs --- a mixture of news and entertainment --- started the coverage. But Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw generally don’t arrive in the office until just after 9 a.m.

All three live close to their respective network headquarters, so they arrived relatively quickly.

WNBC-TV called in reporters and camera crews from sister stations in Philadelphia, Providence and Hartford. The television people faced some specific troubles. The television stations had microwave antennae on top of the World Trade Center towers because they were the highest points for transmission. WABC, for example, lost two-way radios and cellular telephones. CNN lost its microwave facilities and had to set up a temporary receiver at its headquarters. ("Black Tuesday: Made-for-TV Terrorism," Broadcasting and Cable, September 17, 2001, pp. 4-5.)

Transportation of microwave facilities and deployment of camera crews was difficult because traffic was snarled throughout the area.

When the crews and personnel arrived on the location, telephone service was disrupted both on landlines and cellular lines.

No news operation has sufficient resources to cover a story like this. That’s why the networks decided to share material with one another.

Also, it’s important to keep in mind that, as former Washington Post editor Phil Graham said: "Journalism is the first rough draft of history." Mistakes will be made. Rumors will be put on the air, on radio and in printed media.

Reports of a bomb at the State Department proved later to be untrue. CNN apologized for erroneously naming Adnan Bukhari of Vero Beach, Florida, as one of the pilots.

On the scene, journalists looked for eyewitnesses, casualties, heroes, amateur photos and video. All of this material usually goes through an overall coordinating producer, but much of the material made it on the air without sufficient checks and balances.

There also was little information at the beginning of the story. Estimates of casualties were difficult to come by. Speculation was rampant. During the Oklahoma City bombing, for example, speculation for those behind the bombing went from Arab terrorists to Christian fundamentalists to right-wing military groups.

How do we interpret what we saw? Fortunately, ABC has decided not to use the footage of the World Trade Center towers again unless absolutely necessary. But the image will stick in all our minds.

It’s important to keep in mind what research shows. A wide variety of communication theories exist about how the mass media influence what we think and do. But interpersonal communication and group communication usually influence our thoughts and actions more than the mass media. Our friends, family, peer groups, religious affiliations, and other personal and group relationships frame how we look at the events of September 11 more than the mass media.

The mass media do influence what we think about, not necessarily what we think. It’s called agenda setting. The mass media establish the agenda for public discourse, emphasizing some issues and ignoring others. The mass media also frame that debate, often presenting U.S. views over those of other countries.

Some final thoughts --- hopefully to provide some comfort:

• The attacks were the terrorists’ best shot. It will take them time to regroup and launch any widespread attacks.
• If the terrorists had nuclear weapons in briefcases or sarin gas in the United States, they would have already used them.
• It is difficult to find and attack terrorist cells. Cruise missiles will not do the job. It will require ground troops and commando raids. Lives will be lost. Yesterday, the Bush Administration seized the assets of what it considered terrorist organizations. Economic weapons will be used against governments that harbor terrorists. Americans will have to be patient.
• The fight against terrorism is likely to be ongoing --- a war that will have no final victory when all terrorists are killed or brought to justice.
• Finally, al-Qaeda and other groups do not represent Islam. The Koran was written to expand upon the Talmud and the Bible, which laid the basis for Mohammed’s message from God. Nearly all Muslims share the same hopes for democracy and justice as we all do.