Posted on 07/06/2002 5:20:39 PM PDT by Pokey78
Terrorists are planning a series of spectacular attacks on American, British and Israeli targets to coincide with the anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Centre on 11 September last year.
Intelligence agencies in the UK, southern Asia and the Middle East are detecting an increased volume of communications between suspected al-Qaeda cells as the organisation, led by the fugitive Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, accelerates efforts to pull off a major operation in the days around the anniversary of the New York and Washington attacks.
According to sources in Pakistan, al-Qaeda activists there have been given a three-month deadline to work with associates from local hardline Islamist organisations to target Western interests in the region.
British intelligence sources told The Observer that the UK is third on the list of al-Qaeda's preferred targets - after the US and Israel, and confirmed last night that credible reports of planned al-Qaeda attacks had grown.
'The threat remains high and the background noise has been growing over recent weeks. It's a question of when, rather than if, they will attempt another spectacular,' said one Whitehall source.
Western security agencies predominantly rely on communications intercepts, which they correlate with tip-offs from informers and information from questioning arrested suspects to alert them to forthcoming attacks. Increases in the volume of communications between known al-Qaeda suspects also suggest that action may be imminent.
Abu Zubaydah, the top al-Qaeda operative arrested in March in Pakistan, has told his American interrogators that the terrorist group was planning a wide range of 'mass casualty attacks'.
Bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the rugged mountains that line the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Many of his followers remain in Pakistan.
Last week four al-Qaeda gunmen and three paramilitary policemen died in a shoot-out near Kohat, on the borders of the semi-autonomous tribal areas where an estimated 300 al-Qaeda fighters are hiding.
Investigators in Karachi, probing last month's bomb attack on the US consulate in the city, believe that al-Qaeda operatives are now linking up with local Islamic terror and crime groups to carry out their attacks.
The new warning is the second such alert issued by intelligence services in the last seven months. The CIA and MI6 issued a warning at the end of last year after interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects in Camp X-Ray in Cuba revealed that the al-Qaeda high command had regrouped after the bombing of Afghanistan and was already planning attacks across the world.
Moroccan intelligence sources told The Observer last month that they had been told by their American and British counterparts that al-Qaeda reconnaissance cells had been sent from Afghanistan after the bombing of the Tora Bora mountain HQ last December with detailed instructions to carry out attacks on Western and Jewish targets.
As a result the Moroccans were last month able to foil a 'spectacular' designed to hit British and American troops in the Strait of Gibraltar by arresting a cell of three Saudi al-Qaeda operatives. Following the destruction of their support infrastructure in Afghanistan last autumn, bin Laden's operatives have dispersed throughout the region and into the Middle East.
· Additional reporting: Leyla Tabrizi
Always with the threats.LOL!
A good start, but just a meager beginning. I think we could also take out Tripoli, Damascus, Teheran, ...
Nothing like turning their turf into glass to focus their attention.
I understand Dany Devito plays the part of the hard driving terror exec in the upcoming movie "The Big Alqaeda" starring opposite Kevin Spacey. "We gotta make our quotas or the regional terror manager will revoke our weekend donkey privileges".
Probably to drag their nets through the water and see what turns up or away. If the govt announces these attack threats and they are just made up, it could still be very useful psyops. Should the govt get lucky and announce a guess that is coinicidentally accurate it'll make the enemy skittish and paranoid and in the mood for killing potential leakers. Which will in turn tear them apart. All the while being hunted daily by CIA informants, Deltas and the rest. I love it.
Those were my thoughts as well. Unfortunately, some liberal-types around here seem to think they themselves are being set up as the intended victims by their own government. We can only speculate as to the reasons for their apparent personal problems and paranoia.
Thanks for the chuckle.
These wouldn't be anything like the spectacular attacks planned for 7/04/2002, would they?
Yep, the urban legend of massive 7/4/02 attacks have come and gone with only a foot note to a single Egyptian Limo driver. So immediately after, it's time to start a new urban legend -- 9/11/02.
Fresh terror -- terror that is not preserved by freezing, canning, pickling, salting, drying....
a normal person would presume automatically that the people who selected the September 11 date may have done so as a statement against what they consider to be excessive US involvement in world affairs as is in their mind represented by the New World Order. Thus, the date, September 11, 2001 being the ten year anniversary of George HW Bush on September 11, 1991 announcing his support of the New World Order does make some sense. Therefore, there's no reason to consult a loon about the significance of that date.
Why would anyone suggest that? Do you really support the Jihad? Why do you have that name?
OBL and company shot their wad on 9-11, and we since have disrupted the ragheads with hell reigning down on their heads. Let's go into Lebanon and western Pakistan and take care of these animals once and for all.
Peace, love, and justice...after we kill the bastards.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.