Officials Worried Over Terror Sleeper Cells

Officials Worried Over Terror Sleeper Cells

July 23, 2007

The nation’s top intelligence official yesterday went further than ever before in outlining what he described as a heightened threat of an al Qaeda attack on American soil.
“Their attempt is to cause mass casualties,” said Adm. Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “Second [priority] is political and possibly economic disruption.”
Just days ago, a new National Intelligence Estimate found al Qaeda has strengthened its ability to attack the United States. McConnell said al Qaeda is seeking the means to launch chemical, biological and possibly nuclear attacks. But the likeliest threat is harder to detect.
“What we see currently is primarily a focus on explosives — explosives that can generate a large explosion, but they’re put together with commercially available material,” he said.
McConnell says small numbers of al Qaeda operatives are in this country raising funds. But he said he knows of no al Qaeda cells in the country that are capable of launching a strike at this time.
“I worry that there are sleeper cells in the U.S.,” McConnell said. “I do not know.”