FRONTLINE: Looking for Answers

In response to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, FRONTLINE and The New York Times put together a team of journalists and producers to look deeper into the origins of hatred against the United States. 'Looking for Answers' was produced in only three weeks. It traces the roots of hatred, not to Afghanistan, but to militants from two great U.S, allies in the Islamic world, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; and those roots go back more than 70 years. Correspondent Lowell Bergman interviews bin Laden sympathisers, members of fringe militant Islamic groups, Egyptian and Saudi ambassadors, and dissidents who explain their objections to American troops on Saudi soil, the U.S. government's support for Israel and U.S. support for 'repressive regimes' in the oil-rich Middle East. The programme moves across decades and countries, connecting disparate events into a coherent line of descent to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.