'New' Al Qaeda Operating From Georgia

May 19 -- Al Qaeda, though weakened, is replenishing and smuggling terror operatives from new training camps in the Republic of Georgia, and these terrorists possibly are being protected by Iran, sources told ABCNEWS.

While President Bush and the FBI have repeatedly stressed that al Qaeda is being dismantled, terrorist attacks last week in Saudi Arabia indicate that the terror group is still active — and authorities in London, Paris, Madrid and Washington are predicting more attacks.

Al Qaeda's operation has been crippled by the U.S.-led war on terrorism, but it has shifted its tactics and taken on new commanders and adopted new routes of travel, sources said.

From new training camps in Georgia, sources told ABCNEWS, al Qaeda operatives are being smuggled into Europe and across the Black Sea before settling into safe houses in Turkey. Employees of these safe houses do not hesitate to protect these al Qaeda operatives.

"I'm not going to call police against Hezbollah, al Qaeda," one desk clerk at the Interyouth Hostel in Turkey told ABCNEWS' Brian Ross. "I don't do this."

New Military Chief and New Tactics

Osama bin Laden's whereabouts remain a mystery to U.S. authorities, but officials told ABCNEWS his former bodyguard Saif el-Adel is his new military chief. Sources said el-Adel is operating out of Iran, where he and other al Qaeda operatives are being protected by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

"It [al Qaeda] has a management council that has sanctuary inside of Iran," said ABCNEWS consultant and former U.S. counterterrorism official Richard Clarke. "It has tens of thousands of trained operatives that were trained in camps in Afghanistan who are still at large. So, although we've done a lot of damage to al Qaeda, it's still a potent force."

The FBI has offered a $25 million reward for el-Adel's capture for his alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Last week's deadly attacks in the Saudi capital of Riyadh showed new terror tactics, which included simultaneous attacks on multiple targets. In the attacks, armed operatives cleared security personnel as multiple vehicles packed with explosives honed in on various "soft" targets that promised many casualties.