What if the next attack is the last?

(Word Net Daily) (Craige Mcmillan) It’s easy to forget the Islamic terror attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. In fact, the bulk of Americans already have.  

Our government has precipitated this view by requiring nothing of ordinary citizens. There are no gasoline or ration coupons, there are no long lines to buy tires or other products used in the war, and there is no military draft. In fact, for the bulk of Americans, 9-11 was a television mini-series that played way back when. It drew oohs and ahhs when it ran, but now it’s over.  

It is the military alone that has paid the price. And for the bulk of Americans, that suits them quite well.  

It is possible – and I have held this view – that such complacency was a testimony to the effectiveness of our intelligence agencies. The NSA in particular, it seems, had the capability of listening in on certain terrorist telephone calls about where the next bomb would be detonated. Thus the work of the FBI and Homeland Security became considerably easier, and more pre-emptive.  

It’s also possible that this view is wrong.  

Recently, I have found myself wondering: What if the next attack on American soil – the one so many experts say they feel is inevitable – is not a single attack? What if, instead, it is a widespread, crippling blow designed to finish the United States as a world power? What if it destroys 8-12 of America’s cities with nukes that were gradually put in place during the time interval since 9-11? What if it releases a follow-on biological attack?  

Put another way, what if the reason there have been no attacks following 9-11 is that there have been no attacks following 9-11?  

Despite the fact that 9-11 failed in its goals, it is impossible not to admire bin Laden as a military strategist. The concept: Hit the financial center in New York and the federal government in Washington, D.C. Remove the capability of the U.S. to respond militarily by crippling the Pentagon. Throw the government into turmoil by destroying the White House and the Capitol building.  

We don’t honor the people on the plane that went down in that Pennsylvania field nearly often enough. Nor do we appreciate that grounding and diverting civilian airliners that day prevented other attacks. The character of the 9-11 attack increasingly leads me to believe that the next attack on the United States will be a large, crippling attack beyond the comprehension of most Americans.  

For the left, ending the war on terror is easy. Quit fighting. Give the Islamists what they want, which is commonly perceived to be Israel (there they go again, giving away something that isn’t theirs to give). For those of us who know the cycle of aggression and appeasement, the answers are not quite so easy. A nuclear North Korea and probably within another year Iran indicate that most of the world is ready to accept “nukes are us” franchises in terrorist nations. Civilization cannot survive this, simply to give aging leftist boomers another few years of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

Spies in space prompt fears of terrorists with an eye on Google Earth

(The Business) JUST a few years ago satellite technology was used in spy films and military hubs only. Yet, with programmes such as Google Earth, this is no longer the case: now, anyone with a computer can access satellite images, pulling up pictures of anywhere in the world, quickly, simply and for free. 

The intelligence community, however, is unhappy about this development. Last week, Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, director of the US National Geospatial Intelligence Agency ñ part of the US Defense Department ñ warned that these kind of satellite imaging products could be used to target troops and facilities. Murretts concerns are not as paranoid as they sound. British troops in Iraq have found print-outs from Google Earth in insurgent safehouses, which they believed were being used to identify the parts of British bases in Basra most vulnerable to rocket and mortar attacks. 

Google Earth gets its images from Colorado-based DigitalGlobe. It is one of two US companies that dominate the geospatial information industry, which is growing at around 10% a year; sales are predicted to hit more than $6bn (£3bn, E4.4bn) by 2010. DigitalGlobe, whose largest investor is Morgan Stanley, is planning to go public within the next 18 months to two years. 

DigitalGlobe and its main competitor, GeoEye ñ a Nasdaq-listed company worth $346m ñ have benefited from a US government decision to buy large amounts of imagery from private firms. This year, both will launch high-resolution satellites able to pick up any object over 50cm, thanks to almost £1bn-worth of government funding. 

Yet both are also trying to create a greater balance between their private sector work and government contracts: DigitalGlobe had an 80-20 split a few years ago, but its current revenues are divided 60-40 and its long-term goal is to take this to 50-50. 

Higher-quality images mean satellite imaging appeals not just to government or Google, but to an increasingly wide range of businesses. Already, oil and gas companies are using it to map out pipeline routes, while insurance and property firms are looking at using the technology to assess claims and plan developments respectively. Industry analysis predicts that the commercial use of satellite imaging will grow four-fold in the next five years. 

The dilemma for firms such as DigitalGlobe is that clients are interested in the most up-to-date and highest-resolution images available. But it is the distribution of precisely these kind of images that the US government, DigitalGlobes principal customer, is worried about on grounds of national security. Already it insists that images at a sub-metre resolution are not released within a day of collection, and that anything smaller than half a metre is not visible. 

Another big challenge for this nascent industry is the inherent risk of doing anything with satellites: one of GeoEyes malfunctioned, leading to a first-quarter loss of $1.73 a share ñ a net loss of $30.2m ñ compared to a profit of 3 cents a share, or $552,000, in the first quarter of 2006. 

Working out a relationship that balances the needs of the national security apparatus and commercial clients will be complex. Many counter-terrorism experts predict Al-Qaeda will next try to strike US chemical or nuclear plants. If the terrorists were perceived to have used publicly available commercial satellite imagery to plan such an attack, knee-jerk legislative measures would surely put the industry out of orbit once and for all.

US troops press hunt for missing soldiers

(AFP) Thousands of US soldiers pressed their hunt across the farms and orchards south of the capital Friday, searching for three US soldiers abducted during a deadly pre-dawn raid nearly a week ago. 

“The brigade has been constantly searching for the soldiers since their abduction,” said Colonel Michael Kershaw, the commander of the brigade to which the soldiers belonged, in a statement. 

Meanwhile three more US soldiers were killed and another wounded when their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, the US military said. It was not immediately clear if those killed were involved in the search. 

The deaths brought total US casualties since the March 2003 invasion to 3,402 and the total deaths in May to 59, putting it on course to be one of the bloodiest months of the war. 

The three missing soldiers disappeared on Saturday after Al-Qaeda insurgents ambushed them on a palm-lined road with light arms fire and explosive devices, killing four more American soldiers and an Iraqi army translator.  

The attack took place in a verdant agricultural region south of Baghdad that has been a hotbed of Sunni insurgents since the March 2003 invasion. 

“As soon as we were aware of the incident, we immediately cordoned off the area and started the search,” Kershaw said. 

At least 4,000 US troops and 2,000 Iraqi forces have poured into the area to help with the search, which involves combing fields, draining canals, and questioning people in villages where resentment of US troops runs high. 

“Although some tips may not be accurate, it is important for each one to be investigated,” said Major Rob Griggs. “You never know if it is the one that will lead you to the soldiers.” 

US troops have already questioned more than 600 people and detained about a dozen, and commanders have repeatedly vowed to continue the search until the soldiers are recovered. 

“The families back home need to know that we are not going to stop searching for the soldiers until they are found,” Kershaw said.

Expert: 7 Padilla fingerprints found on purported al-Qaida form

(AP) Seven fingerprints on a purported al-Qaida training camp application came back as matches to suspected terrorist operative Jose Padilla, a government expert testified Thursday. 

But Secret Service fingerprint specialist John Morgan also acknowledged under defense questioning that there was no way to be certain when the fingerprints were placed on the “mujahedeen data form” recovered by the CIA in Afghanistan. 

Defense lawyers theorize that Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, may have touched the form during his long military confinement at a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. He was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant before he was criminally indicted in Miami in late 2005. 

Although the form was one of dozens found in a binder in late 2001, it wasn’t analyzed for Padilla’s fingerprints until August 2006, Morgan said. The fingerprints appear only on the front of the first page and back of the last page, possibly indicating that the form had been simply handed to Padilla at some point, defense lawyers say. 

“Is it also possible that these prints were made by someone who was writing on the document?” asked prosecutor John Shipley. 

“Yes, that is possible,” Morgan answered, adding that fingerprints are not always left behind when someone touches a paper. “It can go both ways.” 

Prosecutors have opened the trial of Padilla and two co-defendants by focusing on the form, which they claim Padilla completed in July 2000 to attend the al-Farooq terrorist training camp. The form is critical because it potentially links the three defendants to al-Qaida as one of the Islamic extremist groups they are accused of conspiring to support. 

A CIA officer testified this week that the form was taken in December 2001 to an agency installation in Kandahar, Afghanistan, by a local man who said he had found thousands of documents from what he believed was an al-Qaida safe house after its occupants fled. The binder containing the form was later turned over to the FBI. 

The partially completed five-page form includes Padilla’s birth date, Oct. 18, 1970, and lists the nickname Abu Abdallah Al Muhajir, which prosecutors say was an alias for Padilla. The applicant wrote that he is a native speaker of English and Spanish with carpentry skills who studied Arabic and the Quran, made a hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and traveled to Yemen “as a way to go through for Jihad.” 

Also testifying Thursday was FBI translator Nancy Khouri, who said that whoever wrote the date on the form used a format most common in the United States month/date/year and identified himself as an American. The alias allegedly used by Padilla means “Abu Abdallah the Immigrant,” she said. 

Khouri also said the form appeared to be filled out be someone not particularly fluent in Arabic. 

“It looks like a kid’s handwriting,” she said. 

Under defense questioning, Khouri confirmed that at least two types of ink appeared to be used on the form but said he could draw no conclusions from that. Defense lawyers claim the ink differences could mean some information was filled out at a different time. 

Yahya Goba, a member of the “Lackawanna Six” group of men in upstate New York who pleaded guilty to terrorism support charges, is expected to testify in the Padilla case that he filled out an identical form for the same camp, but at a later date. Goba is serving a 10-year prison sentence and is cooperating with federal prosecutors. 

Padilla, a 36-year-old U.S. citizen, was arrested in May 2002 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on suspicion that he was part of an al-Qaida plot to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb” in a U.S. city. Those allegations are not part of the Miami indictment, which claims he was part of a North American support cell for Muslim radicals around the world. 

Padilla was added to the existing Miami case in November 2005 during a legal battle over the president’s wartime powers to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens. He and co-defendants Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi face life in prison if convicted.

Mexican official: drug gangs using ‘terrorist’ tactics; blames U.S. for arms entering country

(AP) Mexico’s top police official said Thursday that drug gangs are relying on a flow of arms from the United States and using terrorist strategies learned from al-Qaida to pressure the government to halt anti-drug efforts. 

Mexican Federal Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna complained of “a large flow of weapons … many of which came from the United States,” noting authorities have seized assault rifles, .50-caliber machine guns and hand grenades from the gangs. 

“Just in the U.S. border zone, just over the bridge, there are 6,000 gun shops,” Garcia Luna said. “That represents an opportunity for drug traffickers.” 

Mexico is struggling to battle drug gangs responsible for a recent spate of executions, and has sent thousands of police and army troops to several states. On Wednesday, a gang overran a town near the U.S. border, killing five policemen and two civilians before state and federal forces killed 15 of the gunmen. 

Garcia Luna also described as a “terrorist strategy” the recent drug-gang videos showing grisly executions and warnings to officials or rival gangs, some of which have been leaked to the media and posted on the Internet. 

Referring to one tape of an execution, he said, “this video has the format, and copies the scheme of a video used by al-Qaida,” the Islamic terror group that has posted videos showing beheadings. 

He said the videos and other violent acts seek “to make the authorities withdraw (from the drug fight).” 

But Garcia Luna said the federal government will not give up its fight against the gangs. 

“We cannot leave in their hands the capability, or the intent, of territorial control” of parts of Mexico, he said.

Musharraf admits al-Qaeda presence in Pakistan

(Xinhua General News Service) Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf has admitted that al-Qaeda is present in the country but said that any major military operation against its elements may cause casualties to civilian population, according to the private NNI news agency Friday. 

“Al-Qaeda, yes indeed they are here. I have stated thousand times they are here. When I said they are not here? Al-Qaeda is in our mountains, in Mir Ali. This is completely true,” he told the private Aaj TV in an interview to be aired on Friday night.  

He said “How to deal with them? There are cities. Whether we surround them? Whether we bomb them? Bullets will be fired, air force will be used, and thousands of civilians will lose life. Should we do that? No sir, this is not the way. So it is more an intelligence operation.”  

Musharraf said that the phenomenon of militancy and extremism was on the rise in the country. “There is an increase of extremism and militancy in the country. We have to counter it. We have to face it.”  

During the interview, Musharraf also said that exiled Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif would not to be allowed to come to the country before the next general elections, due later this year.  

“No, they (Benazir and Nawaz) cannot return before elections,” he said in response to a question.  

However he said that the matter of their return might be considered after the elections.  

To a question about the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Musharraf said that the issue of reference against him was being politicized, adding that the May 12 incidents of violence in Karachi were the result of politicization of this judicial issue.  

“Now when the full bench of the Supreme Court is hearing this case, why this judicial issue is being converted into a political one?” he said.  

The president said that the people, who are giving ethnic color to the Karachi incidents, were playing with the destiny of country. 

“If ethnic violence starts in Karachi, we will turn back to the 1990s to the detriment of the country,” he remarked.  

On Kashmir, Musharraf said different options are under consideration and Pakistan and India are closer to the resolution of this dispute.

Iran tells US to admit ‘failure’ in Iraq

(AFP) Iran said on Friday the United States should admit to the “failure” of its Iraq policies at the upcoming Tehran-Washington meeting on Iraqi security if it wants the talks to make progress. 

“If the Americans admit to the failure of their policies in Iraq, have a serious will to correct the current situation, and help the Iraqi people and government to implement security there, these talks can progress and create hope,” Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters. 

US and Iranian envoys are to meet in Baghdad on May 28 for talks on Iraq’s security in what is believed to be the first official ambassadorial encounter between the arch-foes in three decades. 

Iran will send an “experienced diplomat who has been an ambassador” to meet US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker, Mottaki said. 

Both sides insist the talks would be limited to the security of Iraq and Mottaki said they would not discuss the release of seven Iranians seized by US forces in northern Iraq in January. 

“The May 28 talks will only revolve around the issue of Iraq and a step towards helping security there,” Mottaki said after meeting the families of the detainees who Iran insists were diplomats working for a consulate. 

He said it was up to Iraqi officials to press for the release of the men accused by the United States of being intelligence agents. 

Mottaki noted that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari during a visit to Tehran last month had signalled the detainees could be freed in the Iranian month of Khordad (May 22 to June 21). 

“Mr Zebari said the Americans would seek to release them in Khordad.” 

Mottaki added that the Iranian foreign ministry was preparing “to claim compensation from the Americans for raiding the consulate in Arbil, the detention of diplomats and the losses caused by the closure of the place.” 

The United States accuses Shiite-majority Iran of stirring sectarian violence in Iraq. It also charges that Tehran is supplying Iraqi fighters with roadside bombs, which have killed and maimed large numbers of US soldiers. 

Iran denies the allegations and blames the US “occupiers” for the insecurity and instability of Iraq.

Negroponte warns of Al-Qaeda moving south of the Sahara

(AFP) US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte warned in an interview published Friday of the risks of Al-Qaeda spreading into the region immediately south of the Sahara desert. 

Speaking to the Financial Times and other European newspapers from Brussels, Negroponte also insisted that the threat of terrorism would spread if the United States pulled out from Iraq too quickly, and added that the United States was concerned that Iran was supplying Afghanistan’s Taliban militia with bombs. 

“I think there’s a concern that Al-Qaeda might expand its efforts into the Sahel region (immediately south of the Sahara),” Negroponte told the papers, naming Chad, Mali and Niger as possible areas of concern. 

Negroponte added that the so-called “merger” of the Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat with Al-Qaeda had “compounded the concerns of people in the region.” 

Commenting on Iraq, Negroponte argued that an early American withdrawal could have a detrimental effect on terrorist activity in the region, and called for the Iraqi parliament to quickly pass laws on de-Baathification and hydrocarbons “before the end of the summer.” 

He also spoke of the American belief that Iran was supplying the Taliban with bombs to help them in their insurgency against coalition forces there: “Even in my capacity previous as director of national intelligence, there were some concerns about what appeared to be movement of some weapons and explosive devices across the border from Iran into Afghanistan.”

California man denied new trial on terrorism charges; faces 39 years in prison

(AP) A federal judge on Thursday rejected a new trial for a Lodi man convicted of training at a Pakistani terrorist camp. 

Hamid Hayat, 24, faces up to 39 years in prison when he is sentenced Aug. 10. Defense attorneys said they will appeal. 

U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. said reports of misconduct and prejudicial statements by the jury foreman were not credible. Jurors “thoroughly and thoughtfully deliberated regarding Hayat’s guilt or innocence,” Burrell said. 

The judge also rejected defense objections that jurors were misled by an FBI undercover informant who at one point testified, incorrectly, that he saw a top leader of Al-Qaida on the streets of Lodi, an agricultural community about 35 miles south of the state capital. 

Hayat was convicted in April 2006 of lying to federal agents when he denied attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003. He also was convicted of providing support to terrorists by attending the camp, then returning to the U.S. intending to conduct a holy war.

The Threat in Our Midst; The Doctor on Trial for Providing Material Support to Terrorist

(Newsweek) The men who gathered inside the small Bronx apartment were tense, and they chatted nervously before the ceremony. The participants, among them a New York City musician and an emergency-room doctor from Florida, had allegedly gathered to meet a “brother” from Canada who called himself Ali. The brother had come with a message–from “Sheik Osama.” 

“You are in the belly of the enemy,” the man from Canada warned, and cautioned his audience to be careful whom they spoke to. “The oppressors are everywhere.” Once it was clear they all understood, the jazz musician bent to his knees, clutched the visitor’s hand and took a solemn oath. He pledged to be “one of Islam’s soldiers … on the road to jihad.” The doctor allegedly did the same. Then they each embraced the oath giver, the final step in Al Qaeda’s sacred initiation ritual. 

An audiotape of that extraordinary scene played in a federal courtroom last week as one of the initiates, Dr. Rafiq Sabir, a graduate of Columbia University Medical School, stood trial on federal charges that he provided material support to terrorists. What Sabir and the others didn’t know when they attended the ceremony two years ago was that the man administering the oath was not really a jihadist, but Ali Soufan, an undercover FBI agent who had spent the better part of his career hunting Qaeda operatives. 

Sabir’s defense lawyer has cried entrapment. The accused himself later testified he had no idea that the Sheik Osama he was heard pledging his loyalty to was the Qaeda terror chief named bin Laden. But the musician, an accomplished jazz bassist named Tarik Shah who once played with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, has already pleaded guilty to a terror-related charge. So have two other men in the case, a Washington, D.C., cabdriver and a Brooklyn bookstore owner. The FBI counts the case as one more victory in what it considers to be its top-priority mission: finding would-be terrorists before they can carry out their plans. 

Federal officials say the case–along with a half dozen other recent investigations–is part of a worrisome trend: copycat jihadist cells that spring up inside the United States without any concrete connection to Qaeda central or other foreign terror organizations. Concerns were reinforced last week when the Justice Department announced it had busted a plot by six men–including four ethnic Albanians, three of whom had entered the country illegally more than 20 years ago–to attack Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey. The Feds say the men undertook firearms training in the Pocono mountains and conducted surveillance of Fort Dix and other U.S. military facilities. But they weren’t exactly professional conspirators. The men made a video of themselves shooting guns and shouting “God is great” in Arabic, and took it to a local Circuit City to have DVD copies made. A store employee, alarmed by the content, called the police. The group ended up talking to undercover federal informants about acquiring weapons, including fully automatic assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. (The men were charged but not indicted last week.) 

Homegrown groups lack the expertise of terrorists who undertake training in Qaeda camps, which probably makes them more prone to blunder. But terrorists overseas do aim to encourage such freelancers, who–in theory–are harder to identify and track because they can pop up anywhere. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are now using sophisticated English-language videos and Web sites to inspire followers in Europe and America to start their own jihadist cells. “We have seen an increase in the number of self-radicalized groups that use the Internet … and are not organized by overseas groups,” FBI Director Robert Mueller told reporters last week. 

Al Qaeda puts out a steady supply of videos to inspire the faithful; last year the group produced 48. And they are no longer the clumsy and amateurish productions of a few years ago. Many have English subtitles or are narrated in perfect English by a man who calls himself “Azzam the American”–a California expat, born Adam Gadahn–who converted to Islam and joined Al Qaeda. Law-enforcement officials compare this to a Madison Avenue ad campaign. “Al Qaeda is banking on the idea that if they pump up the volume and increase the number of messages, they’ll be able to push fence-sitters over the edge,” says a senior law-enforcement official who asked not to be named discussing intelligence issues. 

How effective is the propaganda? It’s impossible to quantify. The New Jersey case seems to show that at least some believers get inspiration from what they can download from the Web. According to the FBI complaint in the case, one of the key figures in the plot had DVD files of the last will and testament of two of the 9/11 hijackers on his laptop. He also had images of bin Laden and other jihadist leaders exhorting believers to join the cause. The FBI complaint describes defendants erupting in laughter when they watched a war video showing an American Marine’s hand being blown off. 

But some of the FBI’s operations have rounded up disaffected losers who might have been looking for trouble anyway. Over the past two years, the FBI has brought a spate of domestic terrorism cases involving people who were allegedly plotting attacks. In August 2005, the Justice Department indicted four men on charges of planning to attack synagogues and U.S. military installations in southern California. The alleged ringleaders were two former inmates of California’s Folsom prison who converted to Islam and formed a radical group dedicated to “killing infidels.” (All of the defendants pleaded not guilty; their trial is scheduled for August.) In January the FBI arrested Derrick Shareef, of Rockford, Ill., on charges that he was allegedly planning to plant hand grenades in garbage cans in a local shopping mall. (He pleaded not guilty.) A law-enforcement official who asked not to be named talking about intel matters tells NEWSWEEK that the Feds discovered Shareef had downloaded a 48-minute video by Gadahn, with an intro by bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In other cases, the Feds also arrested alleged plotters in Florida and Ohio. 

A list like that can make it seem as though terrorists are all around us. But law-enforcement officials don’t know whether any of the alleged conspirators had the will or means to carry out actual attacks. Critics have claimed that in some of the cases, including the one in New York, FBI informants, posing as radicals, encouraged defendants to say questionable things. “It’s not like these were spontaneous plots,” said Niwad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “What you have are informants who are going to disgruntled, totally messed-up people and trying to provoke them.” 

But FBI officials insist that they have to rely on undercover agents and informants to identify future terrorists before they strike. That’s what they did in the New York case. The investigation began more than four years ago when a confidential informant reported to the FBI that Tarik Shah, the jazz musician, was trying to establish links to Al Qaeda. Shah, who at one time was associated with the Nation of Islam, was also a martial-arts instructor. He purportedly wanted to help train Qaeda members in hand-to-hand combat. Acting under instructions from the FBI, the informant set up a meeting between Shah and FBI agent Soufan, who was posing as a Qaeda operative. 

Soufan was the rarest of G-men–a Muslim native of Lebanon, he spoke fluent Arabic and was regarded as one of the bureau’s leading Qaeda experts. He had worked the FBI’s biggest cases against the organization. Still, when he donned a wire and began meeting with Shah, Soufan was nervous. Shah would boast of his martial-arts expertise. “You really want to learn how to rip somebody’s throat out?” Shah asks Soufan at one point on the FBI tape. Shah later introduced Soufan to his other friends, including Sabir, the Florida ER physician, who was also a former Nation of Islam follower. During the meeting in the Bronx apartment, he allegedly volunteered to help treat wounded Qaeda “brothers” during an upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia.  

Even though neither Shah nor Sabir ever had a real relationship with Al Qaeda, Soufan says the case is a classic example of how the FBI should work. During the course of their dealings, Shah had identified three associates–including one who had been to a training camp in Pakistan, and another who had offered to provide funding to mujahedin in Afghanistan and Chechnya. “It was a good catch,” he says. “We got three guys. We got them cold and we got them by the book. I consider this a proactive counterterrorism operation.” 

The FBI says it is doing all it can to forge links with members of the Islamic community that will lead to tips about suspicious behavior. John Miller, the bureau’s assistant director for public affairs, told a Senate panel last week that the FBI has been stepping up its recruitment programs in American Muslim communities–it even sponsored a “Children’s Day” fair at Giants Stadium last year for the Muslim community in New Jersey. 

But for all its efforts, the FBI still has only a handful of Muslim agents and only 40 who are “proficient” in Arabic despite incentive packages that include 25 percent pay hikes for Arabic speakers. (It has been unable to find any 

agents who are proficient in Urdu and Pashto, the key languages in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding.) The bureau and other agencies have been hampered in part by tight security restrictions against hiring Arabic and other foreign-language specialists who have traveled or have relatives overseas–a rule that makes it more difficult to recruit native speakers. 

Hanging on to the ones they have isn’t easy, either. Soufan himself has gone the way of many hardworking agents. After struggling against some of the government’s tactics in the war on terror (he reportedly objected to the CIA’s aggressive interrogation techniques), he left the agency. Now he’s putting his expertise to work for Rudy Giuliani’s private security firm. The pay is better, and it’s a lot less dangerous. But it means there’s one less gumshoe working the Qaeda beat.