Police1 Critical Alert
Al-Qaida operatives may be plotting several unrelated attacks in the U.S., targeting not only major cities but also remote bulwarks of the “critical infrastructure” in an effort to cause mass casualties and major economic damage throughout the nation, U.S. officials said Monday.
Senior U.S. counter-terrorism officials said they have been unable to nail down specifics about a time or place for any potential attacks, despite a mad scramble to do so since receiving an alarming cache of corroborated intelligence beginning last Thursday and Friday.
But the officials say the intelligence they have received -- much of it from intercepted communications among known terrorist operatives overseas -- clearly refers to at least one series of coordinated, simultaneous strikes, like the 9/11/01, attacks, as well as isolated plots of varying degrees of sophistication.
“We’re concerned that there could potentially be many separate plots,” said one U.S. official. “It’s hard to establish a certain theme to all of this because we are getting such a massive volume of reporting.”
Much of the recent intelligence makes broad references to large urban areas, including N.Y., D.C., L.A. and Las Vegas, while other pieces of intelligence cite such obscure locales as Rappahannock, a county in Virginia, and Valdez, Alaska, where tankers load oil from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
Authorities remain primarily concerned about al-Qaida operatives plotting to hijack commercial airliners and cargo planes and fly them into U.S. targets. They cite a large amount of corroborated and specific intelligence that refers to efforts to hijack planes not only outside the U.S., but also at domestic airports by using new and improved techniques that terrorist operatives believe could thwart the nation’s vast new homeland security apparatus.
But authorities have also picked up troubling intelligence about other plots, and efforts to blow up chemical and hazardous materials facilities, nuclear power plants, dams, power grids, ports and airports.
One senior law enforcement official said the FBI and other authorities are alarmed and frustrated because the intelligence varies so widely according to potential targets and methods of attack, as well as by its degree of specificity and corroboration. Of particular concern, he said, are vague references to upcoming attacks on “major metropolitan areas and events that we’re looking at ... bowl games, New Year’s events, that kind of thing. There is no one specific threat here. There is no place or time to tie to this.”
A recent FBI alert alludes to such confusion. Citing unconfirmed intel, it warned that al-Qaida may be preparing an attack in the U.S. before the end of the month. But, the alert adds, “We have no information on the possible operatives, target, timing or method of a possible attack.”
The intelligence that has prompted such an unprecedented level of concern comes from conversations among known terrorist operatives of both senior and foot-soldier rank, and also from information gleaned from intercepted e-mails, discussions in Internet chat rooms and interrogations of al-Qaida detainees.
Unlike past elevations of the terror threat level, the decision to raise the alert to orange this time was unanimous and decisive, because it was based on what senior administration officials described as the most alarming, credible and specific information they had ever seen.
Roger Cressey, a former senior Bush administration counter-terrorism official, said the current intercepts have authorities so concerned because they so closely mirror the conversations picked up before the 9/11 attacks. “It is known bad guys talking in that expectant chatter, saying things like we’re finally going to respond to Iraq, Afghanistan and strike down the infidels ... that something big is going to happen,” he said.
Source: LA Times; Informed Source; Misc.
Priority Level (1 = Lowest, 5 = Highest) - National Level 5