Why US sees Al Qaeda as a growing threat
With a haven in Pakistan, the terror group is boosting funding and training, US agencies say.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the July 17, 2007 edition
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Washington - Why are administration officials increasingly worried that Al Qaeda might soon attack the US? Part of the answer may lie halfway around the world, in the wild terrain of northwestern Pakistan.
Washington's intelligence and security agencies say they've watched with increasing frustration in recent months as Al Qaeda's central leadership has reestablished core functions in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Al Qaeda now seems well settled in a haven in this remote, lightly governed area, say US officials. It's begun to conduct more terrorist training. The flow of money and communications to and from Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants appears to have increased.
In short, say US officials, Al Qaeda again has a headquarters, one of the main elements necessary for it to direct operations on US soil.
"We actually see Al Qaeda central being resurgent in their role in planning operations ... We see that activity rising," said John Kringen, the Central Intelligence Agency's director for intelligence, at a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week.
In recent weeks a chorus of US officials have talked publicly about their concern that Al Qaeda is reemerging as a threat to the US. On July 15, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in a broadcast interview said that recently he had seen some terrorism developments that are a "source of concern." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff previously have issued similar warnings.
US intelligence agencies are scheduled to send Congress a new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the terrorist threat this week. The administration may issue an unclassified summary of the NIE within days.
Some critics complain that the warnings are exaggerated.
John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor of security studies, has long argued that one reason there have been no terror attacks on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001, is that there are no effective terrorist cells here, and that the media, the administration, and security contractors all have a vested interest in exaggerating the threat.
Some Democratic lawmakers say the warnings prove what they've said all along, that the central front on the war on terror is along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, not in Iraq. The US should have pursued Osama bin Laden, not Saddam Hussein, they say.
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