These evil people need no motivation as the wicked ideology of Islam is motivation enough to kill infidels. However I am certain that Obama and Holder’s cravenness only emboldens terrorists to attack. Even though Osama is “sleeping with the fishes“, the Muslims still sense that in his words America has become “the weak horse.”
by Siobahn Gorman
Osama bin Laden was working to assemble a team of militants to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, according to communications Navy SEALs seized from his Pakistani hideout when they killed the al Qaeda leader this spring.
Bin Laden and his operations chief, Attiyah Abd al-Rahman, swapped views about the composition of the attack team, with bin Laden repeatedly rejecting names that Mr. Rahman suggested, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence taken from the bin Laden compound.
The plans were only in the discussion phase, U.S. officials said. They haven’t seen any signs the nascent plot ever went beyond the early planning, the officials said.
Still, earlier this month in his first meeting with senior staff at the Central Intelligence Agency, acting Director Michael Morell told his staff that one of their top priorities would be to make sure that neither that plan nor any others were carried out.
Plans for an anniversary attack were one of the few specific potential threats to emerge from the trove of documents and other materials taken from bin Laden’s residence in Abottabad, Pakistan, in the May 2 raid. An initial analysis of the evidence said al Qaeda hoped to attack trains in the U.S., possibly on the anniversary of Sept. 11.
Other plotting with Mr. Rahman focused on recruiting attackers who had legitimate passports and other travel documents.
Bin Laden communicated with Mr. Rahman largely via documents saved to flash drives that were delivered by trusted couriers, according to people briefed on the communications.
Much of the other threat information in the trove of materials was general in nature or well known, such as al Qaeda’s interest in attacking trains.
In the days following the bin Laden raid, officials said the materials seized from the compound showed enthusiasm for carrying out attacks on dates of symbolic significance, prompting U.S. officials to worry about July 4 and Sept. 11. But officials didn’t disclose at that time that there had been specific planning for another attack on Sept. 11 this year.
Mr. Rahman ascended within the terrorist organization after al Qaeda’s third-in-command, Sheik Sa’id al-Masri, was killed last year in a CIA drone attack in Pakistan. Mr. Rahman has long been on the list of al Qaeda leaders targeted by the U.S.
The bin Laden documents show how central a figure Mr. Rahman had become for the al Qaeda organization, said people briefed on the documents. “Many were not aware of the day-to-day operations role that Attiyah played,” said one person.
U.S. intelligence agencies don’t know whether al Qaeda ever fielded an attack team or if other details were discussed. For instance, the U.S. doesn’t know what targets, if any, bin Laden considered attacking.
Some U.S. officials cautioned that other materials in the trove showed bin Laden was often ignored by his underlings.
“What we found was that he was very isolated, and it is clearly the case he was struggling to continue to hold on to the type of influence and to direct operations in ways he may have been able to do in the past,” a U.S. official said.
Counterterrorism officials from half-a-dozen U.S. agencies have completed their reviews of the bin Laden materials, much of which were held at a secure facility at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va.
Beyond the planning for an anniversary attack, the bin Laden trove produced few concrete leads of any sort, largely because information that might have located other terrorist leaders, such as phone numbers, ceased to have value almost the instant the U.S. government obtained it, officials said.
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