Asia-Pacific
Al-Qaida likely to attempt attack in 3 to 6 months
(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-02-03 10:36
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WASHINGTON: Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior US intelligence officials told Congress on Tuesday.
The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terror contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al-Qaida is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.
The annual assessment of the nation's terror threats provided no startling new terror trends but amplified growing misgivings since the attempted Christmas Day airline attack outside Detroit, Michigan, that militants are growing harder to detect and moving more quickly in their plots.
"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaida is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
As al-Qaida presses new terror plots, it is increasingly relying on recruits with minimal training and simple devices to carry out attacks, Panetta said as part of the terror assessment to Congress.
Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: "It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country," he said.
The hearing comes just over a month since the failed attempt to bring down an airliner at Detroit, allegedly by a Nigerian suspect. The assessment also comes only a few months after US Army Maj. Nidal Hassan is accused of single-handedly attacking his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people.
National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said with changes made since the December 25 attack, US intelligence would he able to identify and stop someone like the man alleged to be the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. He warned, however, that a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not have been detected.
FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the FBI's handling of the Detroit incident, disputing assertions that agents short-circuited more intelligence insights from the Nigerian suspect by quickly providing him with his constitutionally guaranteed right to remain silent.
Mueller said that in "case after case," terrorists have provided actionable intelligence even after they were given their rights and charged with crimes. Mueller said they know such cooperation can result in shorter sentences or other consideration from the government.
Hundreds of terror suspects already have been convicted in civilian federal courts, including convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham offered a bill Tuesday that would prohibit the government from using Justice Department money to prosecute suspects charged in the September 11 attack in civilian courts.
The move comes in the aftermath of the Obama administration's decision to rethink whether it would try that attack's alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in a New York City courtroom.
The proposed law would cover people who legally could be prosecuted by a military commission, applying to terror suspects who are not US citizens. By Tuesday evening, the bill had support from 18 senators, mostly Republicans.
During the terror assessment hearing, Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become dynamic and malicious.
Obama has promised to make cybersecurity a priority in his administration, but the president's new budget asks for a decrease in money for the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity division.
The government's first quadrennial homeland security review states high consequence and large-scale cyberattacks could massively disable or hurt international financial, commercial and other infrastructure.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said these types of cyberattacks could cripple the movement of people and goods around the world and bring vital social and economic programs to a halt.
