Some of the initial info has started to leak out from what some experts have called the “treasure trove” of materialized seized at the compound of Osama bin Laden, who was killed by Navy Seals an a successful bid by the administration and intelligence services to end the terrorist CEO’s career:
Al-Qaida considered attacking U.S. trains on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, according to an initial look at DVDs, computers and other documents seized at the raid on Osama bin Laden’s home, NBC News reported Thursday.
The information about a possible train plot is the first intelligence revealed from the trove of material found in the attack on bin Laden’s compound. Officials said they found what they call “aspirational” items — things al-Qaida operatives were interested in trying to make happen.
A government advisory obtained by NBC News and sent Tuesday to the rail industry said that as far back as February 2010, al-Qaida was contemplating “an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary” of the 9/11 attacks.
Note that this fits in with what many terorism expert talking heads have said over the years: there was a “been there done that” feeling that Al Qaeda would look for another weak spot to attack and not air travel. And what weaker spot to attack in terms of security than America’s rail or subway system?
One option, the advisory said, was trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or on a bridge. Such an attempt would probably only work once, the material in bin Laden’s house said, because tilting or tampering with the rails would be spotted, the advisory said.
Other material mentions a desire to target big mass-transit hubs, an interest long understood because of the history of al-Qaida attacks on rail targets in Spain, the United Kingdom and India.
The FBI and Homeland Security are encouraging local governments to maintain vigilance. But there are no plans to issue a terrorism alert, because there is still no specific or credible intelligence of any actual attack plan in the works, NBC News said.
Clearly, officals and experts are now trying to anticipate which targets will be ripe for attack by either Al Qaeda or freelancing terrorists all with the same goal: avenge bin Laden’s death and show the U.S. that they are still out there and don’t plan to go out of business.
But if officials find more info on that seized material, some of them may be out of business sooner than they expect.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.