CIA Details Some of Al Qaeda Plot

D.C. SNIPER TERROR
Ex-CIA operative: Shootings likely terrorism
Says Pentagon involvement, nature of killings support theory

Posted: October 19, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Jon Dougherty
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

A former U.S. Army and CIA special operations veteran says the nature of the Washington-area shootings make him "lean more toward" believing they are terrorist acts.

Also, says Jamie Smith, head of Smith Consulting Group – a security consulting agency – whoever is terrorizing the populace with indiscriminate sniper attacks likely has "some level" of military or paramilitary training.

The military has "three types of snipers," explained Smith, who holds a doctorate in law and who recently returned from missions in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"You have the highly trained sniper, the trained marksman and an armed irregular. This shooter seems to have at least as much training as a trained marksman," he said, judging by his ability to squeeze off deadly shots and elude capture afterward.

The 14-year special-ops veteran and former director of the Navy's Antiterrorism Warfare Development Program said other clues lending weight to his theory include the fact that the shootings don't fit any traditional killing-spree pattern: The shooter is "not taking souvenirs, he's not disorganized and seems like he has a sound plan" of operation, indicating forethought and preparation.

Also indicative of the terrorism angle, he says, is the fact that the Department of Defense is now getting involved in the hunt for the sniper.

"You've got to think that the powers that be consider this at least a strong likelihood that a foreign influence is doing this, because they've now turned national security assets over to it," he said.

Smith was referring to an announcement by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld earlier this week that he was assigning U.S. Army surveillance planes – with infrared equipment aboard that is used to spot gunfire – to help look for the sniper.

"The FBI has a lot of investigative muscle," he added. "For them to seek the assistance of the defense establishment tells me there is something else going on."

Smith also said he believes, as do an increasing number of police officers and terrorism experts, that there may be more than just one killer involved – that whoever is doing the shooting is operating in a two-man team.

"You can't squeeze a shot off, pack your weapon, crank up the vehicle and then drive out" and avoid police dragnets and witnesses without help, Smith said. "It makes sense there might be more than one" individual involved, he added.

Smith said he'd seen al-Qaida training tapes, like the one first disclosed by WorldNetDaily in September, while on duty in central Asia.

"[Al-Qaida operatives] use a lot of vehicles and a kind of dual hit-and-run where you have one driver and one shooter," he said.

In one particular scenario, "they use a motorcycle," he said. "As they approach the target, the guy on back stands up on the rear motorcycle pegs and actually shoots over the driver's head as they pass the victim."

Al-Qaida operatives also have trained in home invasions and abductions, as well as "assassinations at your door," he said.

Though the Bush administration has not identified the shootings as terrorism-related, Smith pointed out an irony: The shootings began "around the time of the first anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan," when U.S.-led forces attacked the Taliban-led government harboring known al-Qaida operatives and terrorist training camps.

That, "coupled with the fact that all efforts so far have been focused around D.C.," lends itself well that it could be terrorist-related, he said. And, al-Qaida has been blamed for several other terrorist-related incidents worldwide, indicating an upswing in activity.

Smith added that if the shootings are the work of terrorist cells, they could be operating without direct orders from a command structure.

"It's not beyond the realm of possibility," he said.

Terrorism is obviously on the minds of several top U.S. officials, including the heads of both intelligence agencies, who predicted new attacks against the U.S. – assaults that likely would not be detected or thwarted beforehand.

"You must make the analytical judgment that the possibility exists that people are planning to attack you inside the United States – multiple simultaneous attacks," CIA Director George Tenet told a joint House-Senate intelligence panel on Thursday. "We're the enemy. We're the people they want to hurt inside this country."

Tenet also said the current situation is similar to the time just before 9-11.

Added FBI Director Robert Mueller: "I have a hard time telling the country that you should be comfortable, that we've covered all the bases, in the wake of what we saw they were able to accomplish on Sept. 11."

Smith indicated such frank warnings were uncharacteristic of the agency's top officials, but said they should be taken very seriously by the American people.

"For the director to say something like that, in open forum, sitting by the FBI director, is remarkable," he said. "They usually try to keep that kind of information out of the public debate."

Click here to read previous WND stories on the sniper attacks.

CYA. Where was Tenant 9/10/01?
These Clintinoid holdovers have to go!

Don't see anything new here.

The CIA has no evidence confirming that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April 2001

Either he means that they've turned all their evidence over to some other entity, or Bush should show him the Czech photos of Atta meeting with al-Ani--kind of bring him into the intelligence loop so he doesn't look so stupid in public :)

This clown is a loser. Get him out NOW!

Buckley's National Review has a long article this week relating that 1) he (Tenet) "backed into" the position (ie. he wasn't even Clinton's FIRST choice!).

2) His (Tenet's) FIRST intelligence experience came as Staff Director of the Senate Intelligence Committee from 1988 to 1993.......a job he LOST when the Senate went Republican.

3)As CIA Director, he allowed harassment by CIA managers of CIA Analysts "for writing analyses that did not jibe with CLINTON FOREIGN POLICY".

4) etc. etc. etc. Read the article.......THE WRONG MAN AT LANGLEY by BILL GERTZ.

Oh, here's another one...............Tenet STOPPED a counterterrorism operation because a US Ambassador got "cold feet".

How many of us, if, at our jobs, screwed up THIS bad, would still be at those jobs a year later! At best, this guy is a bureaucratic buffoon.

More Clinton incompetency! Get him out of THERE Mr. BUSH!!!!!!!!! The security of the US depends on it!

I can't tell you where he was on 9/10 but...................

...........from THE WRONG MAN AT LANGLEY by BILL GERTZ:

"On Sept. 11, 2001 Tenet was having breakfast at the Hay-Adams Hotel with his mentor, former Oklahoma Democratic Senator David Boren. One of Tenet's security guards brought him the news........................."

I certainly hope his Eggs Benedict didn't go to waste.

- The CIA has no evidence confirming that Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague in April 2001, as some have alleged.

Neither does my sister-in-law's mom, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I couldn't agree more.

The CIA, FBI and State Department knew of plans to strike high profile targets with passenger jets at least eighteen months before 9/11.

If O'Neil were still alive today he would be livid at this.

Someone should ask Mr T. why he went along with Ms Bodine's opinion that to divulge the knowledge would have been "just too scary".

"Smith indicated such frank warnings were uncharacteristic of the agency's top officials, but said they should be taken very seriously by the American people."

"For the director to say something like that, in open forum, sitting by the FBI director, is remarkable," he said. "They usually try to keep that kind of information out of the public debate."

Consider yourself warned.

New al-Qaida training tape shows another side of terror

Captured video reveals plans for home break-ins, killing police, drive-bys, golf course assassinations

Posted: September 4, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Joseph Farah
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

An al-Qaida training videotape, captured in Afghanistan, shows Osama bin Laden's terrorists are not only planning attacks with weapons of mass destruction but are preparing to kill Americans with drive-by shootings and home break-ins, through ambushes of law-enforcement officers and targeted assassinations on golf courses, WorldNetDaily has learned.

The videotape was produced, U.S. analysts believe, for al-Qaida's internal use and did not appear to be an external propaganda device.

U.S. intelligence considers the tape much more significant in what it reveals about al-Qaida's modus operandi than the highly publicized video purchased and broadcast last month by CNN. U.S. forces found a cache of 64 al-Qaida tapes while combing caves and hideouts in Afghanistan. Analysts were surprised by some of what they saw in the latest video and believe they employ terrorist tactics and techniques meant for export to America and other nations.

"None of these training scenarios depicts the type of fighting that al-Qaida engages in within Afghanistan," noted John Holschen of Insights Training Center, who produced a report on the tape for military and law enforcement officials.

The training video shows al-Qaida operatives practicing the following kinds of assaults:

using pickup trucks with shooters concealed in the bed of the trucks;
using motorcycles as a shooting platform for drive-bys and assassinations;
execution of prisoners;
ambushes of law-enforcement officers;
residential assassinations;
assassination on a golf course using a rocket-propelled grenade and rifle fire;
drive-up kidnapping of target walking on a street;
use of tunnels, storm drains and sewers for infiltration during urban raids;
rappelling from rooftops of buildings to make entry on upper floors;
use of motorcycles for grenade attacks; and
raids on buildings with large numbers of occupants – perhaps schools or office buildings.

Analysts point out that all scenarios involving prisoners and hostages ended in execution. None included plans for negotiated settlements for escape by terrorists.

"They plan to kill the prisoners and die in place," wrote Holschen.

The "perfect day" as seen by al-Qaida would combine attacks designed to produce a maximum number of casualties with attacks that would give them the opportunity to get "face time" on the news channels to deliver their rhetoric, explained Holschen.

"The major take-home lesson here is that although the enemy is known to be seeking the ability and opportunity to use weapons of mass destruction and of an unconventional nature, such as hijacked airliners, they are also spending a lot of time training to carry out attacks the old-fashioned way – attacks executed by small groups of dedicated personnel equipped with little more than small arms," explained Holschen.

Hostages, prisoners and anyone else identified as a target or problem by al-Qaida terrorist operatives will be killed, say those who viewed the tape. There is no point in complying with orders, they say. Those who do not resist ultimately will be rewarded with ritual execution in front of television cameras, according to the tactics and techniques captured on this video.

In one scenario on the video, terrorists pretend to be stranded on a six-lane highway, their vehicle disabled. When a police officer stops to assist, the driver blows his horn. Another occupant of the vehicle opens fire on the police officer with a rifle. In other scenarios, shooters were concealed in the trunk of the car. When the terrorists were picked up by accomplices in a getaway car, the original vehicle was blown up, apparently to destroy evidence.

In another scenario, an innocuous-looking terrorist knocks on the door of a residence, standing in view of the resident and answering questions through a closed door. When the resident opens the door, the terrorist immediately draws his weapon and fires, emptying his weapon into the victim.

In the golf course assassination, the target was on the green, near the hole. A rocket-propelled grenade is fired at a vehicle adjacent to the green, perhaps a security detail. Then the target of the assassination is killed with rifle fire.

When asked if these techniques are intended for use in the U.S., one military intelligence operative said without hesitation, "Yes."

If you'd like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the WorldNetDaily poll.

TaRaRa...I am so glad that you continue to bring this article to the attention of FR...I do not see how anyone who has read this can dismiss the possibility, and a strong one, that the sniper attacks could be ME terrorism.

I am wondering though, why the mainstream media..or even Fox, doesn't bring this to the attention of the public, especially in the wake of the information about the golf course sniping at senators.

There is a thread here now that says there were golfers in California who heard a shot and saw a man in the woods, just this week. Maybe the west coast snipers need more shooting practice at a local rock quary.

The training video shows al-Qaida operatives practicing the following kinds of assaults:

using pickup trucks with shooters concealed in the bed of the trucks;
using motorcycles as a shooting platform for drive-bys and assassinations;
execution of prisoners;
ambushes of law-enforcement officers;
residential assassinations;
assassination on a golf course using a rocket-propelled grenade and rifle fire;
drive-up kidnapping of target walking on a street; use of tunnels, storm drains and sewers for infiltration during urban raids;
rappelling from rooftops of buildings to make entry on upper floors;
use of motorcycles for grenade attacks; and raids on buildings with large numbers of occupants – perhaps schools or office buildings.
Analysts point out that all scenarios involving prisoners and hostages ended in execution. None included plans for negotiated settlements for escape by terrorists.

If these terrorist are successful at implementing the above list in a compressed time frame, they can expect unresticted general war without the PC.

Consider yourself warned.

Yes, something awful is coming I'm afraid, even worse than 9-11, for this type of warning to actually be given.

Unclassified Version of Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet's Testimony before the Joint Inquiry into Terrorist Attacks Against the United States, 18 June 2002

"Yes, something awful is coming I'm afraid, even worse than 9-11, for this type of warning to actually be given."

The thing that worries me is that those of us who live in the 'heartland' (fly over country) are complacent and feel secure just by our remoteness from the large cities, etc. A county fair (for example) would be easy 'pickings' for a terrorist attack and a shock to us all.

OTOH, terrorists might be surprised that not everyone who might go to a county fair would be as helpless and defenseless as those in the DC area are these days...

But still there is the element of surprise and they would undoubtedly hit a number of victims before they were stopped (dead in their tracks, I hope).

Your reply #6 cracks me up...)

What's going on in Washington right now in the debate over terrorism and the possible Iraq connection?
The Pentagon believes Iraq is behind the terrorism that began on September 11 and wants to include Iraq as a central target in our war on terrorism.
The State Department says that there's no evidence, or insufficient evidence, that Iraq is involved; [that] Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan should be the sole object of our war, because we have to build an international coalition for support for the American war effort in Afghanistan, and if we add another target, i.e. Iraq, to our war, that will break up the coalition that exists in support of the war in Afghanistan. The CIA maintains that the evidence points to bin Laden and there is little evidence pointing to Iraq, and it's not interested in pursuing the evidence pointing to Iraq.
Who are the members of the teams that are fighting each other here?
This is a very bitter and nasty fight. ... One of the things that is going on is that people who accommodated Bill Clinton's desire not to hear of Iraqi involvement in any of the preceding terrorism are continuing on that line, probably with an eye to their past positions they held and maybe probably their careers; they feel their careers may be endangered.
PBS Frontline: Interview with Laurie Mylroie, October 18, 2001

Thanks for that link.