CIA Chief: Al Qaeda Poised to Attack U.S.

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panettaAl Qaeda can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress today. The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including “clean” recruits with a negligible trail of terror contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al Qaeda is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.The annual assessment of the nation’s terror threats provided no startling new terror trends but amplified growing misgivings since the attempted Christmas Day airline attack outside Detroit, Michigan, that militants are growing harder to detect and moving more quickly in their plots.

“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect,” Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Several senators tangled over whether suspected terrorists should be tried in civilian or military court. At the same time, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation that would force the Obama administration to backtrack on its plans to try Sept. 11 defendants in federal court in New York and use military tribunals instead.

Panetta said the fear is al Qaeda is relying more and more on recruits with little training using simple devices, as in the attempted Christmas day attack, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Chip Reid.

Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: “It’s the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country,” he said.

The hearing comes just over a month since the failed attempt to bring down an airliner at Detroit, allegedly by a Nigerian suspect. The assessment also comes only a few months after U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan is accused of single-handedly attacking his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said with changes made since the Dec. 25 attack, U.S. intelligence would he able to identify and stop someone like the man alleged to be the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. He warned, however, that a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not have been detected.

FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the FBI’s handling of the Detroit incident, disputing assertions that agents short-circuited more intelligence insights from the Nigerian suspect by quickly providing him with his constitutionally guaranteed right to remain silent.

Mueller said that in “case after case,” terrorists have provided actionable intelligence even after they were given their rights and charged with crimes. Mueller said they know such cooperation can result in shorter sentences or other consideration from the government.

Law enforcement officials confirm to CBS News that the Nigerian suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, started talking again last week and is providing useful information.

Hundreds of terror suspects already have been convicted in civilian federal courts, including convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham offered a bill Tuesday that would prohibit the government from using Justice Department money to prosecute suspects charged in the Sept. 11 attack in civilian courts.

The move comes in the aftermath of the Obama administration’s decision to rethink whether it would try that attack’s alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in a New York City courtroom.

The proposed law would cover people who legally could be prosecuted by a military commission, applying to terror suspects who are not U.S. citizens. By Tuesday evening, the bill had support from 18 senators, mostly Republicans.

During the terror assessment hearing, Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become dynamic and malicious.

Obama has promised to make cybersecurity a priority in his administration, but the president’s new budget asks for a decrease in money for the Homeland Security Department’s cybersecurity division.

The government’s first quadrennial homeland security review states high consequence and large-scale cyberattacks could massively disable or hurt international financial, commercial and other infrastructure.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said these types of cyberattacks could cripple the movement of people and goods around the world and bring vital social and economic programs to a halt.

{CBS News/Noam Amdurski-Matzav.com Newscenter}


4 COMMENTS

  1. Instead of concentrating on national security with a tough no-nonsense policy targeting enemy combattants, Comrade Obama
    wastes time on an idiotic proposal to make the military legitimize sodomy. What’s wrong with him?

    Petition the Congress and tell them the people are against this lunacy.

    Remind this fellow that he’s not the president of Greenwich Village. In addition, he should allow CIA to use waterboarding if necessary to get information from the enemy.
    (My grandmother would have been a better president than this guy.)

    May HASHEM protect His people—
    Shomer Yisrael.

  2. I am not gonna worry my whole life about Cancer, Terrorisim and all the other stuff, when it happens it happens, I will just take it from there.

  3. Gratuitous worrying is of course not useful. Neither is foolish liberalism which the enemies of the free world, the enemies of America take advantage of.

    The enemies of America are not entitled to “Miranda” rights. There is no reason to have a liberal immigration policy allowing for the influx of millions of undocumented aliens—some of whom really want to harm this country.

    There is no reason to stage a grotesque jury trial for Islamist enemy combattants on American soil. What about security at our military bases? Foot Hood?
    That Jihad major must be given the death penalty. He murdered thirteen American soldiers in cold blood. (May that animal fry for eternity! My apologies to the animals.)
    Now, Obama wants to make toeivah
    behavior kosher in the US military. The guy is off his rocker.

    May God bless America!

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