Al-Qaeda vows revenge on United States

CAIRO—Al-Qaeda on Friday confirmed the killing of its leader Osama bin Laden and vowed vengeance, saying Americans’ “happiness will turn to sadness… Their blood will be mingled with their tears.”

“We pledge to Allah the almighty … to continue on the path of jihad, the path walked upon by our leaders, and on top of them, Sheik Osama,” al-Qaeda said in a statement posted on jihadist Internet forums, the US monitoring group SITE Intelligence reported.

“We stress that the blood of the holy warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden, God bless him, is precious to us and to all Muslims and will not go in vain,” the statement said. “We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.”

“Soon, God willing, their happiness will turn to sadness,” it said.

The warning followed disclosures by US officials in Washington that Bin Laden, while holed up in his hideout in Pakistan, was scheming how to hit the United States hard again. They said newly uncovered documents show al-Qaeda plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Coinciding with the latest al-Qaeda warning, hundreds of Pakistanis in Abbottabad town in Pakistan—where Bin Laden was killed by US commandos on Monday—took to the streets, cheering him and shouting “death to America.”

Around 300 Islamists also rallied in the Egyptian capital Cairo in anger over the killing of Bin Laden.

Successor

The al-Qaeda statement was signed by “the general leadership.” It opens the way for the group to name a successor to Bin Laden.

The statement’s authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but it was posted on websites where the group traditionally puts out its messages.

Al-Qaeda also called on the people of Pakistan to rise up in revolt against its leaders. It also said that an audio message Bin Laden recorded a week before his death would be issued soon.

“We stress that the blood of the mujahid Sheik Osama bin Laden, may Allah have mercy upon him, weighs more to us and is more precious to us and to every Muslim than to be wasted in vain,” it said.

“We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan… to rise up strongly and in general to cleanse their country from the filth of the Americans who spread corruption in it,” said the statement.

CIA safe house in Pakistan

US officials in Washington revealed that the Abbottabad compound where Bin Laden was killed had been under extensive surveillance for months from a safe house kept by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The safe house was a base of operations for intelligence gathering that used Pakistani informants and other sources to compile a “pattern of life” portrait of the occupants and daily activities at the compound, the Washington Post reported, citing US officials.

The intelligence gathering began after the compound was discovered last August and was so exhaustive the CIA asked Congress to reallocate tens of millions of dollars to fund it.

“The CIA’s job was to find and fix,” the Post quoted one US official as saying, using special forces terminology for locating a target.

“The intelligence work was as complete as it was going to be, and it was the military’s turn to finish the target,” the official said.

The Post and the New York Times said the CIA surveillance team had been watching Bin Laden’s residence from a rented house near the compound.

Some of the first intelligence was gleaned from the trove of information found in the compound when Navy Seals killed the al-Qaeda leader and four of his associates. They took his body and scooped up computers, DVDs and documents from the compound where US officials think he had been living for as long as six years.

Terrorist wish list

The confiscated materials reveal the rail attack planning as of February 2010. One idea outlined in handwritten notes was to tamper with an unspecified US rail track so that a train would fall off the track at a valley or a bridge.

Counterterrorism officials said they believe the plot was only in the initial planning stages, and there is no recent intelligence about any active plan for such an attack.

The FBI and Homeland Security issued an intelligence bulletin with details of the plan to law enforcement bodies around the country. The bulletin, marked “for official use only,” was obtained by The Associated Press.

Other intelligence pulled from the compound represented a terrorist wish list but has revealed no specific plan so far. Some documents indicated a desire to strike the US with large-scale attacks in major cities and on key dates such as anniversaries and holidays.

But there never was any sign that those were anything more than ambitions, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Only one gunman

Monday’s raid by helicopter-borne Navy Seals was fraught with risk, sensationally bold and a historic success, netting a man who had been on the run for nearly a decade.

During the raid, the Seals met far less resistance than the Obama administration initially described. The commandos encountered gunshots from only one man, whom they quickly killed, before sweeping the house and shooting others, who were unarmed, a senior defense official said in the latest account.

Be on the lookout

Intelligence analysts have been reviewing and translating the material seized from the compound, looking for information about pending plots and other terror connections.

In light of the intelligence indicating al-Qaeda was considering an attack on a US railway, the FBI and Homeland Security told local officials to be on the lookout for clips or spikes missing from train tracks, packages left on or near the tracks and other indications that a train could be vulnerable.

“While it is clear that there was some level of planning for this type of operation in February 2010, we have no recent information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no information on possible locations or specific targets,” Thursday’s warning to law enforcement said.

Attractive targets

On Monday, the FBI and Homeland Security warned law enforcement officials around the country that Bin Laden’s death could inspire retaliatory attacks in the US, and terrorists not yet known to the intelligence community could be operating inside the country.

The transportation sector—including US railways—continue to be attractive targets for terrorists. In the past few years, US officials have disrupted other terror plots that targeted rails, including a 2009 plan to bomb the New York City subway system.

Sen. Susan Collins said she has urged the Homeland Security secretary to increase the country’s threat level while the material seized from Bin Laden’s compound is reviewed.

“I continue to question the secretary’s decision not to increase the threat level,” said Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Reports from AFP, AP and Reuters