WASHINGTON, Feb. 11, 2008
Al Qaeda's New Face Of Terror: American?
Top Counter-Terrorism Official At FBI Tells CBS News Next Attack On U.S. Could Be Carried Out By Americans
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Play CBS Video Video Fear Of Domestic Terrorists U.S. officials are concerned that al Qaeda is training Americans to carry out the next attack on the domestic front. Bob Orr reports.
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Video Al Qaeda Looks West To Recruit "Only On The Web": Bob Orr speaks with Philip Mudd, Deputy Director of the FBI's National Security Branch, about Western operatives sought by al Qaeda who can move easily within the U.S. and Europe.
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Interactive Assault On Al Qaeda The manhunt on the Afghan-Pakistan border.
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Interactive Bin Laden & Al Qaeda Where al Qaeda operates, who's been caught, how they're financed and a timeline of attacks on Americans.
Arrests last month in Barcelona underline the fear. More than a dozen trained suicide bombers - many of them European citizens just back from Pakistan - were taken down as they prepared to launch attacks against transit systems in Spain and four neighboring countries.
"They've realized that if they want to operate successfully, they need to have people who look like us, act like us, and are very difficult to find," said Philip Mudd, a top counter-terrorism official at the FBI.
Is al Qaeda actively looking for American or Western recruits?
"Whether it's Americans or whether it's people who can launch from Europe, because they have visas or passports that allow them to travel to the United States, they are looking for people who can operate in the West," Mudd said.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Mudd said intelligence has tracked Western recruits to small training centers in Pakistan's rugged tribal region.
Many of the recruits are European citizens of Pakistani descent raised in London, Berlin, and Madrid - but drawn to the radical Islamic movement. And there have been a few Americans. Among them is convicted terrorist Jose Padilla, who grew up in Chicago, and Adam Gadahn from California, who is now a leading voice in al Qaeda's propaganda.
Unlike the large-military style camps al Qaeda used in Afghanistan before 9/11, the new training is being done in small groups, specifically tailored to Western recruits plotting strikes against Europe and the U.S.
"There is a different kind of person who is going to come to Western Europe, and they don't necessarily need paramilitary training; you might simply be talking about how do you build a small device that you could put in a back pack so you could take it on a train," Mudd said.
The transit bombers who hit London in 2005 were trained in Pakistan. So, too, were al Qaeda recruits arrested a year later in a plot to blow up passenger jets over the Atlantic.
But, officials warn the U.S. remains al Qaeda's top target.
"The purpose of the recruitment is to train people in weapons of mass destruction and then get them back into the United States," said Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell.
Understanding al Qaeda's new tactics offers a first line of defense. But the real security challenge, at the airport or the border, may be finding the terrorists - if they look like us.
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Add a Comment See all 344 Comments
- I find Philip Mudd''s comments, "They''ve realized that if they want to operate successfully, they need to have people who look like us, act like us, and are very difficult to find," racist!
Seriously... I wish top counter-terrorism officials at the FBI would think before they comment... - Reply to this comment
- Terrorist and president of the United States are presently synonymous. Sad!
- Reply to this comment
- Obama''''s answer to McCain-Train
McCain Train???
This train''s got no brakes--run em all down, women,. children the elderly--no matter we''ll "git" em all!!!
Peace?? Who wants peace when we can be in a never ending killing spree? What are we killing for? I ferget---legal? who cares?
"Ain''t" nuthin gonna stop this train of carnage--guilty or innocent--we gonna git em all--100 years?? No matter!
Yeah--right! - Reply to this comment
- Al Queda???
Amerika is the only real world terroist, thanks to GW Bush and his conservative criminals, and their immoral agenda. christians indeed!
who else continues to invade and threaten defenseless countries? - Reply to this comment
- Be afraid, be VERY afraid. Terrorists are everywhere. They could be your neighbor, or your friend, maybe even a family member, your dog, or maybe it''s YOU!!! Let the witch, I mean commy, I mean terrorist hunt begin.
Maybe they''re in the White House and Senate already. - Reply to this comment
- Posted by liberalme at 02:18 PM : Feb 12, 2008
Oh absolutely :) - Reply to this comment
- have a question that may seem a little bit silly, so please forgive, but... if you''''''''re not necessarily a conservative, and definitely not a liberal---what are you?
Posted by LadyJaneG at 01:57 PM : Feb 12, 2008
Confused - Reply to this comment
- Thank you for answering and not yelling, sweetheart :)
- Reply to this comment
- I have a question that may seem a little bit silly, so please forgive, but... if you''''re not necessarily a conservative, and definitely not a liberal---what are you?
Posted by LadyJaneG at 01:57 PM : Feb 12, 2008
A conservative.
Actually, almost everyone is a conservative. Some are wishing to conserve fascist values and some are wishing to conserve communist values and some are wishing to conserve comic values.
But everybody wants to conserve something. - Reply to this comment
- I have a question that may seem a little bit silly, so please forgive, but... if you''re not necessarily a conservative, and definitely not a liberal---what are you?
- Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
