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Al Qaeda Plans 'Raid'

Thursday, May 8, 2003
The Gulf Daily News

DUBAI -- GDN
Al Qaeda is preparing a new attack in the US on the scale of September 11 after adopting a new operational structure which is impenetrable to US intelligence, a Saudi weekly reports.

"An attack against America is inevitable," Al-Majallah quotes the Islamic militant network's newly-appointed spokesman Thabet bin Qais as saying in an e-mail to the paper.

Al Qaeda has "carried out changes in its leadership and sidelined the September 11, 2001 team", the paper quotes Bin Qais as saying.

"Future missions have been entrusted to the new team, which is well protected against the US intelligence services. The old leadership does not know the names of any of its members."

The message from Al Qaeda scoffed at recent Press reports that US agents are hot on the trail of its leader Osama bin Ladin, whose whereabouts have been a mystery since the ouster of his Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in late 2001.

"We keep our cool in the face of such reports, just as we do when the Americans say they have uncovered new Al Qaeda plans or arrested our leaders," Bin Qais is quoted as saying.
(Source: Gulf-Daily-News.com)
2003 © The Gulf Daily News.

Dan