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Brianna Keilar talks with Michael as an intro to tonight's special report.
BRIANNA
KEILAR: Five years into the Iraq war, you've never
seen the inner workings of al Qaeda as you will
tonight on "AC 360." This is a story from CNN's
Michael Ware. We're going to chat with him in just a
second. But first, let's get a sneak peak at his
exclusive snapshot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): al
Qaeda gunmen brought this man here to die. Staged for
maximum impact, he's to be executed on this busy
market street. We don't know why; the al Qaeda
members who recorded this tape offer no explanation.
But the anticipation is agonizing, leading to a
moment we cannot show you.
A punishment for betraying al Qaeda or for breaking
their strict version of Islamic law. Either way, it
was public executions like this that would help lead
to the unraveling of al Qaeda in Iraq.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Michael Ware is live in Baghdad, with more on
the story that you're only going to see on CNN.
Michael, this is the kind of -- you see these
pictures and it makes your heart pound.
WARE: Oh, absolutely. I mean, those moments truly are
as we say in the story, agonizing. And now, what you
saw in that brief snapshot from inside al Qaeda in
Iraq, is what was happening across much of this
country over the past few years.
Now, al Qaeda in Iraq today is under more pressure
than it ever was before. This is a snapshot of al
Qaeda at its peak here in this country. The war in
Iraq is now about a competition between Washington
and Tehran, for influence. But al Qaeda is still out
there. And in these hard drives, that had thousands
upon thousands of documents from al Qaeda's internal
correspondence, hours upon hours of videos, uncut,
shot by al Qaeda. We learned about how al Qaeda
operates today.
It's far more sophisticated, far more bureaucratic,
far more organized and far more led by Iraqis than
foreigners, despite what the White House says, than
many had ever feared before -- Brianna.
KEILAR: Why is it so important that people get this
sort of unfiltered look, Michael?
WARE: This gives you a window into not just one of
America's enemies here in Iraq, who, like I said,
whilst under intense pressure -- because America now
has about 100,000 former insurgents and former
members of al Qaeda itself, on the U.S. government
payroll. And these men have been conducting an
effective assassination program against al Qaeda.
This is but one of the enemies here in Iraq.
But through the prism of al Qaeda in Iraq and the way
you see that they work, in a sense that the public
has never experienced before. Only members of al
Qaeda or members of the intelligence services have
ever seen anything like this, you get a window of the
broader al Qaeda. This is how Osama bin Laden's most
sophisticated elements of his network operate and we
see that best here in Iraq -- Brianna
KEILAR: Michael Ware, In Baghdad. Thank you for the
preview.
And you can check out the entirety tonight at 10:00
Eastern. The entirety of this report. CNN unveils
what the U.S. military believes to be one of the
largest collections of these internal al Qaeda in
Iraq documents ever discovered.
Both the videos and the documents giving fascinating
insight into the terror group's inner workings. "AC
360," deciphers what it all means for the future of
al Qaeda in Iraq. And again, that's on "AC 360,"
tonight at 10 Eastern, right here on CNN.