Intelligence: Terrorists plan attack
Posted on 05/19/2002 11:40:44 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Intelligence: Terrorists plan attack
Intercepted al-Qaeda messages hint at strike that surpasses Sept. 11
05/19/2002
WASHINGTON - American intelligence agencies have intercepted a vague yet troubling series of communications among al-Qaeda operatives over the last few months indicating that the terrorist organization is trying to carry out an operation as big as or bigger than the Sept. 11 attacks, intelligence and law enforcement officials say.
But just as similar threats last summer left counterterrorism analysts guessing about al-Qaeda's intentions and led them to believe that the attack might be carried out overseas, the new interceptions are so general that they have left President Bush and his counterterrorism team in the dark about the time, place and method of what some officials refer to as a second-wave attack. The government is essentially limited to taking broad defensive measures.
"It's again not specific as to time, not specific as to place," a senior administration official said.
The officials compared the intercepted messages, which they described as cryptic and ambiguous, with those picked up last spring and early summer, when al-Qaeda operatives were also overheard talking about a big operation.
The senior official said Friday that the amount of intelligence relating to another possible attack, in Europe, the Arabian Peninsula or the United States, had increased in the last month. Some of the information comes from interviews with fighters captured in Afghanistan.
Despite the disruption of al-Qaeda's operations around the world since Sept. 11, and despite major spending increases and shifts of resources to counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials say they have not been able to fully piece together the clues about al-Qaeda's plans.
'A lot of chatter'
"There's just a lot of chatter in the system again," the official said. "We are actively pursuing it and trying to see what's going on here."
The government's frustration underscores the problem in fighting an unconventional foe such as al-Qaeda.
Interviews with law enforcement and intelligence officials suggest that in the eight months since Sept. 11, the government has made only limited progress in its ability to predict al-Qaeda's next move and that many proposed improvements in counterterrorism operations have not been made.
This is despite several advantages that the United States lacked a year ago. The war in Afghanistan has provided a wealth of new information about al-Qaeda's structure and organization, for example.
In addition, the United States is interrogating captured al-Qaeda fighters about the organization's plans. Officials say that debriefings of detainees have in some instances provided general warnings of another major attack that dovetail with the threats picked up in the intercepted communication traffic.
Intelligence officials said that they began in October to intercept communications among al-Qaeda operatives discussing a second major attack and that they have detected recurring talk about another attack. Some of the intercepted communications have included frightening references to attacks that the al-Qaeda operatives say would cause vast numbers of U.S. casualties.
The intercepted communications don't point to detailed plans for an attack, and even the messages mentioning mass casualties don't refer specifically to the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical, biological or nuclear devices.
Still, U.S. officials say they believe the intercepts represent some of the most credible intelligence they have received since Sept. 11 about al-Qaeda's intentions.
In hindsight, analysts view the pattern of intercepted communications they saw last May, June and July as a sign of the impending attacks. Those intercepts, coming after embassy bombings in Africa and the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in a port in Yemen, were sometimes alarming.
Misplaced attention
Their references to mass attacks against U.S. interests prompted a series of public alerts against possible terrorist attacks last summer, including one concerning a possible strike over the Fourth of July holiday.
Officials said they never had evidence that an attack would occur inside the United States, and instead focused most of their attention on possible strikes against U.S. facilities in the Middle East, Europe and Asia.
After the summer holiday passed without an attack, U.S. analysts were relieved but still believed that an attack might be coming. However, they lacked details of where or when the strike might come, and some officials began to think that the immediate danger might have passed. Now that analysts are seeing a similar pattern of communications intercepts, they say they are determined to avoid repeating that mistake.
The pattern of intercepted communications that began in October has helped prompt at least five public threat alerts issued by the FBI since fall.
But U.S. counterterrorism experts say that communications intercepts, while vaguely worded, are often highly credible threat warnings, while the very detailed and specific threats passed on by individual informants are often far less reliable.
Individual informants who approach U.S. investigators in the United States or overseas often know what kind of story will get the biggest reaction. They also often come forward because of hidden motives, perhaps hoping for money or entrance into the United States. The CIA routinely gives its informants polygraph tests in an effort to validate their stories.
Informants' stories
But officials say that in some cases, they have been forced to take tales told by informants more seriously than they otherwise might, at least in part because officials suspect from the intercepted communications that al-Qaeda is planning something big.
In recent months, officials have issued threat alerts about nuclear plants, financial institutions and specific structures such as the Seattle Space Needle and the Golden Gate Bridge, even as counterterrorism experts privately regarded those threats as not based on solid intelligence.
Some officials say the government's color-coded threat alert system is less useful than the system it replaced, because it is subject to political influences from appointees who are fearful of being criticized if they fail to pass on every possible threat, no matter how remote.
Yet even as the less credible threats have been widely publicized, the more worrisome and credible undercurrent of intercepted communications has not been made public.
LOL! What a no-win situation. If you guess wrong, then you're wrong. If you guess right, then you are brought in for questioning....
This is bigger than just al-Qaeda and bin Laden--dead or alive, and I think you're aware of that fact.
Our world will never be the same.
Bush has wiped out the Taliban government which was harboring al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. This has been a huge blow to bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
However pockets of al-Qaeda still remain, not to mention the fact that there are cells in numerous countries world-wide.
Obviously there is still a lot of work to do.
This possibility of some kind of "citizenship amnesty" with Mexico (2 years here and then you're a citizen?!?) is very alarming too. What's to stop Al-Qaeda or others from learning a little Spanish, getting rid of their polyester shirts and bomber jackets, and blending in with the huddled masses coming over from Mexico? Our people most likely couldn't tell the difference between Mexican Spanish and Arabic faux-Spanish.
That probably won't be necessary. Another attack on American soil and I suspect that the public will take things into their own hands. Being of middle -eastern/muslim descent or appearance might not be healthy or safe. Merely an observation from the heartland.
regards - red
I would hate to think that the terrorists were making a bomb out of the stuff.
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