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
They are trying sooo, sooo hard to keep up this ridiculous "weekend at osama's" scenario.
NOW you have to sort through a whole lot of Islamic propaganda. Between all the Arab websites popping up all over the place and THIS guy:
"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'.
Whom I hope our guys are taking with a HUGE grain of salt...we have more propaganda than fact.
We still haven't caught the anthrax producer, who got wonderful U.S. government confirmation that the last batch was milled just right. A well-done 4 July anthrax attack wouldn't produce casualties for weeks.
What happened to the purported overheard cell-phone conversation in Arabic reported on CNN about an attack on Las Vegas? A Lebanese fellow reported it to the FBI according to reports I heard in Europe two weeks back. Does anyone know?
Leni
or is it the inert version called a BDU-38 practice bomb that simulates a B-61 mod 11? For sure its not a live weapon. Live B-61s are painted silver with and amber nose. Notice the nose on the weapon its got a point to help penetrate hardened targets.
These wouldn't be anything like the spectacular attacks planned for 7/04/2002, would they?
Al Qaeda seems to be really good at generating background noise. But then again, with these agencies providing a steady public stream of feedback ("we hear you", "we hear you real good", "we can barely hear you"), they've had plenty of time to learn.
Unless al-Qaeda delivers a blow sometime soon, reasonably people will be drawn to the inescapable conclusion that we are at "war" against an impotent, phantom enemy. Wars are never fought for long against the impotent, and, as far as I am aware, no people in history have kept their focus fighting a ghost.
Perversely, but quite understandably when you think about it, the Administration needs a demonstration of the enemy's power.
These sorts of psyOps press releases must be viewed with suspicion. Why would the authorities continually leak out whatever Abu Zubaydah says? They must be serving some obscure but valid purpose unbeknownst to us.
We have a government that cries WOLF every week or so, I wonder who will believe them in the future?
It's easily beknownst to us. The more our government uses Abu Zubaydah to terrorize us with, the more they can get us to acquiesce to the abolishment of the Constitution.
Yeah, what with his spectacular successes on this fourth of July and all.
He had one shot. He took it. It's all over.
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