CIA Chief: Al Qaeda Infiltrators 'Look Western'
By James Gordon Meek
CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden on Sunday made the most definitive statement to date about an emerging threat from Al Qaeda reported exclusively by the New York Daily News in December: The ever-creative top thugs of Osama Bin Laden’s terror network have succeeded in converting a group of white Europeans and has trained them in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
Here’s how Hayden described it to NBC News’ Tim Russert on “Meet the Press:”
“It’s very clear to us that Al Qaeda has been able, over the past 18 months or so, to establish a safe haven along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area that they have not enjoyed before, that they are bringing operatives into that region for training - operatives that, a phrase I would use, Tim, wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the Customs line at Dulles with you when you’re coming back from overseas,” Hayden said.
Asked by Russert if he meant terrorists who “look Western,” Hayden replied, “Look Western, who … would be able to come into this country with, again, without attracting the kind of attention that others might.”
In The News’ December report, my sources described a small group of white European converts who have raised fears among counterterrorism officials at the highest levels. I first began asking questions of U.S. counterterrorism officials after a December 2006 Newsweek article, in which a reporter described meeting one of the “English brothers” outside a Taliban safehouse on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Last month, Director of National Intelligence Adm. Michael McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee in written testimony: “We have seen an influx of new Western recruits into the tribal areas since mid-2006.”
Hayden yesterday also became one of the highest-ranking U.S. officials to state that Bin Laden himself is “not operationally involved” in his own terror network’s activities.
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