al queda motherload mined?

[fansince62]

there are ought to be a lot of nervous terrorists right now.

don't keep hardcopy and zeroize your secondary storage!!!

By Dana Priest and Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writers

Sunday, March 16, 2003; Page A01

The United States is within reach of dismantling the leadership of the al Qaeda terrorist network responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Bush administration officials and U.S. intelligence experts said.

CIA and FBI officials are cautious in public not to overstate their optimism about breaking up al Qaeda and capturing Osama bin Laden, the organization's leader. But people who receive regular briefings on U.S. counterterrorism operations said the arrest and subsequent cooperation under interrogation of al Qaeda lieutenant Khalid Sheik Mohammed this month have given them concrete reasons to come to this conclusion.

"I believe the tide has turned in terms of al Qaeda," said Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), chairman of the House intelligence committee and a former CIA case officer. "We're at the top of the hill."

Goss's sentiment was echoed by a dozen other intelligence experts and law enforcement officials with regular access to information about U.S. counterterrorism operations. "For the first time," Goss said, "they have more to fear from us than we have to fear from them."

Officials cautioned that there was no certainty they could disrupt attacks already set in motion by al Qaeda or other affiliated groups, and said they were still concerned about possible bombings and attacks on a smaller scale than those mounted against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said last week that he believes suicide attacks in this country may be inevitable.

But officials said the reasons for their optimism about al Qaeda are threefold.

Mohammed's capture in the Pakistan city of Rawalpindi on March 1, they said, cut off the organization's key operational leader from followers poised to execute attacks. The cache of computer and paper files found in the house where Mohammed was living has turned out to be "a mother lode" of information, said one intelligence official. It has provided "hundreds of leads" about the organization's financial pipelines, funders, followers, movement of operatives and targets, another official said.

In addition, Mohammed began providing information to his CIA captors soon after his arrest, officials said. Some of the information is unverifiable, said one U.S. government official, but other information is "things we didn't know and are very glad we know now." Mohammed is also providing translations of coded letters found among his belongings, U.S. sources said.

Although the precise nature of the information, including any planned attacks, could not be learned, one official said the information has already allowed U.S. law enforcement officials to improve security at certain targets Mohammed identified. It has yet to lead to any further detentions of suspected terrorists, the official said.

Because the CIA and FBI are much more familiar than they were a year ago with the organization and individuals involved in al Qaeda, they are more able to put the new leads to use. Also, with a handful of other high-ranking al Qaeda members imprisoned and undergoing CIA interrogation, the information "can be bounced off five other senior guys now anxious to tell us what they know," said one knowledgeable intelligence expert.

Because of these factors, the information "will lead to geometric progress," Goss said. New leads "are a trickle that has turned into a torrent."

Another intelligence expert said of the CIA and FBI: "They believe they are on a roll and can get this group of people whom we know were involved in 9/11. We've got them nailed, and we're close to dismantling them."

Mohammed's capture also generated new leads about bin Laden's possible whereabouts and sent Pakistani forces as well as combined units of CIA paramilitary and U.S. covert military Special Operations teams to Pakistan's remote western border a week and a half ago, where a stepped up search is underway. Besides bin Laden, U.S. intelligence and military officials are actively hunting about 30 known al Qaeda operatives, many of them described as second- and third-tier leaders.

The materials recovered from Mohammed's safe house in Rawalpindi included computers, telephones and paper records, officials said. The cache was flown to Andrews Air Force Base, then transported by armed guards to CIA headquarters in Langley, where it is undergoing "Doc-X," or "document exploitation," by the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency and others.

Law enforcement officials said early on that they found almost a dozen names of suspected terrorists believed to be in the United States in the material. U.S. authorities are trying to determine who they are and where they are living.

One of the men captured with Mohammed, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, may have knowledge of other operatives in the United States and elsewhere, as well as other planned attacks. Hawsawi already has been named in two terrorism-related indictments -- in the case against accused al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and a false-statements case against Ali S. Marri, a Qatari man who the FBI contends gathered information in his Peoria, Ill., apartment about dangerous chemicals and U.S. infrastructure targets. Marri repeatedly called Hawsawi's number in the two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, prosecutors charge.

In an operation believed to have stemmed from evidence obtained during Mohammed's capture, police in Lahore, Pakistan, yesterday arrested Yassir Yasiri, whom U.S. government sources described as a second-tier al Qaeda operative and an associate of Mohammed and other top bin Laden lieutenants.

The March 1 arrests immediately generated Justice Department requests for wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the fruits of which are not yet publicly known.

Aside from the Mohammed arrest, the FBI appears to be making progress in identifying people with alleged ties to terrorists living in the United States.

In the past several months, the federal government has brought numerous new terror-related indictments. Early this month a Yemeni cleric was charged with raising millions of dollars for al Qaeda, much of it through a mosque in Brooklyn. A half-dozen FBI offices are investigating possible Internet-based terrorist support networks in the United States that have been used to raise money and recruit adherents. Indictments stemming from that investigation were handed up last month in Syracuse and Idaho.

The recent successes have convinced many U.S. officials that al Qaeda would have difficulty executing another attack like those mounted in 2001. While they do not rule out that possibility, many officials say smaller-scale bombings are more likely.

"If they don't pull off another big operation soon, some of their financial backers are going to ask whether it makes sense to give them a lot more money soon," said one intelligence official who tracks terrorist operations. "Their viability is going to be questioned around the world. They are probably under pressure to show they are still viable."

Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, cautioned it was still too early to be certain the United States had turned the corner in its hunt for al Qaeda. "I wouldn't assume that yet," she said. "There are parts of al Qaeda embedded all over the world. . . . .These people are on a mission."

Still, it was hard for CIA Director George J. Tenet to hide his optimism when asked during an encounter in the hallways of his headquarters last week whether he felt the agency had turned a corner in its effort to dismantle al Qaeda with Mohammed's arrest.

"It's a very, very big deal," he said. "He and the material he was apprehended with are extremely useful. It will . . . no, I can't say anything else."

With an exuberant swing of the arms and torso, and a big, wide smile, Tenet added, "It's a big deal," before scooting off down the white marble halls.

The cache of computer and paper files found in the house where Mohammed was living has turned out to be "a mother lode" of information, said one intelligence official

[OrangeSkin]

Just as I thought...the war on terror went by the wayside when Iraq came into the picture.

Here's to everybody out there making these victories possible.

[fansince62]

this happened in the last 2 weeks... and it still remains an imperative to locate and "eliminate" the cells, financiers, etc

oh.....and nail OBL....

..........WMDs, crimes against humanity, freedom, etc., still remain germane....

[Cskin]

Just how do you zero your secondary storage. Is this considered cache memory? What's the procedure for doing so... anyone....anyone....anyone......Ferris.....Bueller.....anyone?