http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050710/wl_afp/britainattacksuscells
This is the link and it works for me. Go to Yahoo.com and check the news section.
US actively investigating terrorist sleeper cells: Chertoff
Sun Jul 10, 5:04 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US officials are actively investigating terrorist sleeper cells in the United States, Secretary of
Homeland Security
Michael Chertoff said, speaking in the aftermath of last week's deadly London transit bombings.
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Over the past years US officials have successfully pressed cases against sleeper cells in northern Virginia -- in the Washington suburbs -- and in the western US, Chertoff said, speaking on CBS television's "Face the Nation" program.
"The lesson of things like (the terror attacks in) London and Madrid is, you don't wait until the cell becomes operational, because if you wait until the fuse is lit, you're waiting too long," he said.
US officials "are very active and aggressive in pursuing these cells, even when we just have them training or lying in wait," said Chertoff.
"We've seen these cells, and we're continuing to conduct active investigations of other cells," he added.
Whatever British investigators determine on the role of sleeper cells in Thursday's terror attacks in London -- including whether such cells operated independently, were activated by an outsider, or whether the attackers came from abroad -- will help US officials, Chertoff said.
The top US security czar also said during his round of US network news interviews that
FBI agents were sent over to help British authorities in the investigation.
US officials are carefully monitoring potential terrorist sympathizers, especially "if we have any indication someone is going into
Iraq or going into
Afghanistan to get training," Chertoff said on ABC's "This Week" program.
"A lot of what we've done over the last couple of years in penetrating cells ... is a product of this kind of intelligence-gathering, where we do find people who were trained in Afghanistan, and then we arrest them as part of a material support," he said.
"We try to intercept (the cells), we try to incapacitate them well before they become operational," Chertoff said.
US officials do not believe however that suicide bombers participated in the London attacks,
President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, said separately on "Fox News Sunday."
"The forensics aren't there to say that these were suicide bombers," said Townsend, adding that they were more likely planted bombs.
Townsend also said that the US transit systems are "a lot safer" after the September 11 attacks as well as the Madrid bombings.
"We put extensive warnings about the kind of techniques that Al-Qaeda uses to do these attacks out to state and locals, so they can take protective measures," she said.
But the chances of stopping an attack drop "if we're waiting until the very last second, where an individual is going to strap a bomb on or plant a bomb in a subway system," she said.
Increased patrols and sniffer dogs are "the last point of defense," she added.
"That's why you're in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting (the terrorists) there so you don't have to fight them" in the United States, she said.
Suggestions that the war in Iraq is a recruiting tool for terror groups like Al-Qaeda are "a lie."
"We know that from the prior attacks. That's the bad guy's argument is that they're conducting the attack in London because the British are in Iraq. That's a lie and that's simply their propaganda," she said.
Terrorists are attracted "to Iraq where we have a fighting military and a coalition that can take them on and not have the sort of civilian casualties that you saw in London," she said.
Suspects detained in the United States for being potential terrorists include six men living in Lackawanna, New York, who were arrested in September 2002 and convicted on charges of offering material support to terrorism.
Also arrested was Ali al-Timimi, an Islamic scholar living in northern Virginia, who was convicted in April 2005 for encouraging followers to take up arms against the United States and accused of conducting military training in the woods with paint ball rifles.
As is known, the vindication for me is the fact I said there will be some form of domestic local homegrown internal "terrorist" group which will enable the US government to step up their control over the nation.
DrMiler
You obviously don't read very well. The issue is the need for domestic terrorism, and I predicted it would be within 1 1/2 years. Apparently, and to highlight my superior insights, it took only one single day for my theory to become fact. The draft is another issue and you simply chose to deny the facts with fake (yet real) ignorance. Let me spoon feed this to you again. There are 2 issues I analysed: the coming draft and the future terror attack on the US. The link I provided relates only to the future attack on the US. I stated yesterday that there would be an internal 'terrorist' group which will enable the US government to crack down on civil liberties in the US. The link relates only to the internal terrorist group.
The list of my achievements continue
No WMD in Iraq...check. No Iraq-Al-Queda link. Check. Iraq had nothing to do with 911. Check. A new unknown never-before-heard of internal domestic-to-the-US 'terror' group will be the focus of American ire. Check.
All these and more are issues I have been proven right about.
