Al Qaeda's Summer Plans

Alsaha.com seems innocent enough. The Abu Dhabi-based Web site offers bulletin boards where Arabic speakers can advertise for wives and exchange messages about sports, politics and the true meaning of jihad. Since the 9-11 attacks, however, the CIA and FBI have closely monitored Alsaha.com as a kind of terrorist early- warning system. The reason: on Sept. 9, 2001, a message appeared on the Alsaha Web site proclaiming that, in the next two days, a "big surprise" was coming from the Saudi Arabian region of Asir, the remote, mountainous province that produced most of the 19 hijackers who struck on September 11. So last week, NEWSWEEK has learned, the U.S. intelligence community grew more than a little alarmed when it discovered another cryptic posting on Alsaha.com. "Oh brothers, further attacks are to come in the next 48 hours," it read. "All good Muslims in New York, Boston and other cities on the seacoast should leave." Was this a starting gun to sleeper cells to spring into action? Another oracle that chaos was about to erupt in America's crowded Northeast corridor? The counterterror analysts were unsure. The FBI and CIA had no other direct warnings of an attack, and analysts could not rule out the possibility that the terrorists were planting disinformation to stir panic. Yet the terrorist "chatter" level was on the rise again. Electronic intercepts from tapped phones and spy satellites suggested that Al Qaeda operatives around the world were planning something.

Every morning, President George W. Bush is shown a threat "matrix," an elaborate distillation of the various signals--some faint and far-off, some clanging like a fire bell in the night--emanating from an elusive but maddeningly resilient enemy. Last Wednesday the gong was loudly sounded on Arab TV by no less a figure than Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the creepy Egyptian doctor who has long served as Osama bin Laden's No. 2 and is widely regarded as the brains of Al Qaeda. Al-Zawahiri is supposed to be hiding in a cave, but he sounded as ominous as ever. "The Crusaders [Americans] and the Jews only understand the language of force, and they only understand the return of coffins and destroyed interests and burned towers and destroyed economy," the doctor intoned on a scratchy audiotape to all "dear Muslims." "Your brothers the mujahedin are following your enemy and waiting to ambush them... the coming days will carry good news that will heal your heart."

What news? The counterterror analysts at the CIA and FBI were not taking any chances. They warned that the war on terror was entering a new and more dangerous phase, "an orchestrated Spring/Summer worldwide offensive," as one internal document put it. "It is likely that an attempted terror attack against the US Homeland... could occur in the next 30-90 days," predicted the document, described to NEWSWEEK by U.S. intelligence sources. Information from detainees suggested the targets could include subway systems in American cities. (According to a top law- enforcement official, several Qaeda operatives in the United States have begun cooperating with U.S. intelligence, exposing ongoing plots.) The spooks were particularly worried about a Canadian connection. One of the leaders of the terror attacks in Saudi Arabia last week, Abdul Rahman Jabarrah, has a Canadian passport. A British intelligence document obtained by NEWSWEEK says that the terror cell that plotted the foiled bombing attack from Canada on Los Angeles airport during the Millennium celebrations is still active. In some of the chatter picked up by American eavesdroppers, Al Qaeda sympathizers complained that more Muslims than Westerners had died in the recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. According to one national---security official, the response from Al Qaeda leaders was, in effect: "Don't worry. We'll correct that in the future."

That was enough for the policymakers and politicians. The Homeland Security Council--the senior, cabinet-level committee that regularly reviews the nation's readiness--decided to ratchet up the official terror threat to Code Orange, "high risk." A senior law-enforcement official told NEWSWEEK: "This looks eerily similar to the way it looked right before September 11."

Here we go again. This is the fourth time in the past year that the Bush administration has taken the nation from Code Yellow ("elevated") to Code Orange. The nation (especially the part that lives in ground-zero cities like New York and Washington) was thoroughly shaken last February. Suggestions to buy duct tape made the mothers of small children picture themselves pathetically trying to seal their windows and doors against clouds of poison gas. Then came heartening news: arrests of top terror thugs, like Al Qaeda's alleged operations chief, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was surprised, looking paunchy and sleepy, in his Pakistani hideout in early March. The war in Iraq came and went without a retaliatory strike. The president, bestriding a carrier deck like Tom Cruise, declared that Al Qaeda was "on the run."

Yet now the terrorists seem to be rising again from their graves, like ghouls in a horror show. Americans could not be blamed for weariness, doubt and a touch of cynicism. Is Code Orange little more than a bureaucratic device that allows nervous policymakers to cover themselves, just in case something really does go wrong? Could it be that the Bush administration wants to remind voters from time to time that the terrorists are still out there--and that it takes a strong commander in chief to stand tall against the threat?