WASHINGTON ø The leadership of the U.S. intelligence community testified Tuesday that the central leadership of Al
Qaida has been demolished but that their determination to destroy targets in the United States has not wavered.
"There are strong indications that Al Qaida will revisit missed targets until they succeed such as they did the
World Trade Center," FBI director Robert Mueller said. "And the list of missed targets now includes both the White House as well as the Capitol," Mueller told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
CIA Director George Tenet said that over the last year autonomous cells have
launched attacks in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
and Turkey. But Tenet stressed Al Qaida's goal is to strike the United
States, including with weapons of mass destruction.
He said that more than
24 terrorist groups were pursuing chemical, biological and radiological and
nuclear weapons, Middle East Newsline reported.
"Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of 9/11 remain within Al Qaida's
reach. Make no mistake, these plots are hatched abroad, but they target U.S.
soil and those of our allies."
Al Qaida-inspired insurgents have carried out the most lethal attacks
against coalition forces and their allies in Iraq, the U.S. intelligence
community has determined. The community believes that Iraq has become the
new training ground for Islamic insurgency groups.
"Left unchecked, Iraq has the potential to serve as a training ground
for the next generation of terrorists," Defense Intelligence Agency director
Adm. Lowell Jacoby told the committee.
"A number of factors virtually assure
a terrorist threat for years to come. Despite recent reforms, terrorist
organizations draw from societies with poor or failing economies,
ineffective governments and inadequate education systems."
In an updated assessment of the organization, the intelligence community
has determined that Al Qaida has relinquished its control over many Islamic
insurgency groups. Instead, Al Qaida permits its satellite organizations to
designate targets and plan attacks.
"These far-flung groups increasingly set the agenda, and are redefining
the threat we face," Tenet said. "They are not all
creatures of Bin Laden, and so their fate is not tied to his. They have
autonomous leadership, they pick their own targets, they plan their own
attacks."
In testimony to the Committee, Tenet said
the Al Qaida network contains dozens of Sunni groups. Tenet cited Ansar Al
Islam in Iraq the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan and Salifiya Jihadiya in Morocco.
"Local Al Qaida cells are forced to make their own decisions because of
disarray in the central leadership," Tenet said.
"Over the past 18 months, we have killed or captured key Al Qaida leaders in
every significant operational area ø logistics, planning, finance,
training ø and have eroded the key pillars of the organization, such as the
leadership in Pakistani urban areas and operational cells in the Al Qaida
heartland of Saudi Arabia and Yemen."
"The steady growth of Osama Bin Laden's anti-American sentiment through
the wider Sunni extremist movement and the broad dissemination of Al Qaida's
destructive expertise ensure that a serious threat will remain for the
foreseeable future, with or without Al Qaida in the picture," Tenet added.
Jacoby expressed concern that U.S. partners in the war against Al
Qaida ø particularly those in the Middle East ø might be unable to
withstand growing domestic opposition. He said the death or overthrow of a
key pro-American leader in the Arab world could hurt the coalition. In
previous testimony, Tenet cited Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Saudi
Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as those who have cooperated with the
United States.
"Many of our partners successfully weathered domestic stresses during
Operation Iraqi Freedom," Jacoby said. "However, challenges to their
stability and their continued support for the war on terrorism remain.
Islamic and Arab populations are increasingly opposed to U.S. policies. The
loss of a key leader could quickly change government support for U.S. and
coalition operations."
