Abu Anas al Libi Seized In Libya
ATIKA SHUBERT, HOST: Tonight, mission achieved, so says the U.S. Secretary of State as he defends the capture of a top al Qaeda leader calling him a legal and appropriate target. Tonight, we'll hear from the suspect's wife and ask what will happen to him next? Also ahead, survivors of the Lampedusa shipwreck accuse Italian authorities of a slow rescue operation. We have a special report. Plus, from Moscow to Vladivostok to Sochi: the Olympic torch is now on its way, but not without a hitch.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN London, this is Connect the World.</s>SHUBERT: Two secret mission, two high value targets, but two very different results. U.S. forces launched dual raids in Africa over the weekend. In Libya, an early morning strike by the army's elite Delta force led to the capture of an al Qaeda operative. But in Somalia, the Navy SEALs left empty handed. CNN's Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr has more.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: An extraordinary show of force by U.S. commandos in highly risky secret operations in Somalia and Libya. Friday, October 4th, predawn, on Somalia's southern coast, U.S. Navy SEALs slip off a commercial ship and raid a terrorist stronghold. But within moments, they are forced to abort under heavy gunfire from militants. Just a day later 6:30 a.m. 3,000 miles away on the streets of Tripoli, Libya, Abu al Libi, a senior Al Qaeda operative, is returning home from morning prayers. He will be grabbed by U.S. army Delta Force commandos. On the streets of Italy, al Libi is confronted with cars by 10 masked men. The U.S. team grabs him before he can reach his gun. They are gone in seconds, not a shot fired. His wife tells CNN the men she saw were Libyans. Al Libi is taken to a U.S. Navy warship. He is wanted by the U.S. for the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president clearly had to approve both of these operations. This is to send U.S. military personnel into foreign countries, and that's a presidential decision.</s>STARR: In Somalia, it's SEAL Team 6 that is sent, the same unit that killed Usama bin Laden. In an eerie coincidence, it's 20 years to the day of the Blackhawk down disaster in Somalia that killed 18 U.S. troops. This time the SEALs are hunting an al Shabaab leader. Al Shabaab is the Al Qaeda-linked terror group that claimed responsibility for the shopping mall attack in Kenya two weeks ago. Local Somalis say the seniors in the house come under fire the SEALs retreat, not sure if their target is dead. But the al Libi mission was a clear success. Barbara Starr, CNN, the Pentagon.</s>SHUBERT: Now Abu Anas al Libi was on the run for 15 years, but it took only seconds to capture him. In an exclusive interview with CNN, his wife Umm Abdul Rahman said that he is innocent and is no longer part of al Qaeda. She spoke to CNN's Jomana Karadsheh who joins us now live from Tripoli. Jomana, what did she tell you about how this arrest unfolded?</s>JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Atika, just hours after that daring raid by U.S. forces, we visited the home of Abu Anas al Libi and met with his family and spoke to his wife, as you mentioned. And she really gave us an insight into that raid and the recent years in the life of Abu Anas al Libi.</s>KARADSHEH: It may not look like much, but for Tripoli this is an upscale neighborhood. And for more than two years, Abu Anas al Libi and his family have lived here in this house. His family says al Libi, one of the most wanted men in the world, wasn't even hiding. So they were shocked when U.S. special forces showed up. Al Libi was in his car, his escape blocked by four vehicles. His son shows me the car he was driving, shattered glass from its smashed in windows, the only evidence of the raid that they say lasted only moments and not a single shot was fired. Over the past hour since we got here, there's been an constant stream of visitors, of women and children coming in to see the wife of Abu Anas al Libi they say to offer support to the wife. Umm Abdul Rahman says her children were asleep when her husband left before dawn for prayers at a nearby mosque. He came back as the sun was rising.</s>UMM ABDUL RAHMAN, WIFE OF ABU ANAS AL LIBI (through translator): It was before 7:00 am. I was waiting for him as he was on his way back from the mosque. I rushed to the window after hearing the sound. I saw a Mercedes type minivan outside the house with a number of masked men and unmasked men around it. They were carrying pistols with silencers.</s>KARADSHEH: She claims those who nabbed her husband appeared and sounded Libyan. Umm Abdul Rahman says her husband is an innocent man and denies he was involved in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania claiming he had left al Qaeda two years before that.</s>RAHMAN (through translator): I'm sure of what I'm saying. He did not take part in any bombing anywhere in the world. He participated in the jihad in Afghanistan. He was a member of al Qaeda. And he was personal security for Osama bin Laden. That's true. But he did not take part in any operation.</s>KARADSHEH: The family says they felt they were under surveillance for years, but the timing of this operation shocked them.</s>RAHMAN (through translator): We expected them to do anything, but they took us by surprise. This thing came all of a sudden. There was no longer any talk about him in the media. So I felt somewhat reassured. He even stopped taking his weapon or his sons with him or hiring private security. He was living his life normally.</s>KARADSHEH: Western intelligence agencies were concerned al Libi was back in his home country to establish al Qaeda's network here. Islamist extremist groups with ties to al Qaeda are active, especially in the eastern part of the country. But his wife says al Libi had no contact with any al Qaeda members for years and had just applied for a job in Libya's new oil ministry.</s>KARADSHEH: And Umm Abdul Rahman also told us that her husband in recent months had been working to try and approach the Libyan government hoping that they would work with him to try and clear his name, he says, with the United States to try and close this case once and forever.</s>SHUBERT: Thank you very much. Jomana Karadsheh for us live in Tripoli, keeping an eye on that very interesting developing story there. So what's next for al Libi? Well, the Pentagon says he's being held on a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean where he will be questioned by intelligence officials before being taken to New York to face federal charges. The Libyan government has called this a kidnapping, but U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry insists al Libi is a legal and appropriate target. Well, for more on that, CNN's crime and justice correspondent Joe Johns joins us live from Washington. Joe, tell us a little bit more about this. In previous years, we've seen people who have been captured being processed through Guantanamo, but that's not the case this time. So what is the legal process ahead?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He's going to be questioned, certainly. He is being held aboard that U.S. Navy vessel. He's expected to be interrogated anywhere from several days to several weeks by something called the high value detainee interrogation group. It's made up of FBI agents, intelligence community officials led by the National Security Council. This is a situation where the target doesn't get read his rights. He's not treated with the protections of a civilian in the United States, basically pressed for information about any plans for future attacks, names, whereabouts of known associates, details on any past plots of attacks, basically anything he knows, Atika. They're not supposed to use physical force, they're supposed to use established guidelines of interrogation. And when they're done with him, when the group is done with him, he goes on to face trial. So that could be a long process or a short process and nobody really knows right now.</s>SHUBERT: So he will see trial in New York. And he'll go through the criminal -- regular criminal court system there which seems sort of a different tactic than what we've seen in the past.</s>JOHNS: That is true. A lot of these defendants have gone to Guantanamo Bay where they've had to face a military commission. But the president and the attorney general here in the United States have stated that it is their preference, when possible, to try defendants like this in the civilian courts, because there is a view that if they are tried in the civilian courts, you won't be able to question their conviction or whatever happens in court in a place that you might be able to question in the event the military did it.</s>SHUBERT: Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what kind of information comes out and how quickly this moves along. Thank you very much. Joe Johns for us in Washington, D.C. Well, that's the raid that went according to plan. But we heard how another raid had a very different outcome. Coming up, the attempt to grab an al Shabaab leader in Somalia that U.S. forces had to abort. We're live in Nairobi with the details. We'll look at what made this particular figure such a high value target. And what it says about the strength of al Shabaab that could repel a U.S. Navy SEAL team. But just ahead, heartbreaking accounts of hardship and loss. CNN speaks exclusively to survivors of that deadly shipwreck off the Italian coast. Their stories straight ahead.