Al Qaeda seeking to launch new US attacks: Bush aide
Al Qaeda militants are hoping to launch a major attack in the United States that will be even deadlier and more spectacular than the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, a top White House adviser said today.
"They want something bigger than 9/11, they want a catastrophic attack," Frances Townsend, US President George W Bush's homeland security adviser, told the Fox News Sunday program.
Ms Townsend made her remarks one week after US officials raised the terror alert levels in the financial sectors of Washington and the New York area, after receiving intelligence of an impending Al Qaeda strike.
The Bush administration's decision was criticised because of its reliance on three-year-old intelligence, but Ms Townsend said that the threat was current and real, and said raising the alert appeared to have slowed the planning for a strike.
"The question is did we disrupt all of it or a part of it," Ms Townsend said.
Bush aides initially acknowledged that most of the information that led to the raised alerts had pre-dated the September 11, 2001 attacks, but then claimed that the heightened security level had been prompted at least in part by new data.
