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Us saudis new attacks imminent { May 14 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/international/middleeast/14TERR.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/14/international/middleeast/14TERR.html
May 14, 2003
U.S. and Saudis Sensed Attacks Were Imminent
By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON
MASHINGTON, May 13 — For more than two weeks before the Monday bombings, American and Saudi officials had grown increasingly alarmed by intercepted communications that provided what they called "strong indications" that Islamic militants were preparing a terrorist attack against Americans in Saudi Arabia.
"We had indicators that they were planning something," a senior United States government official said today. "We didn't know exactly what."
The answer came this week in Riyadh, with the precise, well-coordinated strikes that claimed at least 20 victims, including at least seven Americans, at three civilian housing complexes.
American officials said today that the attacks had almost certainly been carried out by Al Qaeda, and said they strongly suspected that the nearly simultaneous strikes had been timed at least in part to coincide with a visit to Saudi Arabia by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.
Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States must continue to aggressively pursue terrorists. "The only way to deal with this threat ultimately is to destroy it," he said in a speech.
"There's no treaty can solve this problem," Mr. Cheney said. "There's no peace agreement, no policy of containment or deterrence that works to deal with this threat. We have to go find the terrorists."
In an e-mail message sent today to an Arabic-language magazine in London, a man American officials say they believe is an Al Qaeda operative described the attack as having been well prepared and said further strikes might lie ahead.
In the grim aftermath of the Monday attack, a senior American official offered a similar assessment, saying that the number of vehicles and the amount of explosives involved suggested a well-planned operation that might include future targets.
"There is a feeling that this wave might not be over," a Bush administration official said.
In the e-mail message, sent to the Saudi magazine Al Majallah, which is published from London, the operative, who used the alias Abu Mohamed al-Ablaj, wrote that Al Qaeda had "been planning major operations for a long time in the gulf, where it had stocked large amounts of arms and explosives."
A senior United States official said that although Al Qaeda did not usually claim responsibility for attacks, intelligence analysts regarded the assertion of responsibility as genuine. "Since the September 2001 attacks," the official said, "Al Qaeda had restricted itself to fund-raising and recruitment in Saudi Arabia. But it had to do something to grab more attention."
American concerns about possible car bomb attacks on United States military targets in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf region date back more than a year, American officials said tonight.
One attack, planned for Bahrain, was thwarted, but other worrying signs followed. These included a posting of maps on a Web site last summer that showed American military facilities in the region, along with the business cards of American diplomats serving at the United States Embassy in Saudi Arabia and assigned to the task of working to reform the kingdom's educational curriculum.
After gathering more indications this spring of plans for an attack in the Persian Gulf region, American intelligence agencies by late April had come across "several bits of information that pointed specifically to Saudi Arabia," a United States official said. It was that intelligence, described by another official as "specific and credible," that prompted a public travel warning on May 1 by the State Department that terrorists "may be in the final phases of planning attacks against U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia."
That warning advised Americans to defer travel to Saudi Arabia, and those already there to consider leaving the country. It was passed to the White House, other counterterrorism agencies and the Saudi government, which is responsible for protecting nearly all Western targets in the kingdom, including the compounds housing Western residents.
American officials said they had been told that the Saudis and private security companies supervised by the Saudi government had tightened their guard, which already included double perimeters around the housing compounds and other potential targets. But it was not precisely clear what extra precautions were taken at the compounds that were the targets of the attacks.
At no time, American and Saudi officials said, did the intelligence reports make clear whether the attacks might be aimed at an embassy, air base, Saudi palace or some other target. American officials said today that they took appropriate steps by issuing a public warning.
Still, a sense of unease grew more urgent after a Saudi raid last Tuesday uncovered a large cache of explosives in Riyadh but failed to net the Qaeda operatives who were the raid's target. It increased further over the weekend, when a Saudi group believed to be affiliated with Osama bin Laden's network called for revenge attacks to follow the Saudi raid.
After the raid, Saudi authorities announced that they were looking for 19 people in connection with terrorism. But they were apparently still at large when the attacks occurred. Counterterrorism officials said one of the 19 may have appeared in a Qaeda martyrdom video vowing to engage in suicide operations. In recently taped messages believed to be from Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader called for suicide attacks against America and its allies.
In the wake of the attacks, American officials are now looking more closely at other recent warnings purported to be from Al Qaeda, including a statement published on a Web site over the weekend from a Saudi fugitive named Ali al-Ghamdi, who has been identified by the Saudi government as among 19 militants sought since the failed raid.
A United States official said that Mr. Ghamdi is also known to American intelligence agencies by the alias Abu Bakr, and described him as someone who had emerged in recent months as "a reasonably important guy in Saudi Arabia" in planning Qaeda operations.
Another statement published last Friday in Al Majallah quoted a new Qaeda spokesman saying that "an attack against America is inevitable." That statement, from Thabet bin Qais, said that "future missions have been entrusted" to a "new team" within the organization that was "well protected against the U.S. intelligence services."
Asked about that warning, a United States official said, "No doubt they have to rely on new teams, since a lot of the old teams are rolled up." At the same time, he added: "We've never believed that we had rendered them incapable of conducting operations. We know they have lots of folks who are willing to conduct these operations, and although it's harder for them to do so, they can still carry them out, as these attacks have proved."
In London, the Foreign Office warned Britons today to stay clear of Saudi Arabia, and in Saudi Arabia, the United States ambassador issued a statement today saying that the American school there would be closed for at least the next week and advising that Americans stay in their homes.
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