WASHINGTON — Three top U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday that a resurgent Al Qaeda had stepped up training and worldwide operations from safe havens in Pakistan, a development they worry could lead to ambitious new attacks.
However, the CIA's director for intelligence, John Kringen, and other counter-terrorism officials downplayed recent news reports and comments from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that suggested there was a heightened risk of an Al Qaeda attack on the United States this summer, saying they had no intelligence about such a strike.
Chertoff is "right that their planning-to-execution cycle might suggest summer is the window of choice," said one counter-terrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because his agency prohibits its employees from publicly discussing intelligence matters. "But there is no specific credible threat right now."
Even without seeing indicators of a specific attack, officials said, they do believe that the overall risk from Al Qaeda is rising. The U.S. attacks on Al Qaeda's former base in Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 severely disrupted Osama bin Laden's network. But since then, Al Qaeda has rebuilt its headquarters in Pakistan and is more dangerous than at any time since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a new classified threat assessment.
Kringen said that Bin Laden is being protected by powerful local tribal leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border and that the safe haven has enabled his network to regroup and rebuild its ability to strike the United States.
Intelligence officials assume that Al Qaeda will continue to try to attack the United States, Kringen said in an interview, adding: "We begin with the premise that the home run hit is the United States."
Chertoff said Tuesday that he was basing his assessment on a "gut feeling" from previous patterns of attack, Al Qaeda statements and intelligence that he did not disclose.
The Homeland Security chief "started this thing, but we are trying not to hype it," said the counter-terrorism official.
Chertoff clarified his remarks Wednesday, saying in an interview with the Washington Post that what he meant to convey was "a more general, strategic sense of the threat environment," based on publicly reported information rather than secret intelligence.
