Terrorist Next Attack: When and Where

[DinoDoc]

I'd be making a hell of a lot more money than I am now if I could accurately answer that question.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I'd be making a hell of a lot more money than I am now if I could accurately answer that question.

But for making that kind of money you would not publish it on a public forum. :

[DinoDoc]

Correct.

[Lord Merciless]

They are going to attack Indonesia, a place where Al-Qaeda is strong and government weak.

They would of course love to attack the US directly, but it's kind hard here because Middle Easter types are very closely watched by the population. Unless they can recruit lots of locals, I doubt Al-Qaeda has the necessary infracstruture in this country to pull-off a major attack.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

Well look at this:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Department of Homeland Security advisory issued Thursday warns that al Qaeda is working on plans to hijack airliners flying between international points that pass near or over the continental United States.

A Department of Homeland Security official said most of the flights fitting this description originate in Canada, and that U.S. officials have been working with Canada over the past month to ensure it is improving screening and other security measures.

One government official noted, however, the United States has no authority to require security measures of non-U.S. carriers whose flights originate outside the United States.

The advisory was issued because of concerns about the coming second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a recent uptick in intelligence information, and threats to aviation that continued through the summer.

Issued to state and local authorities and the private sector, the advisory said terrorist operatives have been studying countries to determine which have the least stringent requirements for entry. That could be a factor in their consideration of which flights would be easiest to board and take control of.

The advisory includes a laundry list of possible attack scenarios, and says al Qaeda may be researching how to disseminate diseases and toxins by contaminating water and food, or aerosolizing an agent in an enclosed space.

But the advisory says there is no specific information on individual targets or dates that would warrant raising the nation's threat alert level from the current yellow (elevated) to orange (high).

Some tactical information and six pages of suggested protective measures were redacted from the version of the advisory provided to the press.

Risk of multiple attacks
The advisory says that arrests of key al Qaeda members over the past several months "may have delayed or even disrupted some plans," but a Homeland Security official would not provide any details. The official did say that interrogations of those detainees produced some of the information contained in the advisory. Intercepted communications and materials seized in raids of al Qaeda safe houses were other sources of the intelligence, the official said.

The advisory cites the risk of multiple attacks against the United States and U.S. interests overseas. It notes recent mass-casualty attacks in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Iraq, "suggesting that 'soft' targets with minimum physical security measures could be viewed as attractive options in the U.S."

Among the sorts of soft targets mentioned in operational plans are apartment complexes, gas stations and restaurants.

The advisory also says critical infrastructure could be hit because of the "potentially significant economic and psychological impacts." Examples of critical infrastructure listed as possible targets are nuclear power plants and other energy facilities, petroleum and chemical facilities, the transportation sector, water systems, and the food supply.

The advisory notes that al Qaeda has successfully used suicide bombers and warns that terrorists "will employ novel methods to artfully conceal suicide devices."

Earlier in the day, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge held a conference call with state officials to tell them there are no plans at present to raise the threat level in advance of the September 11 anniversary. According to one participant in the call, Ridge said there had been an uptick in threat information, but not in the quantity or quality that would warrant moving from yellow to orange.

You may, unfortunately, be proven right...

[Nubclear]

OMFG AL QAEDA IS GONNA KILL US ALL OMFG OMFG HOW MUCH TO AA BATTERIES COST?! !?!?!?!

[Dr Strangelove]

How about the United Nations? Someone was idiotic enough to bomb a UN facitility in Iraq, so why not the big HQ in New York?

They could try Washington again.

Look, these guys might even be psycho enough to bomb Mecca. All it would take is for a bunch of them to get their looney toons juices worked up, then they'd find some perfectly logical psycho reason to go bomb their own holiest of holy. You know, something along the lines of beibng tainted by the presence of the infidels. Alternately they might try to bomb something significant in Riyadh. Sure, it would p**s off their bankrollers, but then who are we talking about?

[Nubclear]

I *highly* doubt they would try to bomb Mecca. They would have to be really psycho to unite the Muslims against them.

[Agathon]

Um.... it seems pretty plain 9/11 was designed to drag the US into committing troops to Afghanistan where OBL and his friends could engage them in a guerilla style war just as they did with the Soviet Union. After all, OBL presumably thinks that if it's worked once why couldn't it work again?

To the credit of the Bush administration, they didn't bite the way they were supposed to. They didn't commit huge numbers of US ground troops to Afghanistan and bought off the NA instead.

But then they stupidly invaded Iraq. At a guess I'd say that most of Al Quaeda's resources are being directed towards establishing a Wahabist guerilla force in Iraq. OBL thinks that if he can force the US to withdraw from Iraq, leaving it to the Islamists, that the US will basically be finished in the Middle East because there will be no political will to commit US men and materiel to the area. After that, the aim will be to destablise and remove the Saudi, Jordanian, Syrian and Egyptian regimes.

It's a nutty plan, but it fits with what he's said.

[mrmitchell]

Highly visible target...
Lots of civilian casualties...
Massive symbolic importance...
Relatively lax security...

Disney World.

Disney World already sucks as it is, I'm not sure how terrorists could make it any worse.

[Nubclear]

I don't think the US can withdraw from iraq now. However this does benefit OBL since Iraq is basically a continous political liability for the US, and we can't escape it.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
I don't think the US can withdraw from iraq now. However this does benefit OBL since Iraq is basically a continous political liability for the US, and we can't escape it.

Yes. As I've said before, OBL's sandals haven't touched the ground since the invasion.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
How about the United Nations? Someone was idiotic enough to bomb a UN facitility in Iraq, so why not the big HQ in New York?

Hm...this WOULD give us an opportunity to get that thing off of US soil.

[Timexwatch]

Originally posted by Solver
I do also feel it's highly likely that something will happen next Thursday... or at least try to. I've been reading some intelligence reports lately...

I think that the Hoover building (FBI headquarters) could be quite a target. From what I know, it's in a relatively crowded area, with many buildings around it (unlike the White House), so it's unlikely to see SAM installations around it. And it could do the stuff terrorists want... high symbolic value, high bodycount - besides, it would kill the people that are actually directly a trouble to terrorists. Not to mention all the FBI infrastructural damage...

How are they going to attack it at all? The whole building is surrounded by "decorate planters" weighing several hundred pounds apiece tens of feet away (the sidewalks are quite large around the FBI). There are constant patrols around the whole building. D.C. itself has SAM emplacements and air coverage now (The district is something like 60 square miles, enough to be covered by a few HUMVEE mounted SAMs).

I'd watch out for soft targets in the District and smaller agencies with less security coverage. It wouldn't take that many attackers to overwhelm the average 2 to 3 guards at each door of most agencies (and Congressional Office Buildings, for that matter) and plant a bomb or three.

Universities would make a good target along with many of the local office buildings with no protection from truck bombs that could bring one completely down.

[mrmitchell]

Hm...this WOULD give us an opportunity to get that thing off of US soil.