[iwar] [fc:Terrorism.Open.Source.Intelligence.Report]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-06-06 19:47:48
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UNCLASSIFIED

Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report 
(TOSIR) No. 20
6 June 2002 

Published every Thursday, the TOSIR presents unclassified English-language 
open source or unclassified intelligence on international terrorism and 
related matters obtained from the public Internet and from unclassified hard 
copy reports and periodicals. It is prepared under contract by Interaction 
Systems Incorporated (ISI) in support of the Director of Central 
Intelligence's Counterterrorist Center. The summaries and quoted excerpts in 
TOSIR issues are intended for the use of members of the U.S. intelligence 
community in furtherance of their professional duties-and the summaries and 
quoted excerpts are subject to the copyright protections associated with the 
original sources. Please provide questions, comments, and essential elements 
of information to Dr. James Arnold Miller, Chairman, ISI, at 
<a href="mailto:isinc@mindspring.com?Subject=Re:%20(ai)%20Terrorism%20Open%20Source%20Intelligence%20Report%2526In-Reply-To=%2526lt;3d.1f453893.2a30bf33@aol.com">isinc@mindspring.com</a>, 
703-938-1774, and fax 703-938-1727.


Overview 

1.  "Al-Qaeda Stirs," Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, 14 May 2002. There is 
evidence to suggest that Osama bin Laden and other senior Al-Qaeda leaders 
are alive and regrouping, despite significant losses. In view of the 
increased international security awareness and Al-Qaeda's own depleted ranks, 
the group is stressing the need to inflict maximum casualties; concentrate on 
martyrdom operations; and make its presence felt with further operations 
against "soft targets" (e.g., the United Nations, relief agencies, the media, 
data exchanges, and communications systems). 

2.  "Al-Qaeda Now: Is It behind the Newest Attacks Worldwide? How the Damaged 
Network May Be Plotting the Next Big One," by Michael Elliott, Time, 3 June 
2002. In Afghanistan the remaining Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters have split 
into small groups, probably of no more than sixty in each. Some fighters have 
doubtless slipped across the border and are trying to regroup in the tribal 
regions of Pakistan. And just as Afghan-based fighters may live to fight 
another day, so Al-Qaeda operatives elsewhere are regrouping. They apparently 
were responsible for recent bombings in Karachi, Pakistan, and in Djerba, 
Tunisia.

3.  Al-Qaeda's New Threat: Bin Laden's Network Is Broken, But the Terrorists 
Are Adapting-They're Looking for New Ways to Sow Chaos and War," by Michael 
Hirsh and Rod Nordland, Newsweek, 10 June 2002. Even as President Bush 
continues to publicly identify Al-Qaeda as the chief threat, in private U.S. 
officials are increasingly siding with intelligence officials who have long 
insisted that the number of sworn members of Al-Qaeda worldwide has been 
grossly exaggerated, and may be fewer than two hundred. In any event, Osama 
bin Laden may no longer be supplying directions and funding, but his ethos of 
enmity lives on. 

4.  "Missiles Smuggled into U.S.," by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, 31 May 
2002. The U.S. Government has alerted airlines and law enforcement agencies 
that new intelligence indicates that Islamic terrorists have smuggled 
shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles into the United States. 

5.  "Underwater Terrorist Attacks Feared," Geostrategy-Direct.com, 4 June 
2002. U.S. intelligence officials said several requests from a Middle Eastern 
country for underwater equipment and training prompted the FBI to alert the 
public to the possible threat of attacks carried out by scuba divers. 


Articles

1. "Al-Qaeda Stirs," Oxford Analytica Daily Brief, 14 May 2002 
(http://www.oxweb.com). We quote: 

Event 

·   Intelligence assessments suggest that the bomb attack on French naval 
engineers in Karachi on 8 May bore the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda operation. 

Significance

·   There is evidence to suggest that Osama bin Laden and other senior 
leaders are alive and regrouping, despite significant losses. The campaign 
against Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and elsewhere is entering a new phase.

Analysis 

·   Analysis of the pattern of Al-Qaeda communications, along with other 
evidence, suggests that Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, 
are still alive. For example, a stream of communications between them and Abu 
Zubaida, another member of the Al-Qaeda leadership, remained intact until 
Zubaida's capture on 28 March in Faisalabad, Punjab province, by the 
Pakistani authorities (in conjunction with the Central Intelligence Agency 
and the Federal Bureau of Investigation). 

·   Furthermore the death of bin Laden would have triggered reactions within 
the network, some of which would have been visible. No such reactions have 
been observed. By contrast, the video of bin Laden released last month was 
entirely composed of old material and is thus of no evidential value in this 
regard. 

Leadership losses

·   Since the onset of the U.S. war on terrorism, Al-Qaeda has lost sixteen 
of its twenty-five key leaders (and the Taliban twenty-one of its 
twenty-seven key leaders) on the Pentagon's most wanted list. Two losses have 
been particularly serious: 

·   [1] Mohammed Atef. Al-Qaeda's military commander was killed by a U.S. air 
strike in Kabul on 14 November. Atef, an Egyptian and bin Laden's 
brother-in-law, was a founder member who fought in the anti-Soviet campaign. 
He had overall responsibility for the post-11 September Afghan campaign, 
training for terrorist operations, and the day-to-day running of the 
organization. He planned all the group's major guerrilla and terrorist 
operations after the death of his predecessor in 1996. 

·   [2] Abu Zubaida. A Palestinian with Saudi citizenship, Zubaida was 
Al-Qaeda's director of external operations. He managed the terrorist support 
and operational network worldwide and was responsible for liaison with 
foreign terrorist groups and Islamic non-governmental organizations. Based in 
Peshawar until February 1999 and then in Faisalabad, he also organized the 
supply of recruits and materials from outside Afghanistan and the passage of 
bin Laden's family members back and forth between Pakistan/Afghanistan and 
Saudi Arabia. Zubaida was responsible for all terrorist operations outside 
Afghanistan from May 1996, including the 11 September attacks in the United 
States. The global network suffered its single biggest loss with the arrest 
of Zubaida: U.S. officials have described him as the "encyclopedia of 
Al-Qaeda"-possessing details of its money, overseas cells, and attack plans 
and agents. 

·   In addition to bin Laden and Zawahiri, survivors also include Rifa'i 
Ahmed Taha Musa, the head of a hard-line faction of the Egyptian Gama'a 
Islamiya and effective number three in Al-Qaeda, and about half the second 
tier of leadership. Overall, the losses are significant, but can be made up 
in time. 

Afghan focus

·   The principal current focus of the leadership seems to be a campaign in 
Afghanistan to harry U.S. forces there in the formative phase of what they 
intend to develop into a prolonged guerrilla campaign. As part of this 
strategy, bin Laden is keeping his remaining forces based in the Afghan 
theater rather than seeking to disperse them. Evidence has emerged since 
October of a disagreement between bin Laden and Zawahiri over this issue, 
with Zawahiri arguing that to avoid capture, fighters should disperse in 
order to fight another day. So far, bin Laden's view has prevailed. 

·   Other evidence of Al-Qaeda's current strategy can also be discerned. The 
fact that it is trying to associate itself with widespread sympathy for the 
Palestinian cause is demonstrated by the recent bomb attack by an Al-Qaeda 
front organization on an historic Jewish synagogue in Tunisia, and by last 
month's video which contains the "testimony" of one of the 11 September 
hijackers highlighting the Palestinian issue. The Tunisian attack, along with 
three attacks in Yemen and the bombing of French naval engineers in Karachi 
on 8 May, also shows that the network intends to make its presence felt. (The 
Tunisia bombing was organized by the same German cell which planned much of 
the 11 September attack). 

·   However, for the time being, while security alertness is high and 
Al-Qaeda's capacity to mount further attacks on strategic targets or multiple 
or centrally coordinated attacks is reduced, the network will focus on 
relatively small-scale operations against easy civilian targets (including 
synagogues and churches) at their own initiative, but under general 
instructions issued to the network by bin Laden after 11 September to widen 
the conflict from the Afghan theater.

Zawahiri strategy

·   Another priority is to mobilize wider support for Al-Qaeda's campaign in 
Afghanistan and against the U.S.-led war on terrorism elsewhere. To attract 
recruits and support, Al-Qaeda is highlighting the successful track record of 
the mujahideen against the Russians to present its ideology as capable of 
defeating a superpower. This and many other aspects of current thinking are 
found in Zawahiri's manuscript entitled "Knights under the Prophet's 
Banner-Meditations on the Jihadist Movement" which was written after 11 
September and smuggled out of Afghanistan in November. He emphasizes four 
points: 

·   [1] "Universality of the battle." Under this banner, Zawahiri is seeking 
to counter U.S. initiatives worldwide by expanding Al-Qaeda's existing 
alliance of "jihad movements" (i.e., terrorist groups). 

·   [2] Islamist parties. In view of the increased threat to jihad movements, 
he advocates enlisting the support of Islamist political parties to share the 
burden of mobilizing recruits and supporters for Al-Qaeda. 

·   [3] Recalcitrant allies. Zawahiri berates Islamist movements, such as 
Hamas, for their lack of "cooperation" in the aftermath of 11 September, 
accusing them of focusing on their own particular targets rather than on 
joining Al-Qaeda in targeting the United States. He places responsibility for 
this on their leadership and, couched in the rhetorical language of the whole 
document, in effect calls on members of Islamist groups to oust their leaders 
if they do not follow the Al-Qaeda line. 

·   [4] Change of tactics. In view of the increased international security 
awareness and Al-Qaeda's own depleted ranks, Zawahiri calls for a change in 
the method of strikes and the choice of targets, stressing the need to: [a] 
inflict maximum casualties, this being the only language understood by the 
West; [b] concentrate on martyrdom operations to inflict damage at the least 
cost in terms of Al-Qaeda casualties; and [c] make its presence felt with 
further operations against "soft targets" and particularly institutions which 
he says are used as weapons by Al-Qaeda's enemies in their "aggression 
against Islam," such as the United Nations, relief agencies, the media, data 
exchanges, and communications systems. 

·   Although most Islamist groups are domestic in scope and hence unlikely to 
follow Al-Qaeda's lead, a few-those most closely associated with 
Al-Qaeda-will. These include the foreign Islamist elements of the Chechen 
resistance; the European-based cells of the Algerian Salafist Group of 
Preaching and Combat; and the Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been operating in 
Singapore and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. 

No compromise

·   In contrast to other Islamist groups that have compromised in the past, 
either by giving up their struggle or joining mainstream politics, Al-Qaeda 
is likely to remain uncompromising, however many losses it suffers, 
particularly as long as bin Laden is its "emir" and Zawahiri its principal 
strategist. The death or capture of bin Laden, a charismatic leader and 
symbol of resistance, will break the momentum of its campaign. As such, 
international cooperation in the military and intelligence spheres, including 
targeting Al-Qaeda's leadership, will remain the principal weapon in the 
campaign against Al-Qaeda. 

Conclusion

·   Dispersed Al-Qaeda cells are likely to mount small-scale operations on 
their own initiative for the foreseeable future and against a wider range of 
targets than hitherto. The apprehension or death of bin Laden or Zawahiri 
would deal a huge blow to Al-Qaeda's effectiveness.


2. "Al-Qaeda Now: Is It behind the Newest Attacks Worldwide? How the Damaged 
Network May Be Plotting the Next Big One," by Michael Elliott, Time, 3 June 
2002 (http://www.time.com). We quote: 

·   . . . Terrorist communications, according to Francis X. Taylor, the State 
Department's counterterrorism coordinator, have reached levels "probably as 
high as they were last summer." Attacks continue. In April, a truck bomb-now 
thought to be the work of Islamic terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda, the 
network headed by Osama bin Laden-crashed into a synagogue in Djerba, 
Tunisia, killing nineteen, including fourteen German tourists. On 8 May, an 
apparent suicide bomber in Karachi, Pakistan, pulled his car up beside a 
military bus loaded with French contract workers, exploded the car and killed 
fourteen. 

[Al-Qaeda a continuing concern]
·   Those waiting nervously for a second Al-Qaeda attack on the United States 
may have forgotten: it already happened. Last December, shoe bomber Richard 
Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines plane over the Atlantic in an 
incident that investigators have long been convinced was an Al-Qaeda plot. 
Though that effort was foiled, the terrorists have not given up. "Just as a 
wounded animal is the most dangerous of all," Air Force General Richard 
Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week, "Al-Qaeda 
remains a real threat." 

·   . . . [We face] the spookiest possibility of all: that there could be 
another Al-Qaeda cell out there, just as good-just as quiet-as the one that 
mounted the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That's why 
assessing the capabilities of Al-Qaeda now is so important. Figuring out what 
Al-Qaeda can do-and stopping it-requires a mixture of military action and 
persistent shoe-leather work by cops. Since last fall, sixteen hundred 
suspected operatives of Al-Qaeda have been arrested in ninety-five countries. 
Sometimes you just have to wait. . . . 

·   [The State Department's Taylor believes that Al-Qaeda] has "two or three 
operations" in the planning stage. Some Al-Qaeda cells are sleepers, he 
figures, remaining inactive for long periods, while others will launch 
attacks without waiting for any go-ahead from a central authority. The 
Karachi bomb, in the words of a French official, was "opportunistic 
terrorism," targeting vulnerable Westerners where preparing an attack-and 
escaping the cops-is much easier than it would be in Europe or the United 
States. But operations that require higher authority can still get it. 

·   U.S. intelligence believes that bin Laden-along with his deputy, Ayman 
al-Zawahiri, the Dick Cheney of Al-Qaeda-is hiding in the mountains along the 
Afghanistan-Pakistan border and is still capable of getting messages out to 
followers. "They are spending a lot of time running and hiding," says a U.S. 
official, "but it doesn't take a lot of time to plot and scheme." 

[Responsibility for recent attacks]

·   It's the maddening fuzziness of the Islamic-extremist terrorist network 
that makes it so hard to tackle. Throwing the term Al-Qaeda like a blanket 
over all terrorist incidents can be misleading. "Who staged the Djerba 
attack?" asks a French justice official. "Who financed the Karachi bombing? 
All we know is that they were Islamic extremists bent on the same sort of 
violence. Some groups are part of Al-Qaeda, others associates of it. Still 
others are sympathetic fellow travelers." As if to confirm the analysis, 
Pakistani officials are cautious about ascribing the Karachi bomb to 
Al-Qaeda, though they acknowledge that local militant groups share informal 
links with bin Laden's organization. 

·   The Djerba-synagogue bomb seems a clearer case. Responsibility for the 
attack was claimed by the Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites, 
the same group that said it bombed the American embassies [in East Africa] in 
1998. Moreover, German police investigating the Djerba incident raided the 
Duisberg home of a Moroccan immigrant and found the telephone number of Ramzi 
Binalshibh. U.S. investigators think Binalshibh, who belonged to the Hamburg 
Al-Qaeda cell that masterminded the 11 September attacks, was intended to be 
on one of the planes that day. (He never managed to get a U.S. visa.) 
Binalshibh is thought to have left Europe for Pakistan last summer. 

[A weakened Al-Qaeda global network]

·   Why haven't there been more attacks like those in Karachi and Djerba? 
Partly because of the fighting in Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda had become a 
state within a state. A senior Italian investigator in Milan is explicit. 
"The war," he says, "has been a serious blow to the network here." Robbed of 
their central facilities in the Afghan camps, Italian cells have had to get 
by with less logistical support, like false documents and ready cash; 
communications have been hampered; and, crucially, key figures have been 
killed. 

·   Abdel Kader Es Sayed, an Egyptian-born terrorist who authorities say was 
placed in charge of Al-Qaeda's Italian operations in 2000, was reportedly 
killed in the American bombing campaign. So were at least two other members 
of the Al-Qaeda high command. Mohammed Atef, an Egyptian who was believed to 
be Al-Qaeda's top military commander, died in November, and Abu Jafar 
al-Jaziri, reputedly a logistics and operations chief, is thought to have 
been killed in January. 

·   Perhaps most significant of all, Abu Zubaida was captured in March after 
a gunfight in Faisalabad, Pakistan, at the end of a police raid. He had 
played key roles both in the camps and in running Al-Qaeda operations, and 
his arrest, says Roland Jacquard, a leading French expert on Islamic 
terrorism, was "an enormous, stupendous blow to Al-Qaeda." Abu Zubaida seems 
to have specialized in organizing Al-Qaeda operatives based in Europe and 
North America. Ahmed Ressam, the Montreal-based "millennium bomber" captured 
at the end of 1999 while attempting to cross from Canada into Washington 
state with explosives and bomb timers, testified that Abu Zubaida planned 
Al-Qaeda operations in the United States. . . . 

[Al-Qaeda regrouping and fighting on]

·   In Afghanistan the remaining Al-Qaeda fighters have split into small 
groups. Since March, when U.S. troops engaged a large Al-Qaeda force during 
Operation Anaconda, there have been few significant battles-and even in 
Anaconda the body count was far lower than the hundreds the Pentagon at first 
claimed to have killed. Three operations led by the British Royal Marines in 
eastern Afghanistan this spring ended without snaring the enemy. 
"Countrywide," says an intelligence source in Kabul, "it's probably safe to 
say there are no groups of armed Taliban and Al-Qaeda bigger than sixty." 

·   But that doesn't mean Al-Qaeda is finished. Abu Zubaida, some sources 
claim, has been replaced by Saif al-Adil, a former Egyptian army officer 
wanted in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings. Some fighters have 
doubtless slipped across the border and are trying to regroup in the tribal 
regions of Pakistan. President Pervez Musharraf has conceded that American 
communications experts are there helping Pakistani forces. 

·   Just as Afghan-based fighters may live to fight another day, so Al-Qaeda 
operatives in the West are regrouping. In Italy an investigator concedes, 
"We're finding new people and need to identify their roles." That puts 
gumshoes and prosecutors back in the front line. . . . 


3. Al-Qaeda's New Threat: Bin Laden's Network Is Broken, But the Terrorists 
Are Adapting-They're Looking for New Ways to Sow Chaos and War," by Michael 
Hirsh and Rod Nordland, Newsweek, 10 June 2002 (http://www.newsweek.com). 
We 
quote: 

[Al-Qaeda, Pakistan, and Kashmir]

·   . . . [Many] Taliban are now living comfortably in [Pakistan's] border 
cities of Peshawar and Quetta, and dozens of surviving Al-Qaeda operatives 
have infiltrated most major cities of Pakistan. The quicksilver flow of 
Al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives into Pakistan is the freshest evidence yet 
that the anti-terror campaign has entered a new phase. And that Americans may 
face a new kind of war: one in which Al-Qaeda, ever opportunistic even on the 
run, is changing its methods and seeking out new targets. Nuclear-armed 
Pakistan, for starters. All of a sudden, the hunt for terrorists has merged 
with the race to avert a major war in South Asia, one that could go nuclear 
if it happens. 

·   U.S. authorities are increasingly fearful that fleeing Al-Qaeda 
operatives and their Pakistani sympathizers, seething with vengeful thoughts, 
could spark the tinderbox tensions between Pakistan and India. . . . But 
Pakistan's junta-installed leader, Pervez Musharraf-who must balance powerful 
Islamic pressure groups with Western pressure to curb them-is letting many of 
the extremists go free. . . . 

·   U.S. officials insist that, as of now, little evidence exists that 
Al-Qaeda has a direct role in the Kashmir conflict. But the ties between 
Al-Qaeda and Kashmir Islamic militants run deep. . . . And in Pakistan . . . 
Musharraf is still hunting down hard-core Al-Qaeda terrorists, U.S. officials 
say. . . . But an administration official also said that the U.S. 
Government's ability to operate in the country remains constricted, 
especially as Pakistan prepares to shift some eight thousand troops from the 
anti-Al-Qaeda hunt to counter a 750,000-man Indian buildup along the border. 
The upshot is that, while terrorists can't operate as freely in Pakistan as 
they once did in Afghanistan, many may never be caught either. "I'm worried 
that Al-Qaeda makes Pakistan its new base," says a senior U.S. official. "And 
that has consequences for both Afghanistan and for terrorism globally." The 
immediate danger is an assassination attempt against Musharraf and a 
destabilization of his regime. The longer-term and even more dire threat is 
that terrorists could get their hands on Islamabad's nukes, especially in a 
war-devastated Pakistan. . . .  

[Al-Qaeda transforming itself around the globe]

·   It isn't just in Pakistan that Al-Qaeda is mutating into something new. 
Today counterterrorism authorities worldwide no longer confront a centrally 
operated "Terror Inc."; they face an even murkier network of enemies. 
Al-Qaeda survivors and sympathetic terrorists appear to be banding into 
smaller groups, acting largely on their own, animated only by a common hatred 
of America. 

·   The new focus is more localized: Pakistan; the U.S.-sponsored government 
in Afghanistan; or American bases, personnel, and buildings worldwide, 
depending on whatever opportunity arises. This is what Hans Beth, head of the 
anti-terror division of Germany's foreign intelligence service, calls "the 
new Al-Qaeda": a phenomenon more similar to the diffuse threat that existed 
before bin Laden turned terror into a globalized operation in the late-1990s. 


·   Typical of this transformation was the bombing of a synagogue on the 
Tunisian resort island of Djerba in April, in which fourteen German tourists 
and five others died. The attack, Beth says, suggests "a temporary change of 
strategy" for Al-Qaeda. Bin Laden's network is now focusing on what Beth 
calls "attacks of lesser complexity" like the grenade murder of five 
churchgoers in Islamabad, including two Americans; the killing of eleven 
French workers and two Pakistanis in Karachi, and what may have been an 
attempt on the U.S. Embassy in Rome in February.

·   Bin Laden may no longer be supplying directions and funding, but his 
ethos of enmity lives on. And while loose operatives may be somewhat less 
able to mount an 11 September-style attack-or, everyone's nightmare scenario, 
an atrocity involving weapons of mass destruction-the breakdown of the 
network has made already elusive terrorists even harder to track. . . . 

[Al-Qaeda's adaptability]

·   The change in tactics points up the terrorists' central characteristic: 
their fluid adaptability. In the past bin Laden acted like a venture 
capitalist, sending seed money, for instance, to Y2K plotters in Jordan who 
told him Jews and Americans were frequenting Amman. On the run (or perhaps 
dead), he's far less able to play that role: a similar plea by Singaporean 
terrorists to target buses carrying U.S. sailors went unanswered late last 
year. (U.S. investigators in Afghanistan found what seemed to be a videotaped 
"pitch" from Singaporean extremists in the ruined home of Muhammad Atef, bin 
Laden's No. 2, who was killed by U.S.-led air strikes outside the Afghan 
capital.)

·   As a result, despite the immediate threat to Pakistan, the next attack 
may even have little to do with Al-Qaeda itself. Even as Bush continues to 
publicly identify Al-Qaeda as the chief threat, in private U.S. officials are 
increasingly siding with intelligence officials who have long insisted that 
the number of sworn members of Al-Qaeda worldwide has been grossly 
exaggerated, and may be fewer than two hundred. In fact, most of the 
thousands of recruits who went through the Afghan training camps were 
would-be jihadis who wanted to help fight there, or to return to their 
domestic insurgencies. The new danger is that in a post-Al-Qaeda era, less 
identifiable groups will multiply beyond any accounting. 

·   Yet the new terror is not completely disorganized-nor can we ever return 
to a pre-bin Laden world. During his long run in Afghanistan, bin Laden and 
his minions planted seeds of knowledge-about bomb making, intelligence 
gathering, even the use of chemicals and poisons-to acolytes from around the 
globe. The terrorists also have intimate knowledge of U.S. security methods. 

·   . . . An American law enforcement alert, Newsweek has learned, notes that 
captured Al-Qaeda security manuals mirror to an unnerving degree the safety 
precautions taken for senior U.S. and foreign officials, including ambush 
evasion techniques for motorcades. "Al-Qaeda, as an organization, has been 
crippled," says a top Arab intelligence officer. "But there are still many 
mad operatives operating who will take matters in their own hands for 
revenge. When and where, I don't know." Nor does anybody else, perhaps not 
even Al-Qaeda.


4. "Missiles Smuggled into U.S.," by Bill Gertz, Washington Times, 31 May 
2002 (http://www.washingtontimes.com). 
We quote: 

·   The U.S. Government has alerted airlines and law enforcement agencies 
that new intelligence indicates that Islamic terrorists have smuggled 
shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles into the United States. Classified 
intelligence reports circulated among top Bush administration policymakers 
during the past two weeks identified the missiles as Russian-made SA-7 
surface-to-air missiles or U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles obtained 
covertly in Afghanistan, said intelligence officials who spoke on the 
condition of anonymity.

·   Authorities are looking for three types of "manpads," or man-portable, 
air-defense systems, including SA-7s and Stingers, the officials said. The 
SA-7s have a range of more than three miles and can hit aircraft flying at 
13,500 feet. Stinger missiles can hit aircraft flying at ten thousand feet 
and five miles away. . . . The officials said the warning is based on 
intelligence and not a specific threat that the missiles are in the United 
States. . . . 

·   Officials said the intelligence reports followed the discovery earlier 
this month of an empty SA-7 launcher near a desert base used by U.S. air 
forces in Saudi Arabia. The launcher was found by Saudi security police near 
Prince Sultan Air Base, near Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudis could not 
determine whether the launcher had fired a missile, and they destroyed it 
before U.S. military or intelligence officials could examine it. . . .


5. "Underwater Terrorist Attacks Feared," Geostrategy-Direct.com, 4 June 2002 
(http://www.geostrategy-direct.com). 
We quote: 

·   U.S. intelligence officials said several requests from a Middle Eastern 
country for underwater equipment and training prompted the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation (FBI) to alert the public last week to the possible threat of 
attacks carried out by scuba divers. Unidentified Middle Easterners made 
several telephone requests to a Seattle underwater supply company in the past 
several weeks. The callers sought to purchase specialized underwater 
equipment, including re-breathing apparatus and mini-submarines of the type 
used by U.S. special operations commandos, the officials said.

·   The company alerted the FBI to the requests that were suspicious because 
of the type of training requested, according to the officials. "Recent 
information has determined that various terrorist elements have sought to 
develop an offensive scuba diver capability," the FBI said in an information 
bulletin issued by its National Infrastructure Protection Center. "While 
there is no evidence of operational planning to utilize scuba divers to carry 
out attacks within the United States, there is a body of information showing 
the desire to obtain such capability," the FBI said. 

UNCLASSIFIED

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