Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
November 16, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The latest fears of renewed terror attacks are based on disturbing patterns reminiscent of the runups to earlier al-Qaida strikes rather than on specific intelligence, counterterrorism officials said Friday.
A familiar and potentially dangerous confluence of events is taking place: Osama bin Laden speaks out. U.S. intelligence detects increased "chatter" among potential terrorists. The calendar suggests it might be time for al-Qaida to strike again.
Officials say it is largely this analytical concern that led to the FBI's new warning concerning "spectacular" attacks -- a word used in counterterrorism circles to differentiate the Sept. 11 strikes from, for example, car bombings.
The White House said Americans should remain vigilant, but it left the national alert status unchanged at its third level -- yellow.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the latest warnings contained no new information, calling them a "summary of intelligence as we know it."
This differs from the last big scare, around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. On Sept. 9, a top al-Qaida operative told interrogators of multiple planned strikes against U.S. embassies in southeast Asia. Those attacks never occurred, although officials have not described why or how they might have been headed off.
Several factors are fueling current U.S concerns:
Terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden making a threatening public statement. Although analysis continues, officials generally accept the bin Laden audiotape aired this week as authentic. He made similar statements before the East Africa embassy bombings and the strike on the USS Cole. None immediately preceded the Sept. 11 attacks, although some believe those strikes were pushed up.
The statement also might serve to inspire al-Qaida supporters to violence, officials said.
The beginning of Ramadan. Al-Qaida has plotted attacks during the Islamic holy month before.
The elapsed time since al-Qaida's last major strike, the Sept. 11 attacks. Al-Qaida generally pulls off one major attack a year. There is debate whether the bombing of a night club in Indonesia, which killed close to 200 people, was this year's big strike. Many analysts feel this was the work of an al-Qaida ally rather than of bin Laden's organization.
Thursday's execution of Mir Aimal Kasi, the Pakistani convicted of killing two CIA employees in 1993 outside the agency's headquarters in Virginia. Some in Pakistan have threatened reprisals. Also, several militants with links to al-Qaida were recently captured in Pakistan, officials said.
An increase in terrorist chatter. It ebbs and flows, often without an attack taking place, but any spikes remain worrisome to counterterrorism officials.
The alert level is staying at yellow because of a lack of specifics about potential targets. Still, the latest FBI warning was unusual because of its dire language.
"Sources suggest al-Qaida may favor spectacular attacks that meet several criteria: high symbolic value, mass casualties, severe damage to the U.S. economy and maximum psychological trauma," says the alert, which was posted on the FBI's Web site early Friday.
The highest priority targets remain within the aviation, petroleum and nuclear sectors and significant national landmarks, the warning says.
"Al-Qaida's next attack may rely on conventional explosives and low-technology platforms such as truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small watercraft or explosives easily concealed and planted by terrorist operatives," it said.
Matthew Levitt, a former counterterror analyst with the FBI, said "spectacular" suggested something larger than last month's attack in Bali.
"To me, 'spectacular' indicates a very serious attack against a very serious target, near term," Levitt said. "It's more of a when than an if."
Levitt said the latest bin Laden tape suggests a possible European target.
"It's not just the FBI, it's Interpol, the British Home Office, the German interior ministry seeing a real increase in the chatter," said Levitt, who monitors terrorism for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The language could help prepare Americans for the shock of another Sept. 11-level attack -- a consideration that outweighs the panic a baseless warning might engender, said Joan Deppa, a communications specialist at Syracuse University who studies mass reaction to terror.
"If we have another big event and the public is not forewarned, they are likely to be in a greater position of shock than if this statement goes out and turns out not to be true," she said.
Such warnings might also shake Americans who haven't paid much attention to the recent wave of attacks far from American shores -- in Bali, Kuwait, Pakistan and Yemen.
"For better or worse, Americans don't look beyond our borders, and we're lulled into a sense of complacency," said Curtis Hsia, a professor of psychology at Azusa Pacific University in California who studies law enforcement. "Thinking in terms of prevention, if you want to make sure you get your information out quickly, you use language that's a little strong."