Al-Qaeda is planning new attacks on U. S. soil, according to a recently declassified report. The report names several terrorist organizations that “pose a persistent and evolving threat” to the U.S.

 

Officials who monitor various sources in order to make threat assessments have seen heightened reports of possible terrorist activity involving the U.S. In fact, a Web site based in Israel reports that al-Qaeda has forecast attacks in Miami, Los Angeles and New York. (It is no coincidence that these three cities house the largest Jewish populations in the U.S.) Just days ago, in fact, the city of New York suffered a major slowdown as radiological sites were set up in order to inspect vehicles capable of transporting radioactive cargo into the city. 

 

Was it a prank? If so, it still managed to disrupt life on the streets of the Big Apple. Said Randy Larsen, CBS News terrorism analyst, “It's a cheap way to disrupt us; life is going to be more difficult for residents of New York City today. Traffic will be more difficult. It's something for al Qaeda to do, even if they have no capability whatsoever.   Remember it's not a weapon of mass destruction, it’s a weapon of disruption."

 

The consensus is that worldwide counterterrorism efforts since 9/11 have hindered al-Qaeda’s ability to attack the U.S. mainland. However, National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) analysts are concerned that as we move farther away from the events of 9/11, international cooperation designed to minimize the threat level will decline …or vanish altogether. Al-Qaeda has targeted seven U.S. cities (including the three affected by the recent “dirty bomb” scare), and threatened to kill 3 to 5 million Americans, which has always been Osama bin Laden’s goal. 

 

When I interviewed James Woolsey, director of the CIA (1993-1995) for my book, The Final Move Beyond Iraq, I asked about the possibility of a “dirty bomb” being brought into this country. According to Woolsey, “You could hide one, say, in a bale of marijuana. There are all sorts of ways to get across our borders with fairly large things—both our southern border and our northern border and our coasts. The amount of nuclear material you need for a bomb is twenty-five to thirty-five pounds—about the size of a volleyball or maybe a basketball. But getting an Iranian set of fissionable material, and then assembling a bomb once you’ve got it into the country, could well be done once they have that kind of material. And they don’t need to make it themselves in order to have it.”

 

Former IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon told me that Iran would likely use proxies to deliver a “dirty bomb” as a means of distancing themselves from retaliation by either Israel or the U.S. This is already being done effectively in Lebanon through Hezbollah, in the PA through HAMAS, and in Iraq through Moqtada Al Sadr’s 60,000 strong Mahdi Army. Ya’alon said the resulting casualties from a proxy-delivered “dirty bomb” could well be in the hundreds of thousands, depending on the quality of the materials used in a “dirty bomb.” 

 

Iran hopes to keep the international community at bay long enough to develop its own small nuclear arsenal—and once that is done, all previous bets will be off. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be within one strike of doing what he has claimed for years ought to be done: wiping Israel “off the map” as the first step toward the world he envisions as ideal—a world without Zionism and America. Iran has, in fact, now passed the 3000 mark in the number of centrifuges it possesses – enough to enrich uranium - and is well on its way to having 8000 by the end of 2007. 

 

While al-Qaeda in Iraq has been responsible for the deaths of American troops in Iraq, it has not posed a direct threat to the U.S. mainland since 9/11. A report released by the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on threats to the U.S. states, “…al-Qaeda will probably seek to leverage the contacts and capabilities of al-Qaeda in Iraq, its most visible and capable affiliate and the only one known to have expressed a desire to attack the [U.S.].” 

 

Since being routed from Afghanistan following 9/11, al-Qaeda has been well-schooled in the use of IEDs (improvised explosive devices), conventional small arms, and in the ways and means to slip through security nets. Neither has the group given up on obtaining chemical, biological or nuclear weapons; nor would they have any hesitation to use such weapons.