WASHINGTON — Intelligence seized from Osama bin Laden's compound in Pakistan
showed his Al-Qaeda network pondered strikes on US trains on the 10th
anniversary of the September 11 attacks, US officials said Thursday.
As of February 2010, Al-Qaeda "was allegedly contemplating conducting an
operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the
10th anniversary of September 11, 2001," the US Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) advised law enforcement agencies in a bulletin obtained by AFP.
A source said the warning arose from intelligence seized in a daring raid on
bin Laden's fortified compound in which elite US commandos shot dead the
terrorist mastermind and gathered computer hardware and other material.
The official message noted that it was based on "initial reporting" and
warned that such information "is often misleading or inaccurate due to a rapidly
developing situation and is subject to change."
"While it is clear there was some level of planning, we have no recent
information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no
information on possible locations or specific targets," the bulletin said.
Al-Qaeda "was looking into trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails
so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or a bridge,"
according to the department.
The terror network "noted that an attack from tilting the train would only
succeed one time because the tilting would be spotted."
Al-Qaeda "also noted that newer train cars each have their own braking
system, and that movement in a specific direction would derail it, but would not
cause it to fall off the track," it said.
The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was to warn "rail sector
stakeholders" soon, the bulletin said.
A DHS spokesman, Matthew Chandler, emphasized in a statement that the
department had "no information of any imminent terrorist threat to the US rail
sector."
"It is unclear if any further planning has been conducted since February of
last year," Chandler said, adding that the US government was "at a heightened
state of vigilance" but would not issue a new terrorism alert.
But Chandler also said that the department and its partners in US law
enforcement had taken protective steps since the Sunday raid that left the
world's most hunted man dead and a treasure trove of his secrets in US
hands.
John Pistole, head of the Transportation Security Administration, said there
was "no specific threat to mass transit right now."
"The bottom line is that we are concerned today, we were concerned yesterday,
and we will be tomorrow," he told lawmakers.
Officials have been reviewing protective measures for all potential terrorist
targets, including critical infrastructure and transportation systems
nationwide, deploying additional officers to public areas of US airports, and
looking for ways to improve the security of air passengers and cargo, he
said.
The new warning, which had the effect of emphasizing that bin Laden seemed to
be still integral to Al-Qaeda's operational planning as of February 2010, came
as US officials pored over the fugitive's seized files.
Experts believed the material -- including about five computers, 10 hard
drives and 100 storage devices -- could prove invaluable to deal further blows
to Al-Qaeda 10 years after the deadly attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
US officials said a task force of experts from the Central Intelligence
Agency, the National Security Agency, the Justice Department and other agencies
had begun scouring the material, in a task that would last months and possibly
years.
The initial search will focus on "detecting ongoing threats" and information
pointing to "other high-value targets within Al-Qaeda," Michael Leiter, head of
the National Counter-terrorism Center, told National Public Radio. AFP
