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Captured Al Qaeda Leader Gives U.S. Insight Into Plans
A senior al Qaeda leader captured last month is disclosing valuable information that has enabled interrogators to link him to more than a dozen terrorist operations against U.S. and Western targets, U.S. intelligence officials say. After weeks of questioning Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, counterterrorism officials at the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies believe they have disrupted his network of supporters in Persian Gulf countries, his main area of operations. Several terrorist attacks may have been prevented due to recent arrests of Mr. Nashiri's associates in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, according to the officials. A U.S. intelligence report on Mr. Nashiri's interrogation concludes that it has enabled antiterrorism investigators to "significantly disrupt terrorist planning around the Arabian Peninsula." Saudi Arabian security officials have been involved in helping to round up Mr. Nashiri's supporters, officials said.Why do I not have a lot of faith in Saudi security officials? The officials wouldn't describe the attacks that Mr. Nashiri, who is a Saudi in his mid-30s, and his supporters were believed to have been planning. But they said almost all involved attacks on ships or ports or other maritime targets. "He is talking about his maritime operations," said a U.S. intelligence official. Pentagon officials are particularly pleased about the intelligence haul as they prepare for the possibility of military action in Iraq. That would require a significantly expanded U.S. naval presence in the Persian Gulf, and the disruption of Mr. Nashiri's cells significantly lessens the chance of terrorist attacks against U.S. military targets. Mr. Nashiri also is linked to plans to bomb the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, a plot revealed in January by another top al Qaeda operative captured by Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan, officials said. This guy specialized in maritime targets. U.S. officials have been surprised at Mr. Nashiri's willingness to talk, although they wouldn't say whether he was providing information willingly, if the disclosures have been coaxed out of him, or whether he had made them inadvertently. 100 proof giggle juice. But one official said interrogators had gained a good picture of "the current operations he had in the works, his tactics, and procedures." Among the more than a dozen plots now linked to Mr. Nashiri, investigators have uncovered evidence that he was responsible for coordinating the suicide attack on a French-owned oil tanker off Yemen's coast in October. They also say they now are confident he played a role in a plot to infiltrate several Saudis into Morocco for the purpose of mounting similar operations against U.S. warships and other ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar. Before his interrogation, there was no firm evidence of his involvement in either plot, officials said. This will help in the Moroccan trials. In addition to disclosures by Mr. Nashiri himself, the officials said they had uncovered leads from a computer hard drive and a cellphone in his possession when he was arrested in an undisclosed foreign country earlier last month. We never did find out where they bagged him. Nice that they are so fond of cell phones and laptops. I would of thought they might of learned that lesson by now. He initially was held by the U.S. in Afghanistan, then transferred to an undisclosed location for interrogation, U.S. officials said. "Welcome to Truncheon Island!" Posted by: Steve 2002-12-09 |
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