Top Intelligence official warns Al Qaeda”s capability improving

By KUNA

Washington : The top US intelligence official warned on Tuesday that Al Qaeda is recruiting and training new operatives, improving its ability to attack inside the United States.


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“Al Qaeda is improving the last key aspect of its ability to attack the US, ” said Michael McConnell, director of National Intelligence who delivered an annual report on threats to the United States to lawmakers, before testifying on Capitol Hill.

According to the intelligence reports findings, the US intelligence has seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas of Pakistan since mid-2006.

In the report’s assessment, “Al Qaeda’s homeland plotting is likely to continue to focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets designed to produce mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and fear among the population”.

During his testimony, McConnell reported that Al Qaeda was losing “some luster in Iraq” but remained a “multifaceted terrorist threat”.

According to the report, Al Qaeda’s central leadership has been able to “regenerate the core operational capabilities needed to conduct attacks in the Homeland” in safe havens in tribal areas along Pakistan and Afghanistan border.

“I am increasingly concerned that as we inflict significant damage on Al Qaeda in Iraq, it may shift resources to mounting more attacks outside of Iraq, ” McConnell said.

But the report said that intelligence gathered from documents in Iraq suggested that fewer than 100 of Al-Qaeda militants had moved from Iraq to establish cells in other countries.
McConnell expressed concern that groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in Lebanon and in Northern African also posed threats to the US.

“Over the next year, attacks by homegrown extremists inspired by military Islamic ideology but without operational direction from al Qaeda will remain a threat to the United States or against US interests overseas,” McConnell said, adding “Our European allies regularly report uncovering new extremist networks in their countries”.

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