Steve Quayle News Alerts

September 24, 2002

American Taliban John Walker Lindh has told FBI interrogators that Osama bin Laden had planned a three-phase attack on America and its allies and dispatched 50 al-Qaeda members on suicide missions the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks, it was reported yesterday.

The attacks on New York and Washington in which airliners were flown into buildings was only the first phase, The Sunday Times of London reported.

Lindh asserted that a senior al-Qaeda commander told him the second phase would be even worse and would make the U.S. ``forget about the first attack,'' and the third would ``finish America.''

The newspaper cited FBI records of Lindh's statements to an FBI special agent and military personnel in Afghanistan last December, and said he told of the ``chilling extent'' of al-Qaeda's training of would-be terrorists from across the globe.

He told interrogators that numerous foreign recruits, including Britons and Australians, were asked whether they would undertake operations against America and Israel.

The newspaper also said Lindh described in detail how al-Qaeda:

* Trained recruits in the use of sophisticated weapons, explosives, forgery and disguise.
* Gave courses on how to carry out assassinations, including shootings from motorcycles.
* Gave training in the use of ``poisons.'' Al-Qaeda is known to have experimented with chemical weapons, including sarin and cyanide.
* Drilled trainees in the fighting techniques and physical endurance associated with special forces.

Justice Department officials have warned that dozens of sleeper cells, with hundreds of members, may be quietly plotting the next attack from within our border, and Newsweek magazine reports today that Attorney General John Ashcroft has vowed to root them out - even if that means stretching the limits of the law.

``We don't have the luxury to take chances,'' a source close to Ashcroft told the magazine. ``If we could have locked up Mohamed Atta before 9-11 do you think people would criticize us? We're going to do whatever we have to do to hold them until we find who they really are.''

The government claims the six men of Yemeni descent who were arrested in Lackawanna, N.Y., on suspicion of being a sleeper cell for bin Laden's terror network were trained in an Afghan camp in the spring of 2001.

There, they were taught how to fire machineguns, attended a fiery anti-American speech by bin Laden and then, the government claims, returned home to Lackawanna to await orders from the terrorist mastermind.

But the magazine is reporting in its latest issue which is on newsstands today that prosecutors are feeling ``a little bit of nervousness'' about their case against these men.

The prosecutors have admitted that they have no evidence that the men were about to carry out any imminent terrorist strikes.

And privately, justice officials told the magazine they realize that arresting suspected terrorists before there's evidence of a crime could put them on shaky legal footing.

``We're paving some new ground so there's a little bit of nervousness about the case,'' said one law enforcement official. ``You want to keep an investigation going as long as you can identify all the conspirators. But you don't want to wait until disaster strikes.''

They claimed one of the men, Mukhtar Albakri, 22, who was arrested in Bahrain, sent a cryptic email to a friend hinting of a future attack.

A ``big meal''' was coming he wrote. ``No one will be able to withstand it, except people of faith.''

The feds say it was possible evidence of a coming attack and Albakri's lawyer claims the ``big meal'' was actually a warning about a rumored attack in Afghanistan.

FBI sources told Time magazine that agents are being dispatched to Yemen to try to apprehend two additional members of the alleged Lackawanna al-Qaeda cell.

The developments came as Congress was about to debate U.S. action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Lawmakers predicted yesterday that Congress would scale down President Bush's request for a mandate to restore regional security in the Mideast to address just Iraq, and would pass a resolution backing the president's decision take on Saddam Hussein.

http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/national/natl09232002.htm