Qaeda captives stir concern on new strike

From The International Herald Tribune

Al Qaeda members captured in recent weeks in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan have provided important information about a possible impending terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, according to senior American intelligence officials.
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The interrogations of the Al Qaeda members have been a major factor in raising American concerns about a possible attack to a level not seen since Sept. 11, 2001, the intelligence officials said. They added that the captured Al Qaeda members had provided clues that traced planning for a major attack back to the group’s central leadership, including Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
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‘‘We don’t have specificity to exact time, place or location,’’ a senior intelligence official said. ‘‘But it’s more than just them saying generally that there’s something coming,’’ a senior intelligence official said.
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American officials have warned for the last two weeks about such an attack but have refused to describe the source of their information.
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But with the release of the report by the Sept. 11 commission, the officials said they wanted to be as precise as possible about the foundation for the current concern.
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‘‘I wouldn’t characterize what we have now as chatter,’’ a senior CIA official said. ‘‘I think we have some fairly specific information that Al Qaeda wants to come after us.’’

.The CIA official, a counterterrorism expert, added: ‘‘This is serious.’’
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Two counterterrorism officials based in Europe said that an intelligence breakthrough pointing to such a renewed threat had come about six weeks ago.
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The officials suggested that the information was based both on human and technical intelligence, but they refused to be more specific. A third intelligence official said that the recent interrogations of Al Qaeda members had provided important leads.
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Compared with that period, other intelligence officials said, current intelligence-gathering has not found as many intercepted communications suggesting that an attack might be imminent.
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But the intelligence officials say that the current information has been specific, consistent and solid, and comes from multiple sources. They declined to identify the captured Al Qaeda members who have provided the most important information, but said they regarded it as credible. They said it had led them to believe that bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, regarded possible operations in the United States as falling very much under their authority.
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