At Least 70,000 Terrorist Suspects on Watch List

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have identified at least 70,000 suspected terrorists around the world and say an unknown number of Al Qaeda-trained soldiers have been trying for at least five years to infiltrate the United States and launch "spectacular" attacks, according to two congressional reports issued last week and all but ignored in the flurry of headlines that accompanied hearings into intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The reports, based on recently declassified intelligence and law enforcement information, indicate that the State Department's watch list of dangerous individuals contains the names of 70,000 "members of foreign terrorist organizations, known hijackers, car bombers, assassins or hostage-takers."

U.S. officials stressed that the threshold for making the watch list is low. But, in the reports, they also said they fear that an unidentified number of suspected terrorists--on and off the list--may already be inside the United States because of serious, long-standing gaps in information-sharing by the CIA and the State Department.

The reports, which include other troubling insights into the war on global terrorism, were released during three days of congressional hearings into the missed warning signs of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They provide a window into the ongoing threat that authorities say Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations continue to pose to the United States and its interests abroad.

But the disclosures were overshadowed by the often-riveting testimony that focused on the myriad mistakes, miscommunications and bureaucratic entanglements between the FBI and CIA that occurred as the Sept. 11 hijackers planned and launched their attacks without disruption by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

In an interview, a U.S. intelligence official said the reports only made public what the CIA and FBI have known for years.

"It gives you some idea of the enormity of the challenge we face," said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "It's a lot more complicated than is generally acknowledged, for a variety of reasons."

"Al Qaeda continues to be a threat," said the official. "But they are not the only threat out there."

The intelligence official said Al Qaeda remains as dangerous an organization today as it was before Sept. 11. The official also said the terrorist threat spreads far beyond Al Qaeda to other militant Islamic groups, as well as such terrorist organizations as 17 November in Greece, Abu Sayyaf in Southeast Asia and FARC in Colombia.