A high-profile political assassination, triggered by a new message from Osama bin Laden, will lead off the next major al Qaeda attack, The Washington Times has reported, citing U.S. intelligence officials. U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed that the assassination plan was among new details of al Qaeda plots and would target a U.S. or foreign leader either in the United States or abroad, according to the newspaper's Wednesday editions. Planning for the attacks to follow involves "multiple targets in multiple venues" across the United States, one official was quoted as saying. "The goal of the next attack is twofold: to damage the U.S. economy and to undermine the U.S. election," the official told the newspaper.
The officials said there are intelligence reports, some of them sketchy, that a new tape from bin Laden would surface soon, the newspaper reported. "The message likely will be the signal for the attack to be launched," one official said. A second U.S. official was cited as saying that one intelligence agency was aware of unconfirmed reports of a new bin Laden tape. "There may be such a tape, but it hasn't surfaced and we haven't seen it," the newspaper quoted the official as saying. The Washington Times reported that the plot was among detailed al Qaeda plans found on a laptop computer belonging to captured al Qaeda suspect Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. |