WASHINGTON - The al Qaeda terrorist network is still very much in existence and is probably planning new attacks against high-profile United States targets, including the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, says CIA director George Tenet.
Despite the rout of the Taleban regime in Afghanistan and the capture of 1000 suspected operatives in 60 countries, "I must repeat, al Qaeda has not been destroyed," Tenet told a Senate committee yesterday.
The group might attempt "unconventional" attacks, he said.
The greatest risk lay in a biological weapon attack, either to spread deadly disease, or by a campaign of agro-terrorism. But al Qaeda was also pursuing chemical and nuclear weapons.
Its abiding interest was to strike another blow in the US "which would command worldwide media attention."
Tenet's appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee was his first major public statement since September 11 - and he used it not only to outline the perils ahead, but to rebut stinging criticism of the entire US intelligence community for its inability to prevent the devastating attacks against New York and Washington.
"Is this a system designed to fail?" asked Republican Senator Richard Shelby, who in the days after September 11 demanded that Tenet be sacked for possibly the greatest intelligence failure in modern times.
"These attacks were so well-planned and so well-executed, why were we utterly unaware of September 11?"
Tenet replied that even before last May the CIA had generic warning of huge terrorist operations. It had prevented attacks on "three or four" US facilities abroad, but the agency never had what he termed "texture" on the US attacks.
"When people use the word 'failure', they mean a lack of focus, effort and strategy, but that wasn't us."
The shock at the CIA on September 11 was not that the attacks occurred, but where they occurred.
"Was there a specific piece of information? No. Did we know in broad terms that Osama bin Laden intended to attack us? Yes," Tenet declared.
He said the agency had picked up a drop in "operations tempo" by the terrorists in July and August, making it clear that an intended operation had been delayed."
But, he asked rhetorically, "where did the secret reside? Probably in the heads of just three or four people".
In the months since, the CIA had disrupted "numerous" terrorist attacks, claimed Tenet, arguing that the Bush Administration's decision to go into al Qaeda's sanctuary in Afghanistan had been the most significant blow against the terrorists.
"Osama bin Laden always believed we wouldn't do this, but we did," and "formidable" disruption had been achieved.
In other developments yesterday:
* A missile fired by remote control from a pilotless CIA drone aircraft has hit what was believed to be a group of senior al Qaeda members in southeastern Afghanistan, killing at least one of them.
The "predator" missile was fired at what was thought to be a senior al Qaeda official on Wednesday, said a US source.
Citing a high Pentagon source, CBS News reported that several senior leaders died when the missile hit the group near the Zawar Khili cave complex.
* The US military yesterday resumed controversial flights of heavily guarded al Qaeda and Taleban captives from Afghanistan to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A US official said the first flight of captives in more than two weeks had left Afghanistan and was to arrive at the isolated prison camp today.
The official did not say how many prisoners were on the flight.
* Indian police will visit Australia, Britain and the US to probe claims by an Indian man that al Qaeda planned suicide attacks in Britain, Australia and India as well as the US.
Indian officials said in December that a 26-year-old man arrested in Mumbai on suspicion of being linked with al Qaeda had confessed to being part of a plan to stage the suicide attacks after training as a pilot.
Chhagan Bhujbal, Home Minister of the western Indian state of Maharashtra, said the man was detained on October 2 and was still being held. No charges have been brought.
Bhujbal also said the man had told police that al Qaeda had set up four suicide squads.
These were to attack not only the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which were hit by hijacked planes on September 11, but also the British Parliament, the Indian Parliament and Australia's tallest building, the 55-storey Rialto Towers in Melbourne.
* American forces in Afghanistan have released 27 detainees captured in a US raid on January 23 after determining that they were not Taleban forces or linked to the al Qaeda network.
A spokesman for US Central Command in Florida said the detainees were released to Afghan Interim Authority officials in the southern town of Tarin Kowt.
The 27 detainees were part of a group picked up after a botched US raid on Hazer Qadam on January 23.
They had been kept in Kandahar.
- INDEPENDENT, REUTERS
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Al Qaeda still primed to attack: CIA
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