U.S. officials assessed that attacks attributed to Osama bin Laden'a Al Qaeda network in the past week and taped messages from its leaders signal the start of a new wave of terrorist activity and possibly a large-scale attack.
According to the Sunday's edition of The New York Times, top government officials said attacks in Yemen and Kuwait, which hit a French oil tanker and killed a United States marine, demonstrated that the network had reconstituted itself, with smaller groups prompted to launch new attacks by new messages from al Qaeda chiefs.
The group's latest round of attacks may be a response to the Bush administration's Iraq policy, the officials were quoted as saying by the newspaper.
"The marines in Kuwait and the ship off Yemen those could be precursors of more to come," one senior administration official said. "We believe this is a serious development."
So far, the administartion's response to the two attacks has remained deliberately low key. On Wednesday, the Bush administration discussed whether to raise the color-coded threat alert warning level from yellow to orange. But after a White House meeting, officials decided the threat was not yet specific enough.
Instead, the FBI issued a threat alert, saying the recent messages showed that "Al Qaeda continues to plan major attacks against U.S. interests." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
