Terrorism Biggest U.S. Threat, Intel Official Says

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Terrorists groups, al-Qaeda foremost among them, pose the greatest threat to the domestic security of the United States, a top U.S. intelligence official said yesterday (see GSN, June 21).

While the United States continues to receive intelligence on al-Qaeda attempts to acquire chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons, the use of conventional explosives continues to be the most likely scenario for an attack, Thomas Fingar, deputy director of national intelligence for analysis, told Congress in prepared testimony.

Giving the House Armed Services Committee a global security assessment, Fingar said that terrorism remains “the pre-eminent challenge to the intelligence community.”

A classified U.S. counterterrorism analysis indicates that al-Qaeda has strengthened its operating capabilities to a level last seen prior to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Associated Press reported today.  “They are showing greater and greater ability to plan attacks in Europe and the United States,” said one counterterrorism official.

After the threat of terrorism, concerns about the proliferation of unconventional weapons is the second most urgent concern, Fingar told lawmakers yesterday.  Controlling access to sensitive dual-use technologies as well as the scientific knowledge to turn them to weapon-related purposes has become more difficult since the end of the Cold War, he said.

“Globalization is the defining characteristic of our age and has more positive than negative consequences,” Fingar said.  “But globalization does facilitate the terrorist threat, increases the danger of WMD proliferation, and contributes to regional instability and configuration of power and influence, especially through competition for energy.”

Iran and North Korea remain the paramount concerns regarding the proliferation of unconventional weapons, Fingar said.

Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment technology that U.S. analysts are convinced is part of a nuclear weapons development program, he said, adding that Tehran is gaining influence in ways that go beyond its nuclear pursuits and are troubling to its Arab neighbors (see GSN, July 11).

A number of Arab countries have recently expressed the desire to develop nuclear energy programs which some experts have called a thinly veiled nuclear hedge against a nuclear-capable Iran (see GSN, May 21.).

North Korea tested a nuclear device in October.  It also launched a long-range Taepodong 2 ballistic missile last summer along with six other shorter-range missiles. While the Taepodong crashed into the ocean off North Korea’s eastern shore less than a minute after the test launch, the concern persists that the regime in Pyongyang would sell its missile technology (see GSN, July 9).

“We are concerned that it could proliferate these weapons abroad,” Fingar said.  “Pyongyang has a long history of selling ballistic missiles, including to several Middle Eastern countries.”

Addressing China, Fingar indicated in prepared testimony that “the Chinese are developing more capable long-range conventional strike systems and short- and medium-range ballistic missile with terminally guided maneuverable warheads able to attack U.S. carriers and airbases.”

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