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STRATFOR.com
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THE INTERNET SOURCE FOR GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE
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The Afghan Response and the U.S. Theater of Operations
October 8, 2001
Summary
As the U.S. military commences strikes on Afghanistan, warnings are increasing about the threat of further attacks on the United States. Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network likely has more forces deployed in the United States. The question now isn't if they will strike again, but where and how they will do it.
Analysis
U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said last week that any American attack on Afghanistan has an almost 100 percent chance of triggering retaliation in the United States or in ally countries. It has been STRATFOR'S position that the al Qaeda network had multiple groups deployed in the United States on Sept. 11. We also argued that these groups have only minimal and highly secure contact with command centers outside the United States, making their detection by U.S. intelligence extremely difficult.
One of the problems that U.S. intelligence has is proving conclusively that there are no further terrorist groups operating in the United States. One possible means to accomplish this would be through the capture and interrogation of those who have comprehensive knowledge of the deployment of al Qaeda's forces. It is not clear though that anyone has that sort of detailed information. The entire structure of the network seems to have been designed to avoid creating such a center of knowledge. Moreover, those people -- if they were known -- are not readily accessible.
However, numerous operatives in the United States and overseas have certainly been arrested. Some of the initial clues came from information deliberately left behind by the attackers in cars and apartments. The Sept. 11 attacks were extremely well coordinated, and unless one assumes that such meticulous planners suddenly became very sloppy at the end, which is possible but not likely, then many of these leads seem designed to allow U.S. security forces to quickly scoop up auxiliary attack operatives.
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(c) 2001 Stratfor, Inc.
Dan
The Afghan Response and the U.S. Theater of Operations . . .