Fears grow of terrorist with ‘an American face’

Ranks appear to be growing
What is different now, say intelligence officials and experts, is evidence that the ranks of Western converts are growing, including the arrest of the Germans in the plot to kill U.S. service members. While U.S. intelligence is not willing to detail its sourcing on the presence of Westerners in al-Qaida camps, NBC News has been told:

• Sources in Pakistan’s South Waziristan, home of the most active al-Qaida operations in the border region, have recently reported seeing “white men” among those being trained in the camps. The U.S. believes al-Qaida has dozens of such operatives trained for terrorist attacks.
• There has been an increase in the use of English in al-Qaida messages to stoke discontent and motivate homegrown extremists. A tape released by Ayman al Zawahiri, al-Qaida’s second-in-command, in August was his first in English. Although it was aimed at English speakers in Pakistan, it follows a general pattern. Gadahn, the Californian-turned-jihadi, has been featured in al-Qaida videos, although he has not been heard from since January. (U.S. officials do not believe he is dead but offer no explanation for his absence.)
• There is a thriving online jihadi community that often uses English to target disaffected Americans.
• Taliban officials have been boasting that they are training Westerners, claiming they have “several people from the West there in their training camps now.” The Taliban said people “are coming from all over the world,” especially from the U.S., United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, to get jihadi training in South Waziristan. Some of them later return to their home countries, while others stay and fight Western forces in Afghanistan, according to the Taliban officials. The U.S. believes the Westerners are in fact in Pakistan, other parts of South Asia and perhaps Europe. There’s no information that they have made it to the United States.
• Most recently, Taliban officials have contended that among foreign fighters “martyred” in a Predator attack near Wana in South Waziristan on Aug. 30 were “two Arabs of Canadian origin.” U.S. counterterrorism officials will neither confirm nor deny the claim.

Al-Qaida operating freely along border
Gistaro said al-Qaida also has been able to operate training camps along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border with increasing freedom.

ENCARTA PAKISTAN: Maps, facts and figures

“Al-Qaida has strengthened its safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas by deepening its alliances with Pakistani militants and pushing many elements of Pakistani government authority from the area,” he said. “It now has many of the operational and organizational advantages it once enjoyed across the border in Afghanistan, albeit on a smaller and less secure scale.”

Political instability in Pakistan and a sevenfold increase in suicide attacks in the past seven months have added to fears that the safe haven could expand. Intelligence officials agree there's a nationwide campaign of intimidation, with attacks now taking place in both urban and tribal areas.

Could this resurgence be a precursor of new al-Qaida threats against the U.S.? 

“As the election nears, we expect to see an uptick in such threat reporting — of varying credibility — regarding possible attacks,” Gistaro said. “We also expect to see an increase in al-Qaida's propaganda efforts, especially around the anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which has often been a hook for such propaganda statements.”

“In Osama bin Laden's September 2007 address to the American people, he labeled the democratic system a failure,”  Gistaro said. He also called for Americans to convert to Islam and warned that the only other solution "is to continue to escalate the killing and fighting against you."

That political philosophy is part of al-Qaida training, whether for Arabs or Americans, say officials.

Election likely a motivation
While al-Qaida has no preferred candidate, said a senior intelligence official, “they certainly want to be a topic of the election” as they were in 2004 when bin Laden’s first video in three years aired four days before voters went to the polls. Sen. John Kerry has said he believes the video turned the election to President Bush.

More recently, al-Qaida hasn’t been getting the attention it is used to. Media outlets that raced to post Zawahiri audios seven years ago are now ignoring them. That factors into the intelligence community’s assessment that we will likely hear from al-Qaida’s leadership before the election — through words, violence or both.

“Perhaps the most pressing security challenge for the next administration is how to deal with the al-Qaida safe haven in Pakistan,” said Cressey. “None of the options is ideal, but it’s clear that action will be required.”

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