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NEW YORK, March 2: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the Al Qaeda suspect, arrested on Saturday in Pakistan, was getting ready to hit United States again, Newsweek reports in its coming issue.
The magazine says that according to a Feb 26 intelligence report obtained by the news weekly, Khalid Shaikh known as “KSM”, “is actively involved in Al Qaeda attack planning in CONUS (continental United States).
He has directed operatives to target bridges, gas stations and power plants in a number of centres, including New York City.”
Some of this intelligence came from a Qaeda operative now in custody, who told investigators that at one point Khalid had planned to blow up bridges and gas stations in New York and Washington as part of the 9-11 attacks.
Though those attacks never came off, he intended to return to finish the job, the magazine report added.
THE PLAN: Al Qaeda operatives would steal or hijack tanker trucks and crash them into fuel pumps at filling stations, while other terror operatives would slash the suspension cables on bridges.
These threats, as well as other leads from electronic intercepts and suspicious financial transactions, led Bush-administration officials to raise the threat level to Code Orange three weeks ago.
