Report says Al-Qaeda Still Aims to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction Against U.S.
Video: Security
WMD report gives government failing grade (Jan. 26, 2010) — A new report warns that the U.S. government is far behind in preparing for a biological or nuclear attack by terrorists. NBC’s Pete Williams reports. (01:50)
By Joby Warrick
January 26, 2010
Excerpts
When al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, called off a planned chemical attack on New York’s subway system in 2003, he offered a chilling explanation: The plot to unleash poison gas on New Yorkers was being dropped for “something better,” Zawahiri said in a message intercepted by U.S. eavesdroppers.
The meaning of Zawahiri’s cryptic threat remains unclear more than six years later, but a new report warns that al-Qaeda has not abandoned its goal of attacking the United States with a chemical, biological or even nuclear weapon.
The report, by a former senior CIA official who led the agency’s hunt for weapons of mass destruction, portrays al-Qaeda’s leaders as determined and patient, willing to wait for years to acquire the kind of weapons that could inflict widespread casualties.
The former official, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, draws on his knowledge of classified case files to argue that al-Qaeda has been far more sophisticated in its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction than is commonly believed, pursuing parallel paths to acquiring weapons and forging alliances with groups that can offer resources and expertise.
“If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in . . . small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now,” Mowatt-Larssen writes in a report released Monday by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The report comes as a panel on weapons of mass destruction appointed by Congress prepares to release a new assessment of the federal government’s preparedness for such an attack. The review by the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism is particularly critical of the Obama administration’s actions so far in hardening the country’s defenses against bioterrorism, according to two former government officials who have seen drafts of the report.
The commission’s initial report in December 2008 warned that a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction was likely by 2013.
Mowatt-Larssen, a 23-year CIA veteran, led the agency’s internal task force on al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and later was named director of intelligence and counterintelligence for the Energy Department. His report warns that bin Laden’s threat to attack the West with weapons of mass destruction is not “empty rhetoric” but a top strategic goal for an organization that seeks the economic ruin of the United States and its allies to hasten the overthrow of pro-Western governments in the Islamic world.
He cites patterns in al-Qaeda’s 15-year pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that reflect a deliberateness and sophistication in assembling the needed expertise and equipment.
He describes how Zawahiri hired two scientists — a Pakistani microbiologist sympathetic to al-Qaeda and a Malaysian army captain trained in the United States — to work separately on efforts to build a biological weapons lab and acquire deadly strains of anthrax bacteria. Al-Qaeda achieved both goals before September 2001 but apparently had not successfully weaponized the anthrax spores when the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan forced the scientists to flee, Mowatt-Larssen said. …
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Related reports on this site
Al-Qaida’s Next High-Value Target (Jan. 18, 2010)
Osama bin Laden Personality Profile (Dec. 6, 2009)
Ayman al-Zawahiri Personality Profile (June 3, 2009)
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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — January 26, 2009
Sheik Abdirahman Ahmed, of the Abubakar As-Saddique Islamic Center, in Minneapolis. (Photo credit: Matt Eich / Aurora for Newsweek)
Minnesota Somalis Jihad-Bound?
One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that counterterrorism officials and the FBI were investigating whether al-Shabab or other Somali Islamic groups were actively recruiting in the United States. Officials said as many as 20 Somali-Americans between the ages of 17 and 27 had left their Minneapolis homes since 2007, apparently bound for Somalia.
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