The Insider: Daily Terrorism Report
Apr. 12, 2004 -- — President Bush was aware that al Qaeda members had either traveled to or had resided in the United States for years before the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a pre-9/11 intelligence brief, from August 6, 2001, which was released to the public on Saturday. Since 1998, the FBI had observed "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks," according to the memo prepared for Bush. They included evidence of buildings in New York possibly being cased by terrorists. President Bush retaliated on Sunday to allegations that his administration had not done enough to fend off the attacks by saying there was "no specific indication of an attack" in the memo.
And following the widely-anticipated release of the presidential daily brief, news analyses from the weekend looked at specific intelligence failures leading up to 9/11 — the New York Times reported on Sunday that American investigators probing the October 2000 terrorist attack against the Navy destroyer Cole came very close to detecting the Sept. 11 plot, according to F.B.I. and C.I.A. officials, who now say the government missed the significance of a series of clues due to misunderstandings by investigators.
THE WAR ON TERROR
9/11 Commission
Bush's Pre-9/11 al Qaeda Memo Released
President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al Qaeda had reached America's shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot. (AP)
Text of Bush's Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing (AP)
Bush Says Brief On Al Qaeda Threat Was Not Specific The president also defended the adequacy of his response to warnings that terrorists in the U.S. might be planning hijackings. (NY Times)
Inquiry Into Attack On the Cole in 2000 Missed 9/11 CluesThe American investigators probing the October 2000 terrorist attack against the Navy destroyer Cole came tantalizingly close to detecting the Sept. 11 plot, F.B.I. and C.I.A. officials now say. (NY Times)
Panelists: FBI Must Explain 70 Probes Before 9/11
The FBI this week will be pressed to explain why 70 separate investigations did not uncover the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner plot, members of the commission investigating the attacks said on Sunday. (Reuters)
9/11 Panel to Examine Agencies' Failure to Share Intelligence Failures of agencies within the U.S. intelligence community to process information that each had on Osama bin Laden's network before Sept. 11, 2001 will be one focus of hearings this week by the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. (Washington Post)
INVESTIGATIONS
Spain
Plot Leader In Madrid Sought Help of Al Qaeda Spain says suspect met with operative. (Washington Post)
More Bomb Suspects Held in Madrid
At least three more suspects have been arrested in Spain over the Madrid train bombings, court sources say. (BBC)
Madrid Bomb Suspects 'Phoned Britain Before Blowing Themselves Up'
Fresh links between last month's Madrid bomb attacks and Britain emerged yesterday after it was reported that terror suspects telephoned Britain shortly before blowing themselves up 10 days ago. (The Guardian)
Complex Web of Madrid Plot Still Tangled
Investigators say key participants in the Madrid train bombings may still be at large. (NY Times)
U.S.
American Airlines Revealed Passenger Data
American Airlines revealed yesterday that it authorized the release of 1.2 million records containing private passenger data to the government and that the information wound up in the hands of four companies competing for a federal security contract. (Washington Post)
Hunt for Al Qaeda
'Osama Slipped Out by Sea'
Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden may have fled Pakistan through Karachi or Gwadar. (Arab News)
Afghans Begin New Hunt for al Qaeda
Hundreds of Afghan and American soldiers are engaged in a new hunt for Osama bin Laden and other terror suspects in a mountainous region bordering Pakistan, the Afghan military said Monday. (Washington Post)
U.S. Backs Off Bin Laden Capture Deadline
The U.S. military pulled back Saturday from an earlier prediction that Osama bin Laden would be captured this year, even while preparing its largest force to date for operations along the Pakistani border where the al Qaeda chief is suspected to be hiding. (AP)
France
France Detains Six Casablanca Attack Suspects
French magistrates have put under formal investigation and detention six militants suspected of links to deadly suicide bomb attacks in Morocco last year, a source close to the case told Reuters on Saturday. (Reuters)
Jordan
More Terror Suspects Nabbed in Jordan
Jordanian authorities have nabbed several more suspected terrorists and seized two cars filled with explosives, the state television reported Saturday, marking the latest arrests involving a militant cell believed linked to al Qaeda that targeted public institutions and the U.S. Embassy. (AP)
Philippines
Concern Led to Philippine Terror Arrests
U.S. officials received "extraordinarily high" intelligence about terror threats in the Philippines last month, prompting them to raise concerns with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a senior American diplomat said Monday. (AP)
Kenya
Kenya to Deport Five Somalis for Terror Links
Kenyan authorities will next week deport five Somali nationals for alleged links to the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, a newspaper reported yesterday. (AFP)
LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
U.K.
Five More Charged in Antiterror Sweep by Police in Britain
Five Britons appeared briefly in a high-security court on Saturday charged with an array of terrorism-related crimes after what was depicted by the authorities as the biggest antiterror sweep in Britain since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. (NY Times)
Now Blunkett Plans to Jail Friends of Terrorist Suspects
Sympathizers with extremist Islamic groups will risk jail under controversial plans to make merely associating with a suspected terrorist a crime. (The Guardian)
Yemen
Yemen Frees Two Britons Jailed On Terror Charges
Yemen Saturday released two British Muslims convicted five years ago on charges of terrorism and plotting sabotage in the Arab country, police officials said. (Arab News)
Yemen Preparing to Try 178, Including 11 Cole Suspects
The Yemeni government announced that it will try 178 terror suspects who were being held in security prisons for the past three years. These include 11 suspected of involvement in the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 and five suspected of involvement in the attack on the French suptertanker Limburg. (Al Hayat)
GUANTANAMO
Rights Plea Over Guantanamo Bay
A human rights conference in Yemen on Guantanamo Bay detainees has ended with a plea to the US to either release inmates or put them on trial. (BBC)
ON THE WEB
Islamic Group Takes Credit for Uzbek ClashesUnknown band claims responsibility for recent violence that killed at least 47, including police. (LA Times)
THE WAR IN IRAQ
Fragile Cease-Fire Holds in Fallujah
Cease-fire holds in Fallujah, where Iraqis say more than 600 Iraqis have been killed in a week. (AP)
SCIRI — U.S. Seeking Truce with Shi'ite Leader Sadr U.S. officials are seeking a truce with Shi'ite insurgent leader Moqtada al Sadr, an official of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) said on Monday, adding it was acting as a go-between in talks. (Reuters)
Around 770 Die in Recent Iraq Fighting
Around 70 coalition troops and 700 insurgents killed in recent Iraq fighting: U.S. general. (AP)
Troops Hold Fire at 3 Iraqi Cities for Negotiations
United States officials also warned that the resistance in all three centers would be crushed if the insurgents maneuvered for long. (NY Times)
Two Die When U.S. Copter Downed in Iraq
Two killed when insurgents shoot down U.S. helicopter west of Baghdad; Gun battle erupts in Fallujah. (AP)
Iraq Hostage Crisis Intensifies
The international hostage crisis in Iraq today grew as seven Chinese nationals were taken by gunmen and there was mounting uncertainty over the fate of three kidnapped Japanese civilians. (The Guardian)
Town Awaits Word On Man Kidnapped in Iraq
In his hometown in eastern Mississippi, Thomas Hamill is known as a good guy — a family man with a young son and daughter who took a job driving trucks in Iraq to make ends meet after his dairy farm took a hit. (AP)
British Hostage Released to U.S.-Led Forces in Iraq
British contractor Gary Teeley, seized by suspected militants in the southern Iraqi city of Nassiriya last week, was handed over to U.S.-led forces on Sunday, officials said. (Reuters)
Marines Find Evidence of Suicide Squads Deserted shed in Fallujah suggests careful planning, foreign presence. (Washington Post)
Iraqi Troops Reject Falluja Duty
A senior U.S. military officer in Iraq has said that a battalion of the new Iraqi army refused to support U.S. forces in the town of Falluja. (BBC)
Sources: Decision to Increase Shiite Resistance Taken at Secret Conference in London
Informed sources in London told Asahrq Al Awsat newspaper that the decision to increase the Shiite resistance in Iraq was taken during a secret Islamist conference held in London in mid March with the participation of representatives of major Islamist movements and inviduals close to the Shiite leader Muqtada Al Sadr. (Asharq Al Awsat)
"Jaysh Ansar Al Sunna" Did Not Call for Cooperation With Al Sadr
An Iraqi resistance group called Jaysh Ansar Al Sunna issued a statement dated April 8 denying that it had sent a delegation to Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al Sadr to offer support and cooperation. The same group issued a second statement calling for support to the people under siege in Fallujah. (Asharq Al Awsat)
Sources: Saddam's Wife Insists His Double Was the One Arrested
Qatari diplomatic sources told the Arab news website Elaph that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's wife Sajida insists that the person arrested by U.S. forces was not her husband but his double. (Elaph)
ANALYSIS & OPINION
Probing the MemoA declassified President's Daily Brief sparks questions about 9/11. (Time)
An Iraqi Intifada Now the war is being fought in the open, by people defending their homes. (The Guardian)
Elementary Mistakes
Shortly before Saddam's statue in the heart of Baghdad was brought crashing to the ground, the Americans made the first of a string of elementary mistakes which now, a year later, finds the smiling liberators transformed into grim-faced occupiers. (Arab News)
Iraqi Kurds May Want to Go Their Own WayRisking independence would be less perilous than the mayhem of civil war. (LA Times)
Make Democracy and Accountability Real in Iraq
The situation in Iraq is striking, volatile, worrying — but not new. (Daily Star — Beirut)
Talk About National Interest, Not Right and Wrong
The dispatch of the Self Defense Force to Iraq is increasingly attacked by many as complicity in an unjust war. They say the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction is proof of the war's injustice. But national interest is based on more practical considerations — to talk emotionally about the righteousness of a war is a distraction. (Sankei Shimbun — Tokyo)
Hostage-Taking
The taking of hostages is a great cruelty, though for fighters who feel that they have limited ways to strike at an enemy, the seizure and detention of an unarmed individual who is in some way identified with the foe may seem an effective option. It is however very far from being effective. (Arab News)
Iraq Council Was Regarded With Scorn — But Now it Has Found its Voice
Like a mouse that roared, it was pressure from Iraq's previously docile U.S. — appointed governing council which pushed the United States to agree to let mediators find a political, rather than a military end to the battle of Falluja. (The Guardian)
Picking Up the PiecesThe U.N. is hardly well placed to step into an Iraq that it was complicit in ruining. The time is now for it to renew its legitimacy by addressing the issues independently of conquering powers. (Al Ahram Weekly — Cairo)
Outbreak of Iraqi Violence Pressures AlliesLeaders who have contributed troops are mostly hanging tough while criticism comes from media, opposition parties and the public. (LA Times)
A Year of Failure
What the American forces faced in Iraq, at the end of the first year of its occupation, is directly related to the operation of trailing the Americans in Fallujah and Moqtada Al Sadr. (Al Hayat)
The Insider Daily Terrorism Report (DTR) is a summary of major news articles and broadcasts relating to international terrorism and the war in Iraq. The DTR is edited from foreign and U.S. sources by Chris Isham, Hoda Osman, and Brinda Adhikari of the ABCNEWS Investigative Unit. The outside views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ABCNEWS.