Jan. 26, 2010

SOURCE: NTI

Al-Qaeda Remains Intent on WMD Strike Against U.S., Report Says

Al-Qaeda continues to work to acquire weapons of mass destruction to use in a large-scale terror attack on the United States, according to a report released Jan. 20.

"Their WMD procurement efforts have been managed at the most senior levels, under rules of strict compartmentalization from lower levels of the organization, and with central control over possible targets and timing of prospective attacks," according to former high-level CIA official Rolf Mowatt-Larssen now with the Harvard University Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

The report came even as a congressionally mandated panel issued a "report card" saying the federal government has not done nearly enough to prepare the United States for an act of biological terrorism.

The former leader of the agency's WMD task force, Mowatt-Larssen stated that al-Qaeda leaders have been much more methodical and meticulous in their 15-year quest for biological, chemical or even nuclear weapons, than is widely understood, the Washington Post reported. Activities include fostering ties with other extremist groups to make use of their talents and resources and carrying out separate simultaneous efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

"If Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants had been interested in ... small-scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so now," reads the report.

Warnings by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that his organization would launch WMD strikes on Western nations are no "empty rhetoric" but a chief ambition for the group, the report states.