Al-Qaida risk rising, analysts say

The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON -- Three top U.S. intelligence officials said yesterday that a resurgent al-Qaida had stepped up training and worldwide operations from havens in Pakistan, a development they worry could lead to ambitious new attacks.

But the CIA's director for intelligence, John Kringen, and other counterterrorism officials played down recent news reports and comments from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that suggested there was a heightened risk of an al-Qaida attack on the United States this summer, saying they had no intelligence about such a strike.

Chertoff is "right that their planning-to-execution cycle might suggest summer is the window of choice," said one counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency prohibits its employees from publicly discussing intelligence matters. "But there is no specific credible threat right now."

Even without seeing indicators of a specific attack, officials said, they do believe that the overall risk from al-Qaida is rising again. The U.S. attacks on al-Qaida's former base in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 severely disrupted Osama bin Laden's network. But since then, it has rebuilt its headquarters in Pakistan and is now more dangerous than at any time since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, according to a new classified threat assessment.

Kringen said that bin Laden is being protected by powerful local tribal leaders along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and that the haven has helped his network regroup and rebuild its ability to strike the United States.

Intelligence officials assume that al-Qaida will continue to try to attack the United States, Kringen said in an interview, adding: "We begin with the premise that the home-run hit is the United States."

Chertoff said Tuesday that he was basing his assessment on a "gut feeling" from previous patterns of attack, al-Qaida statements and intelligence he did not disclose. The Homeland Security chief "started this thing, but we are trying not to hype it," said the counterterrorism official.

Chertoff clarified his remarks yesterday, saying in an interview with The Washington Post that what he meant to convey was "a more general, strategic sense of the threat environment," based on publicly reported information rather than secret intelligence.

In the new threat assessment, U.S. intelligence officials lay most of the blame for al-Qaida's resurgence on a peace agreement between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders last fall, according to that person and another counterterrorism official familiar with its contents, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. The report concludes that the agreement has given the organization virtually free rein to plan attacks worldwide, they said.

The report, titled "Al Qaeda Better Positioned to Strike the West," makes dire assessments of the network's ability to attack within the United States and Europe, according to the counterterrorism officials and another intelligence expert familiar with its contents, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. They said its conclusions will be incorporated into a more comprehensive and formal National Intelligence Estimate that is scheduled to be released this summer after two years of preparation.

Kringen said yesterday in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee that al-Qaida seemed "to be fairly well settled into the safe haven in the ungoverned spaces of Pakistan," adding that "we see more training. We see more money, and we see more communications."

Josh Meyer writes for the Los Angeles Times.

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