Official: al-Qaeda Planning 'Grand Finale' Attack on U.S. Soil

NEW YORK--PRNewswire--Following the deadly attacks against British targets in Turkey last week, the "chatter" -- loose talk of threats among Islamic extremists, picked up by U.S. eavesdroppers-was spiking upwards again.

The traditional holiday of Ramadan, propitious in terrorist minds for great and violent events, was coming to an end. "You have rapid-fire, back-to-back significant Al Qaeda attacks," one counter-terrorism official tells Newsweek in the December 1 issue (on newsstands Monday, November 24). "It's starting to look like this could be the buildup to a grand finale on U.S. soil."

More than two years after 9/11, Al Qaeda continues to hit "soft targets," mostly in the Islamic world: Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Yemen, Kenya, Chechnya, Saudi Arabia.

But -- so far -- not London or Paris or New York or Washington, report Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Investigative Correspondent Mark Hosenball, leaving many to wonder if Al Qaeda, with its very long view of history, is biding its time, working up slowly toward another "spectacular."

For all the spy satellites and high-tech listening devices that can home in on the terrorists' chatter, and despite enormous increases in the "black budget" spent on intelligence -- gathering in the war on terror, the true threat to the American homeland remains murky.

Knowledgeable officials tell Newsweek that they have no idea who was behind the deadliest bombings in Iraq since last summer-the suicide attacks in August on the Jordanian Embassy and the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, the bombing that killed a prominent Shiite ayatollah in the holy city of Najaf and the recent attacks on Italian forces in Nasiriya and simultaneous wave of car bombings in Baghdad. There are no clear culprits.

Much of what the CIA knows about Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists comes from other intelligence services.

The CIA has a pipeline, lubricated by large amounts of cash, to the secret police in various Middle Eastern countries. Still, the war in Iraq has not helped foster these special relationships.

The security services of Middle Eastern despots are not enthusiastic about promises of democratic change coming from President George W. Bush. After 9/11, Syrian intelligence began working with the CIA against a common enemy, the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which wanted to both overthrow the Assad regime and help Al Qaeda attack the United States.

But, intelligence sources tell Newsweek, the neocons in the Pentagon have been undermining that relationship by accusing (without much proof) the Syrians of encouraging jihadists to cross into Iraq and of hiding Saddam's WMD inside Syria.