Eavesdropping On Terror Chief

On the face of it you'd think there was no connection between those August 7 explosions at two U.S. embassies in east Africa and the explosion one week later off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Fla.

But CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart reports private intelligence analysts now believe that the spy satellite aboard that doomed Titan 4 missile was destined to listen in on the private conversations of Osama Bin-Laden...the very man believed responsible for the African bombings.

"It would have given us a much better opportunity to eavesdrop on communications in that area of the world because the satellite was designed to be placed over Africa. One of its target areas would have been the middle east and Afghanistan," said satellite intelligence expert James Bamford.

Analysts say Bin-Laden was particularly vulnerable to such eavesdropping.

He conducted much of his business using encrypted cell phones and fax machines over a private satellite channel, just the sort of communications the new Mercury spy satellite with its football-field sized antenna is designed to pickup.

"He can use couriers, they can move money around in bales of hundred dollar bills," said satellite expert John Pike. "But at the end of the day they're going to have to use some modern communications technology, and we can track him when he does."

Counter-terrorism experts at the CIA and National Reconnaissance Office have been pouring over Bin Laden intercepts from older satellites ever since the World Trade Center bombing, when the arrest of the bomb-maker in that case, Ramzi Yousef, led them straight back to Bin Laden, the man who bankrolled the whole thing.

All of which explains why finding Bin Laden and keeping up with his communications remains a top priority....and why losing that billion-dollar spy satellite off Florida three weeks ago....is causing a major headache for the U.S. intelligence community.

Written by CBS News Correspondent Jim Stewart