“Al-Qaeda plans political assassinations”,India and the World, News Analysis, India News Online

A plan for “high profile political assassination” is reported to have been found in the laptop of the Al-Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. The Washington Times has quoted an official as saying, the next major Al-Qaeda plan was to have been initiated with a high profile political assassination. The newspaper citing US intelligence officials said the Al-Qaeda would target an American or foreign leader either within the US or abroad. Noor Khan revealed that a taped message from bin Laden was to have given the signal for the attacks to begin. In the past, tapes from bin Laden or Al-Zawahiri have come just days or weeks before a terrorist strike. The Al-Qaeda wanted an assassination in Saudi Arabia or Yemen followed by a series of attacks across the US. The Bush Administration had recently claimed that it had disrupted the Al-Qaeda plan. However, intelligence reports said, a new bin Laden tape was about to surface soon. If so, it could mean the Al-Qaeda still feels it can launch an attack.

The sketch of a plot to target President Bush also surfaced on an online magazine of an Al-Qaeda organisation in Saudi Arabia on Aug 11. A one-line answer to a Saut-al-Jihad reader’s query said: “The plan you have drawn up to assassinate Bush is good but would need a lot of preparation.” “Perhaps you can take part in it, if possible”, the magazine told the reader - named only as Madad, without giving further details.

A West Asia security expert who reviewed the site said it would be rare for a known Al-Qaeda figure to discuss a detailed plan over a website. He said, however, the message may have some “operational value”, but using Bush’s name indicated if a plot were afoot, it was in an early stage.

Pakistani intelligence sources have also confirmed that Osama bin Laden has called for attacks on targets in the US and Britain, but it is not clear if his appeal was accompanied by more detailed orders. A Pakistani intelligence source said, “Osama has given the go-ahead to target important places and personalities in the US, UK and Pakistan.

Pakistan is also bracing for a backlash from Islamic militants for the latest crackdown on the Al-Qaeda and its local allies. Around 20 Al-Qaeda suspects, foreigners and locals have been arrested in the past one month, the most successful crackdown yet, leading to a security alert in the US and the arrest in Britain of a man believed to have been plotting an attack on Heathrow airport. Pakistan President Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led war on terror, has already been targeted by Islamic militant groups and has survived two assassination attempts and his Prime Minister-in-waiting, Shaukat Aziz, one, linked by officials to the Al-Qaeda. Over 500 Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters have been handed over to the US before the latest crackdown began. Musharraf says that 90 per cent of militants in Pakistan have been captured and the campaign would continue against others.

No wonder, Pakistan has been showered with accolades by the US Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz. Addressing the House Armed Services Committee on August 10, he said, America made a major mistake when it severed its ties with the Pakistani military in early 19902. Referring to Pakistan, he said, “For too long the US deprived itself of one of the most important instruments of influence”. He said, cutting economic aid to Pakistan would mean pushing Pak military officers into the only available alternative - Islamic extremists.

Political observers in New Delhi are amused at the case built-up by Wolfowitz for forging strategic ties with Pakistan. They say what Wolfowitz and others in the Bush Administration have not cared to read closely is the 9/11 commission report which has very clearly stated that rather than Iraq or Iran, it was Pakistan which had played a frontline role in facilitating the 9/11 attacks by Osama bin Laden’s gang. The American report has noted that the Bush Administration was not ready to confront Islamabad for fear that it would rupture US-Pak relations. The US Administration continues to project Pakistan as a frontline State in the war against terrorism. The inquiry report has indicted Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI and hinted that Washington was very careless in handling the roguish activities of Pakistan. The US State Department repeatedly overruled recommendations by counter-intelligence officials to get tough with Pakistan. The report says it is unlikely that bin Laden would have moved to Afghanistan in 1996 from Sudan without Pakistan officials helping in his clandestine travel from one continent to another. It were Pakistani intelligence officers who introduced bin Laden to the Taliban leadership of Afghanistan in Kandahar in the hope that Al-Qaeda training camps would be made available for training Kashmiris.

In a memo to the then National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, the Director of the National Security Council, Bruce Riedel, observed that Islamabad was “behaving like a rogue State” backing Taliban and bin Laden terrorists and provoking war [Kargil] with India. The Clinton Administration, which was in power then, slept over it though in his last days in office, Clinton did seem to become alive to the dangers of courting Pakistan too much. After coming to power, George Bush wrote to President Musharraf in February 2001 that Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda posed a direct threat” to the US and he [Musharraf] must address this problem.

Pakistan has once again convinced the United States that it is its key ally in the war on terror, the site of an Al-Qaeda ring that was targeting America that led to the raising terror alert in Washington and New York last week, and the nation whose cooperation is needed for most arrests to take place. Both the National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice, and President Bush’s Homeland Security Adviser, Frances Pragos Townsend, have praised Pakistan’s latest efforts to nab some key Al-Qaeda operatives including Khalfan Ghailani and Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan. The US Commission that investigated the Sept 1, 2001 attacks had said that the role of Pakistan in the struggle against Islamic terrorism cannot be overstated. It is notable that to ensure Pakistan President Musharraf’s support on the Al-Qaeda issue the US Administration has not pressed him enough on fighting nuclear proliferation. Nor has it pushed him on Pakistan’s lack of democracy, its poor human rights record or its extremist teaching schools [madrassas].

Barely 72 hours of the end of the Democratic convention, the Department of Homeland Security last week declared a new terror alert and the colour coded level was jacked up to orange, verging on red following the arrest from Lahore of an Al-Qaeda operative, Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a Pakistani national in control of the Al-Qaeda’s computer network. His computer contained precise information about surveillance of and threats to five financial institutions in New York and Washington, including the World Bank and IMF buildings in Washington and the Citibank and Prudential buildings in New York. Subsequently, additional information was released that the intelligence was mostly three years old, that Al-Qaeda surveillance of US buildings had been mostly conducted through the Internet, but the computer file had been opened again in January for uncertain reasons but with no surveillance data added to it. The US authorities say they are close to identifying the main figures who conducted reconnaissance studies of the financial institutions. The authorities have begun a large scale investigation in the US, Britain [where 12 Al-Qaeda suspects have been detained following a tip-off from Pakistan after Noor Khan’s arrest] and other countries in a search for suspects. Investigators are counting on people already in custody or others whom they hope to apprehend, to help solve the mystery of whether the plot is still active.

The effect of the alert has been to throw the US election campaign into turmoil and momentarily freeze it. An intelligence official said in Washington on Aug 8 that the arrest of Noor Khan has led the authorities to uncover the terrorist reconnaissance of financial institutions in the US. He was also communicating with people believed to be behind a plot to disrupt the November elections. His arrest has prompted a probe in the US, the UK and other countries to locate those behind surveillance operations. White House officials are optimistic that the arrests of Khalfan Ghailani and Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan and the seizure of detailed surveillance of financial buildings have upset their plans to attack the US. Townsend has said in a TV interview, the potential plot uncovered by the arrest of Noor Khan may have been part of a broader effort to strike the country before the November elections. According to the TIME magazine quoting unidentified US law enforcement officials, included in the information obtained on three laptop computers and 51 discs seized in a July 24 raid on Noor Khan’s house were details of how Al-Qaeda operatives thought of using speed boats and divers to carry out attacks in New York harbour before the November poll. The plotters were also considering using helicopters in some New York operations, TIME said.

Meanwhile, yet another senior Al-Qaeda operative who closely knew Osama Osama bin Laden and was linked to two assassination attempts on President Musharraf has been handed over by the United United Arab Emirates to Pakistan. The interrogation of the suspect, Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a leader of the radical Islamist group, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, who was arrested by authorities in Dubai at the request of Pakistan, may yield some more information on surveillance of American financial landmarks for possible terrorist attacks.

For several months, the US Government had been picking up reports from its spies, electronic intercepts and liaison services [friendly intelligence services] of an Al-Qaeda plot to strike the American homeland before the November elections. But, no one seemed to know the essential details: What were the targets? When would the Al-Qaeda strike? And were the attackers already in the US? “We are in the midst of Al-Qaeda efforts to attack the US on a scale as big or larger than 9/11”, John Brenan, chief of the Terrorist Threat Integration Centre, the inter-agency operation that consolidates threat information and produces the President’s Daily Threat Report. The interrogation of at least two Al-Qaeda suspects held recently is expected to reveal the purpose of the recent reconnaissance of the targets for attack in the US. Among those in custody is a suspect named Babar Ahmad who was arrested in Britain last week at the request of the US. Whatever his role in the surveillance, the authorities now say that Ahmad obtained detailed information about the movements of the Navy aircraft carrier Constellation, including information about the formation used by the carrier and its escort vessels in manoeuvres like its passage through the Strait of Harmuz in West Asia in 2001.

Officials say another turning point in the surveillance case came with the arrest in Britain last week of Abu Issa al-Hindi. The authorities say they believe Hindi was dispatched to the US by senior Al-Qaeda leaders to carry out the reconnaissance operation. More revelations are likely to come out of the interrogation of Qari Saifullah Akhtar.

For the past several months, President Musharraf had been claiming that much of Al-Qaeda leadership has been killed or captured. But, the new evidence suggests that the organisation is regenerating and bringing in new blood. A new generation of operatives is taking up senior positions in the terror outfit, Al-Qaeda, as many of its leaders are either killed or captured. Using the computer records and other documents seized from Naeem Noor Khan, US and Pakistani intelligence analysts say they are finding that the Al-Qaeda’s upper ranks are being filled by lower rank members and more recent recruits. The New York Times reported that the new structure came to light from interviews with two officials who have been briefed on some of the details of intelligence and analytical conclusions drawn from the computers seized after Khan’s arrest. The paper said the new evidence suggests that the Al-Qaeda has retained some elements of the previous centralized command and communication structure, using computer experts like Khan to relay messages and directions from leaders to subordinates in countries like Britain, Turkey and Nigeria. The Khan computer files led to the arrest of twelve Al-Qaeda followers in Britain last week who were described by officials as young alienated Arab men with extreme anti-American views, much like many of bin Laden’s foot soldiers and many of the 19 men who took part in the 9/11 attacks.

Lst week’s announcement of the arrest of some Al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan has led to a spat between Washington and Islamabad. Pakistan has alleged that US intelligence unnecessarily and prematurely leaked the names of those arrested at a time when the Pakistani intelligence authorities were using them to find out more about Al-Qaeda activities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. They say the intelligence agencies were using Naeem Noor Khan as a live bait to track down other terrorists. After his capture on July 13, he was being forced to send out e-mails to other Al-Qaeda operatives all over the world when his name was suddenly and prematurely disclosed first by The New York Times after background briefings by US Administration officials. That effectively dried up all communications between Khan and other operatives. Pakistani officials are also suggesting that they might have gotten to Osama bin Laden himself if Washington had not blabbed. But US officials are bristling at the suggestion that they jeopardized the war on terrorism, saying it was important to alert the public about information gleaned from Khan. Some US officials have suggested privately that Khan may be a Pakistani double agent.

Bush names new CIA chief

President Bush has chosen a Republican, Porter Goss, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to head the embattled Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He will succeed George Tenet who resigned amid a torrent of criticism of the agency’s handling of pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Bush’s decision also comes in the wake of the President’s embrace of a key recommendation of the commission that investigated the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, creation of a new intelligence czar to oversee the activities of the CIA and more than a dozen other intelligence agencies. Goss served in the CIA for ten years (mostly in Latin America and Europe) before a mysterious illness forced him into early retirement. He then moved to Florida to join politics and has been a Congressman from Florida where the President’s brother, Jeb Bush, is Governor for nearly a decade, with an influential voice in intelligence matters. He is the chairman of the House Committee on Intelligence. Goss is described as an old-fashioned spook who values human intelligence more than technical means. Goss is well-clued to issues in the Indian sub-continent, although he is said to take the conventional American view about the vital role Pakistan has in the war on terrorism without examining how and why the country became a magnet for terrorists. Most controversially, Goss was having a breakfast meeting in Washington with then ISI chief Mahmoud Ahmad at the exact instant the 9/11 hijackers flew their planes into the World Trade Center. Ahmad was later removed for his continued support to the Taliban.

India News Online » News Analysis » India and the World »