Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the United
States in the next three to six months, senior US
intelligence officials told Congress today.
The terrorist organisation is deploying operatives to the
United States to carry out new attacks from inside the
country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail
of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said.
Al-Qaida 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
concerns since the Christmas Day airline attack in Detroit
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-Qaida is adapting its methods in
ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta
told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Al-Qaida is increasingly relying on new recruits with minimal
training and simple devices to carry out attacks, the CIA
chief said as part of the annual assessment of national
threats provided to Congress by the top five US intelligence
officials.
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."
The hearing comes just over a month since a failed attempt to
bring down an airliner in Detroit by a Nigerian suspect.
The assessment follows only a few months since US Army Maj.
Nidal Hassan is accused of single-handedly attacking his
fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.
Director of National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair
described Hassan as homegrown extremist. He also said that
al-Qaida can be expected to continue and try to attack the
United States until Osama bin Laden and his No. 2, Ayman
al-Zawahri, are dead.
The US still does not know the intended targets of suspected
terrorist Najibullah Zazi, who was arrested in September and
charged with plotting to attack New York City with homemade
bombs, Blair said.
He warned as well of a growing cyber threat, saying
computer-related attacks have become dynamic and malicious.
Obama has promised to make cyber security a priority in his
administration, but the president's new budget asks for a
decrease in funds 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 physical 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.
