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Threat Assessment: Al-Qaeda May Still Strike U.S. Interests, FBI Says More than a week after raising the U.S. terror threat level to “orange,” the FBI has warned that al-Qaeda could still strike U.S. interests at home or abroad using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, May 21). In its weekly bulletin to state and local law enforcement and government agencies, the FBI said the terrorist group continues “to enhance their capabilities to conduct effective mass casualty attacks” (Washington Post, May 29). In an interview published Sunday in the London-based al-Majallah magazine, al-Qaeda spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Ablaj said the group plans to poison the U.S. water supply, according to a United Press International report. “Al-Qaeda (does not rule out) using sarin gas and poisoning drinking water in U.S. and Western cities,” al-Ablaj said. “We will talk about (these weapons) then and the infidels will know what harms them. They spared no effort in their war on us in Afghanistan. … They should not therefore rule out the possibility that we will present them with our capabilities,” he added. U.S. officials, however, have played down al-Ablaj’s claims, noting that it is extremely difficult to contaminate an entire water supply, UPI reported. “It would take many truckloads of poison, which would make it difficult to do secretly,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “That is not really a viable threat” (Shaun Waterman, UPI/Washington Times, May 29).
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