Citizen diplomat and Fox News analyst Mansoor Ijaz thinks the current terrorism threat may be a feint.
My guess is that what these terrorists are trying to do is mislead us domestically, and they do that because they do still have some elements of the sleeper infrastructure left here in the United States, where they're able to then see how we react, how we respond. What does it mean for our terror level alert to go up one notch at this time of year? Are we changing shopping mall entrance, checking them? Are we checking the bridges? Are we checking tunnels?What exactly are we doing to try and counteract whatever it is that they have in mind? That is what I think this is really geared towards, not so much an actual attack on U.S. soil, which I still do not believe they have the capacity to pull off in any sort of a 9-11 type style.
He also thinks al Qaeda is rebuilding, within the sheltering arms of Iran, and getting ready to attack again, probably outside the U.S.
It is my understanding that bin Laden has met in recent weeks on a number of different occasions with small militias of people coming across the Iraqi border to get instructions, to get theological sustenance and so forth. And Zawarhiri is engaged in the long-term attacks, that I've said, are going to come sometime in the not too distant future, within the next six months or so, against maritime attacks.Posted by Alan at December 23, 2003 11:52 PMBreak down al Qaeda's theological way of doing things in to nuisance terrorism, symbolic terrorism and structure terrorism. The nuisance terrorism is what we see on the ground in Iraq today. The symbolic terrorism is like 9-11 that had major economic consequences. And the structural terrorist attacks that they want to put together. For example, hitting a major maritime canal like the Suez Canal or Panama Canal, would affect the global economy in a significant way. That is the ultimate objective that they've got.
And all rest of what they do in the meantime is to keep the cells active, to keep everything fluid. And to keep us occupied in what they are doing. A little bit like a magician. Do something over here while the real stuff is going on over here.