FBI seeks to unravel al-Qaeda plot

by Katherine Pfleger Shrader

THE detailed surveillance photos and documents that prompted higher terror warnings in the United States came largely from a young Pakistani computer engineer.

His capture has set Pakistani and US officials on a hunt for those planning to use the information.

In the 72 hours leading up to yesterday’s warning about new risks of terror attacks, senior officials pored over a wealth of detailed new information indicating al-Qaeda operatives were collecting chillingly detailed information about five financial services buildings in the United States.

The trove of hundreds of photos, sketches and written documents came to light as a result of Pakistan’s mid-July capture of alleged Muslim extremist Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, also known as Abu Talha.

Officials are now following investigative leads as they try to learn more about possible plots against the apparent targets: The Citigroup building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington and the Prudential Financial headquarters in Newark, New Jersey.

Today, a Pakistani intelligence official said Khan, a computer and communications expert who refused to say if he was part of al-Qaeda, sent messages to other suspected al-Qaeda members using code words - a practice typical of the international jihadist organisation that bedeviled US efforts to unravel the September 11, 2001, plot.

Khan’s information has been merged with other pieces of intelligence, including information gleaned after Pakistan’s arrest last month of a senior al-Qaeda operative named Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.

Emails that included plans for new attacks in Britain and the United States were found on the computer of the captured Ghailani, Pakistan’s information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said today.

But it was Khan’s information that was mostly behind the decision to raise the US Government’s terror alert for the financial services buildings.

The FBI is analysing information about the surveillance of the five buildings, obtained after Khan’s capture, to try to determine when it occurred.

Investigators wanted to review building logs or videos taken during that same period, said one senior law enforcement official.

Investigators hope that logs or video might help identify some of the people involved, which would help agents understand the breadth of the terror plot.

A counterterrorism official said authorities believed the surveillance was going on both before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks, based on clues within the documents, including descriptions of security indicative of practices used before the suicide hijackings.

The FBI is also trying to compare reports about the surveillance with previous intelligence reports that might have been considered innocuous or unconfirmed months ago.

One senior intelligence official said "a mosaic" of the plotters was slowly coming into focus. Still, officials have said the information that was uncovered did not reveal any specific cells or individuals in the United States now.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said government analysis indicated al-Qaeda would favour destroying the buildings, possibly using truck or car bombs. Such an attack is believed to be among the most difficult to defend against.

Mr Ridge had a list of theories on why such an attack had not yet happened in the United States. Perhaps terrorists were focusing on large-scale, mass-death events or perhaps it was harder to get explosives and attackers willing to die in America, he said.

Or: "Maybe we are just lucky."

The documents that were seized revealed that al-Qaeda was studying whether some explosive materials could melt the steel underpinnings of a building. They discussed what materials might heat to 1,480 degrees celsius, a senior intelligence official said yesterday.

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