Task Force Set Up to Ferret Out Plans for Terrorist Attack in U.S.

By Richard B. Schmitt and Josh Meyer

May 27, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON —

The Justice Department and the FBI said Wednesday that they were launching an initiative to root out a possible terrorist attack in the U.S. this summer, citing vague but “credible” intelligence that Al Qaeda was close to making good on its vow to strike American soil again.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III said they were launching a round of interviews around the country aimed at developing further intelligence about possible attacks and setting up a special summer task force to coordinate the overall effort.

They also appealed to the public for help in locating six previously identified people who they said had terrorist leanings, and revealed that they had commenced a manhunt for a seventh -- a California native, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Adam Pearlman.

The FBI described Gadahn, 25, as an associate of a former top Al Qaeda lieutenant, Abu Zubeida, who was linked to a plot by a group of Algerians to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in December 1999. Zubeida is in U.S. custody.

Mueller and Ashcroft declined to speculate on the whereabouts of any of the people but said they should be considered armed and dangerous. “They all pose a clear and present danger to America,” Ashcroft said.

Gadahn, the new name on the list, was described by Mueller as having attended Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and as having served as a translator to the terrorist network.

Laura Bosley, an FBI spokeswoman in Los Angeles, said Gadahn was last believed to be in the U.S. in the late 1990s.

At the news conference, Ashcroft and Mueller said the round of interviews would be fashioned after an FBI-led interview program that was launched before the war in Iraq. Those interviews focused on Muslim neighborhoods, and raised concerns that people were being unfairly targeted, although Ashcroft said the exercise produced valuable intelligence that “protected American lives.”

Details of the latest program haven’t been worked out, the officials said, but Mueller said the interviews would be “driven by intelligence,” as opposed to targeting a particular group.

Ashcroft said the new Threat Task Force would focus on the potential threat over the summer and fall, coordinating intelligence, analysis and field operations. An FBI official said the composition of the panel had not yet been decided.

The moves were driven by what the officials said was a troubling flow of new intelligence indicating that Al Qaeda was in the final stages of preparing an attack. They also reiterated concerns that the national political conventions this summer, among other upcoming high-profile events, posed inviting and worrisome targets for terrorism.

But officials also said they had no information indicating the timing, location or methods of any anticipated attacks.

And the Department of Homeland Security said it had no plans to raise the national threat level, which has been at yellow, or “elevated” -- the midpoint of a five-level scale -- since January, because there was no information pointing to an imminent attack.

Some Democrats in Congress, and union supporters of presidential candidate Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, said the timing of the threat report might have been intended to distract attention from the deteriorating situation in Iraq.

But White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan denied that politics was involved. “The president believes it’s very important to share information appropriately,” McClellan said. “We do that in a number of ways when it comes to looking at the threats we face here in the homeland.”

Ashcroft said the intelligence, along with other factors, pointed to a potentially dangerous season that required renewed public vigilance and stepped-up law enforcement oversight.

“This disturbing intelligence indicates Al Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard,” Ashcroft told reporters, citing “credible intelligence from multiple sources” that terrorists planned to attempt an attack in the next few months.

Several U.S. officials have said recently that they had received a steady influx of generalized but solid intelligence showing that Al Qaeda remained determined to have operatives infiltrate the United States and launch strikes on U.S. soil.

Many of those bits of intelligence have been unrelated. Some have indicated that the terrorist organization would like to time an attack to coincide with one of the political conventions, the Group of Eight summit in Georgia in June or other symbolic events to reassert its influence on the world stage.

While Ashcroft and Mueller said they had no intelligence on a specific time or place of an attack, authorities have intercepted a stream of “linked” intelligence that points to one particular attack on a massive scale, according to one just-retired senior federal law enforcement official who is familiar with the current intelligence.

“There are some pretty credible threats, one in particular,” said the former official, who spoke on the condition he not be identified.

He said much of that intelligence had come in recent months from intercepts of communications from one particular country, and that it was eerily similar to intelligence chatter just before Sept. 11, 2001, in which unidentified operatives spoke in expectant tones about some huge and imminent event.

Some of the linked intelligence points to a major attack on a choke point in the rail system somewhere along the Northeast corridor, from New York to Washington, and perhaps Boston to the north, said the former official. In response, the FBI and other agencies have deployed large numbers of agents to conduct surveillance on Amtrak and other rail lines, which in turn has led to additional concerns, said the former official and several current counterterrorism authorities.

Among the alleged Al Qaeda operatives identified by Ashcroft and Mueller on Wednesday, investigators have voiced particular interest in Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, who reported to Al Qaeda chieftain Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and traveled widely in the United States.

Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, has been in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location overseas.

In interviews, senior FBI officials have described Shukrijumah as being adept at infiltrating the United States and roaming freely, given his fluency in English and his familiarity with Western culture.

“The concern was always that he would come back into the U.S.,” said the former federal official. He said authorities believed Shukrijumah was a bomb expert who also had leadership skills similar to those of Sept. 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta.

The five others named at Wednesday’s news conference include fugitives Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who were indicted in New York in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The list also includes two people with Canadian passports -- Amer El-Maati, a licensed pilot who authorities say discussed hijacking a plane in Canada and flying it into a U.S. building, and Abderraouf Jdey, who appears in a martyrdom video that was seized in Afghanistan and reportedly was once pegged by Al Qaeda to receive flight training for a second U.S. attack.

The final person, Aafia Siddiqui, is a suspected Al Qaeda operative and facilitator who attended colleges in the Boston area, and has been associated with Shukrijumah.

At the news conference, Mueller said, “each of these individuals is known to have a desire and the ability to undertake planning, facilitation and attack against the United States.”

Ashcroft also cited the fact that several had lived and studied in the U.S., spoke English and “understand the country well. Those are very important things.”

Ashcroft also warned that “the face of Al Qaeda may be changing,” and that the terrorist network may be trying to infiltrate young Middle Eastern extremists into the United States by having them travel with a family or use other covers to lower their profiles.

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report from Los Angeles.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Wanted in war on terrorism

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III asked for help tracking down seven people thought to be associated with Al Qaeda. Each is wanted in connection with possible threats against the United States at home and abroad. The suspects are listed with dates of birth used by the individuals and their country of origin.

Adnan G.

El Shukrijumah

Aug. 4, 1975

Saudi Arabia

* English-speaking; carries a Guyanese passport; former Miami-area resident.

Aafia Siddiqui

March 2, 1972

Pakistan

* Al Qaeda operative and facilitator; attended colleges in Boston; thought to be in Pakistan.

Fazul Abdullah Mohammed

Aug. 25, 1972; Dec. 25, 1974; Feb. 25, 1974

Comoros Islands