Posted on 07/07/2005 9:53:59 AM PDT by areafiftyone
An American terrorism expert says evidence shows so-called sleeper cells have been quietly plotting attacks like the ones that hit London Thursday, and that other cities across Western Europe might be vulnerable as well.
CBS News consultant, Col. Randy Larsen, director of the Homeland Security Institute, told co-anchor Rene Syler on The Early Show Thursday that he'd just read a report about "how Islamic terrorists are throughout Western Europe."
"Several times, we've discussed here, do we have sleeper cells in the U.S.? We think so, but we're never sure.
"But over 300 Islamic terrorists have been arrested in Europe since the '93 attack on the World Trade Center, many of them in the London area.
"Shortly after 9-11, they arrested some folks there who were making a sarin bomb, a type of nerve agent. They arrested people trying to build a dirty bomb. Just last year, they captured a ton of fertilizer in a warehouse that was going to be used to make a very large bomb, similar to what Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City in 1995.
"So, there's no question that there's a large terrorist operation in London. And I think we see the result of that (Thursday). … It's clear it has all the earmarks of an al Qaeda attack."
Larsen noted that communications capabilities in the Washington, D.C., area have been improved since 9/11 to assure that "first responders" to attacks are able to use their cell phones.
But he says he learned in a trip to Scotland Yard after 9-11 that a key factor in fighting terrorism is to get things back to normal as soon as possible after an attack. Another key, he was told, is for affected areas to be resilient.
"We must not magnify the effects of these attacks," Larsen stressed. "We must not let the terrorist disrupt our lives."
He added, "A couple months before the attacks on the trains in Madrid, al Qaeda said that they were going to try to influence Spain's involvement in Iraq. And so, we must not respond to the terrorists in the way they want. So get things running (again in London) quickly."
Larsen says he wasn't "at all" surprised when he heard about the attacks: "We have been talking for quite awhile that a likely scenario was an attack on a subway system. It's an ideal place for a terrorist to plan one, and also doing it in a city like London, which is so dependent …London cannot operate without its subways and buses."
He also pointed out that, "Al Qaeda is a completely different organization than it was on 9-11. It's very fractured and splintered now. They have people who were trained by al Aaeda and received some funding and some logistical support, but it's pretty much up to those individuals operating in (different cities) to decide where and when to have attacks. It's a much different operation today.
"The way these folks work, they can go the logistics planning, to get the equipment they need and do the surveillance. Al Qaeda-trained people do a tremendous amount of surveillance to find the right targets, the right time of day or whatever. But then, you can put all those plans and equipment on the shelf, and then with one phone call, in as little as 24 hours, execute those plans."
"We must not magnify the effects of these attacks," Larsen stressed. "We must not let the terrorist disrupt our lives."
From a nation that endured the unendurable during WWII I expect this reaction and rightly so.
The democrat party.
Sky News had somebody on earlier who noted that the terrorists the British leftists demanded be let free from Gitmo returned and rejoined their cell that previously brought forth Richard Ried (the Shoe Bomber) ... there might be ties to one of those individuals and one of the day's bombing locations.
If proven, the leftists better back the h*ll off about Gitmo.
Perhaps the Eurocrat weenies will actually get it now?(sadly, i doubt it...) How many more terrorist attacks on innocent civilians need take place until they get it through their thick skulls that the only way to beat these evil people is to completely destroy them?
Col Larsen asked if we had Islamic sleeper cells in the US? You can bet your future paychecks for a year that we do Colonel Larsen.
oh wow
An attack like this will happen in the US, probably sooner rather than later.
And you can bet that Washinton will try to stop the sales of guns and ammuntion immediately afterward to prevent US citizens from attempting to do the job that the federal government has refused to do.
Sadly, this is a battle that will never be over. The only thing we can do is continue to take to fight directly to the terrorists wherever we can, like we are in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I hope our intell agencies have every muslim in America under surveillance.
Boarding up the militant mosques and shipping their hateful imams back to the hellholes they came from should be the first order of business in every country. You don't keep a mad dog in the house with you. This is no time for the foolishness of political correctness. That will mean unending terrorist attacks until the West surrenders to sharia.
Here's to hoping the Brits and other Euros wake the hell up about the WOT.
We don't even have enough people that speak arabic to decode the transmissions that we pick up.
I wonder if I'd be good at speaking Arabic.
Does anyone have that map depicting the mooslim centers throughout the US?
***An attack like this will happen in the US, probably sooner rather than later. ***
And I think it's going to occur here, in Houston. Taking out our petrol industry would not only cripple the economy, but would make a strong point regarding the oil trade, as AQ thinks thats all the WOT is about.
Gee, you think?
5.56mm
Oh, Al-Couric was stunned at this severe blow to The War Against The War on Terror. So was Andrea Mitchell.
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