Pakistani-U.S. Raid Uncovered Al Qaeda Cell's Plans for Attacks

The Washington Post ^ | August 2, 2004 | Walter Pincus and John Mintz

[neverdem]

The fresh intelligence that led to yesterday's extraordinary terror alert comes from documents discovered after Pakistani and U.S. forces broke up an al Qaeda cell in Gujrat, Pakistan, eight days ago, U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday.

One of the men arrested in that raid led authorities to the documents, which contained the startling details of al Qaeda surveillance of corporate and government targets in Washington, New York and New Jersey.

Officials from several U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies huddled virtually round-the-clock Friday, Saturday and Sunday to discuss the fast-emerging information, government sources said, assembling intelligence from the arrested al Qaeda operatives and translating and culling through the documents.

--snip--

Another senior U.S. intelligence official said the new information comprises a virtual playbook of the tradecraft al Qaeda surveillance teams use. It details, for example, the use of phony couriers and delivery people to get inside the buildings, intelligence officials said.

[neverdem]

Try BugMeNot.com if you don't want to register with WaPo.

[Straight Vermonter]

Ping

[happygrl]

Another senior U.S. intelligence official said the new information comprises a virtual playbook of the tradecraft al Qaeda surveillance teams use. It details, for example, the use of phony couriers and delivery people to get inside the buildings, intelligence officials said.

A thread yesterday had a post from someone who works at the stock exchange. Recently a Pakistani man was discovered walking around the floor with a backpack.