[iwar] [fc:A.Surge.in.Al.Qaeda.Messages]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-05-19 15:02:53

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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 15:02:53 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:A.Surge.in.Al.Qaeda.Messages]
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A Surge in Al Qaeda Messages 
Threats at Highest Level Since Sept. 11; May Signal New Attack 
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 19, 2002; Page A08 

The government has intercepted a series of vague but menacing messages that 
appear to be communications among al Qaeda terrorists who could be planning a 
strike in the United States, senior administration officials said yesterday.

The recent surge is the highest detected since Sept. 11 and is nearly as 
worrisome as the spike seen in the months preceding the hijacking attacks, 
one senior U.S. official said.

"We are concerned because these patterns of activity in the past have been 
indicative of impending action," the official said. "We had seen a 
considerable lull since September 11th. . . . This is close to the level of 
last summer."

Alerts have gone out to law enforcement organizations in the United States 
and to the military and intelligence agencies abroad, the officials said. The 
FBI is "vigorously pursuing disruption activities," including the questioning 
and perhaps arrest of people "we suspect might be guilty of trying to plan or 
plot," a senior official said.

"They are bragging about significant potential attacks, but there's nothing 
specific to point to or know exactly where to go or look," the official said. 
"This happens from time to time, and we take it seriously."

The messages were first reported yesterday on the Web site of the New York 
Times.

At the White House yesterday, several senior officials spent much of the day 
discussing how to respond to the cluster of vague threats detected in recent 
weeks. A number of prominent Democrats criticized President Bush last week 
for failing to tell the public -- either before or after Sept. 11 -- about a 
briefing in early August in which he was told Osama bin Laden was "determined 
to strike" in the United States and could mastermind hijackings.

The White House said repeatedly that the August information was too general 
to be helpful to the public. But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice 
planned to discuss the new threats this morning during three scheduled 
appearances on network talk shows. "The irony is that right after September 
11th, we were criticized for publicizing nonspecific threats," one White 
House official said. "Now, reporters can't get enough of it."

Another official said the new wave of intercepted communications comes as no 
surprise inside the White House, since the United States is at war with the 
terrorist network. "There is an increasing amount of chatter in the system, 
and we are doing everything we can to be vigilant, to take every precaution, 
to take down every bit of information," the official said. "They're still out 
there."

Rice and other officials can be expected to talk often about "chatter" in 
coming days, and a senior official offered this description: "Through the 
variety of means the government has to collect information -- electronic or 
human -- we pick up more rumblings of people talking about attacking the 
United States' interests, but in a way that's general and not specific."

The target "could be in the United States or it could be abroad," another 
official said. "It's hard to tell whether [the threat is] real or not."

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.

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