WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 (UPI) -- New information retrieved from al-Qaida operatives has led U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials to believe that the dangerous network continues to develop despite concerted international efforts to uproot it.
The latest evidence of al-Qaida's strength, discovered recently in Pakistan, led U.S. authorities to declare a high-risk security alert in New York and Washington.
In Pakistan, where an al-Qaida affiliate Saturday promised "more painful blows if you continue to follow that low-life Bush," officials are warning people to watch their backs when visiting mosques for weekly prayers.
Sunday's orange alert in the United States followed the discovery of sensitive data from an al-Qaida computer in Pakistan, detailing the operational procedures of the organization and some of its future plans. Documents recovered from another al-Qaida operative, also in Pakistan, too contributed to the security alert.
"We take all al-Qaida threats very, very seriously," said Pakistan's Information Minister Shaikh Rashid, who told reporters in Islamabad that two laptop computers discovered at an al-Qaida hideout had e-mails showing that the network was planning terror attacks in the United States.
Pakistanis have their own reasons to fear al-Qaida. The group has carried out almost every threat it made against Pakistan, including attempts on the country's president, and now the prime minister-designate who was targeted on Friday.
Pakistani intelligence agencies have significantly increased personal security for President Pervez Musharraf since he joined the U.S.-led "war against terror" after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States. And they are not alone in this.
U.S. intelligence agents based in Pakistan are also helping them. The United States has installed sensitive listening devices for Pakistan. It also has provided expensive electronic gadgets to the Pakistanis to boost security for Musharraf. Yet at least twice al-Qaida has come very close to taking his life.
How does al-Qaida do it? "They have people within the government who help them," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official who did not want to be identified.
According to this official, this is how al-Qaida operates:
The message "The target is on its way," al-Qaida suicide bombers received on their cell phones as Musharraf headed home after attending a meeting in Islamabad on Dec. 25. Minutes later the bombers rammed their vehicles loaded with 44-60 pounds of explosives into Musharraf's motorcade. Fourteen people were killed. Musharraf escaped unhurt.
On Friday, a suicide bomber jumped at a car carrying Pakistan's prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz. Aziz survived, thanks mainly to his steel-plated Mercedes car, but eight others were killed.
The information about Musharraf's movement was given to the suicide bombers by an officer of the special branch of the Pakistani police which provides protection to the president when he travels around the capital, Islamabad.
The officer was identified as Mohammed Naeem, a native of the Pakistani Kashmir region. The two bombers, Mohammed Jamil and Mohammed Sultan, were also from Kashmir. Jamil was a retired army officer and both had lived in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's occupation and later in the war against the Taliban. It was there they also got recruited by al-Qaida.
After the attempt on Musharraf, Pakistani authorities also arrested several low-level officers of the Pakistan Air Force for helping the attackers.
After interrogating some key al-Qaida operatives arrested in Pakistan last week, U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials concluded that al-Qaida has neither lost its strength nor its ability to hit targets anywhere it wants.
The information about al-Qaida's operational capabilities and its organizational structure came from two main sources, a government official arrested in Karachi, who has been identified as Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, and a group of 13 suspects headed by Ahmad Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa. They were arrested last week from an al-Qaida hideout the central Pakistani town of Gujrat.
The head of U.S. Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, also indicated this development when he told reporters in Washington Sunday that the reports that led to the high-security alert were the result of "offensive intelligence and military operations overseas as well as strong partnerships with our allies around the world, such as Pakistan." He repeated the comments when asked whether the arrest of Gahilani and his fellow suspects had led to the current alert.
Put together, the two sets of information gave investigators valuable details about the network's operational activities, such as how al-Qaida surveillance teams work, how the group's operatives use phony couriers, and how delivery people are sent inside a building they want to target. The documents also disclose how ranking al-Qaida leaders issue directives and handle logistical details.
Information pieced together from these and previous discoveries portray a scary picture. After the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan three years ago, "many terrorists took refuge in Pakistan and spread across the country," said Talat Masood, a security analyst and former Pakistani general. Pakistan, he says, is fighting "a very complex war" against terrorists -- "a war that cannot be won soon."
Pakistani intelligence officers interviewed by United Press International say at least 10,000 Taliban fighters are still active in Afghanistan and they keep shuttling between Pakistan and Afghanistan to avoid arrest. At one stage, at least half of them were hiding in Pakistan.
They said that as many as 35,000 Pakistanis received military training in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, from 1996 to December 2001. Almost 30,000 of these trained and battle-hardened fighters returned to Pakistan after the collapse of the Taliban regime.
Some of them are still actively involved with various militant groups while others may be available to al-Qaida and other extremist organizations to recruit for their causes.
U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials are also investigating reports that al-Qaida and affiliated militant groups are now recruiting women bombers. Media reports in Pakistan mention at least two names -- Arifa Baloch and Saba Baloch. The two, they claim, are helping al-Qaida recruit other women for their cause.
The presence of so many militants and militant groups in Pakistan has alarmed the U.S. intelligence community which monitors the situation in Pakistan very carefully.
The FBI has investigated terrorist attacks in Pakistan since early 1990s. An FBI team visited Islamabad soon after the Jan. 25, 1993, bombing of the Egyptian Embassy that killed 15 people. Another FBI team came to Pakistan in November 1997, when four American auditors were killed outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi.
The U.S. intelligence agency, however, has had a permanent presence in Pakistan since the Sept. 11 attacks. Besides investigating individual terrorist attacks, the FBI also helps Pakistan train its intelligence officials.
