Retired Vice Admiral John Scott ReddFROM MSNBC.MSN.COM:
“We Are Going to Get Hit Again”
The head of the National Counterterrorism Center speaks out on Al Qaeda's plans, America’s readiness—and the nature of the war on terror.
Retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, head of the National Counterterrorism Center, says, "We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West."
Capital Sources: The Next Terrorist Attack The head of the National Counterterrorism Center speaks out on Al Qaeda's plans, America’s readiness—and the nature of the war on terror.WEB EXCLUSIVEBy Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey BartholetNewsweekUpdated: 5:14 p.m. ET Aug 27, 2007
Aug. 27, 2007 - Al Qaeda has an active plot to hit the West. The United States knows about it but doesn’t have enough tactical detail to issue a precise warning or raise the threat level, says Vice Admiral (ret.) John Scott Redd, who heads the government’s National Counterterrorism Center. In an interview at his headquarters near Washington, D.C., Redd told Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey Bartholet that the country is better prepared than ever to counter such threats. But he also believes another successful terror attack on the U.S. homeland is inevitable.
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AND FROM DISCOVERTHENETWORK.ORG:
AL QAEDA (AL QAIDA)
Led by Osama bin Laden
Responsible for 9/11 attacks
Bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa, killing 301
Bombed the American Navy ship USS Cole, killing 17 and wounding 39
Seeks to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack the West
Vice Admiral (ret.) John Scott Redd, who heads the government’s National Counterterrorism Center, has told Newsweek that Al Qaeda has an active plot to hit the West, and that the United States knows about it but does not possess enough tactical detail to issue a precise warning or raise the threat level. Among Redd’s comments were the following:
"We’ve got this intelligence threat; we’re pretty certain we know what’s going on. We don’t have all the tactical details about it, [but] in some ways it’s not unlike the U.K. aviation threat last year. So we know there is a threat out there. The question is, what do we do about it? And the response was, we stood up an interagency task force under NCTC leadership. So you have all the players you would expect: FBI, CIA, DHS, DIA, DoD, the operators—the military side comes into that—participating in an integrated plan, but integrated in a much more granular and tactical way than we’ve ever done before. … We have very strong indicators that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the West and is likely to [try to] attack, and we are pretty sure about that. … and they would like to come as far West as they can."
Al Qaeda, an Arabic word meaning "the Base," was founded in approximately 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and Muhammad Atef -- the latter a native Egyptian and a onetime member of the terrorist group Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al Qaeda grew out of the Services Office, a clearinghouse for the international Muslim brigade that opposed the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In the 1980s, under the leadership of bin Laden and the Palestinian religious scholar Abdullah Azzam, the Services Office recruited, trained, and financed thousands of foreign mujahideen, or “holy warriors,” from more than fifty countries. Seeking to extend the Islamic jihad, or "holy war," beyond the borders of Afghanistan even after the March 1988 Soviet pledge to withdraw its forces, bin Laden created al Qaeda. The organization today supports Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, and Kosovo. It also trains members of terrorist organizations from the Philippines, Algeria, and Eritrea.
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