WASHINGTON, 7 February 2003 — Amid new concerns about a possible terrorist attack, the FBI says Al-Qaeda remains the paramount threat to hit targets in the United States even though it is weakened and scattered.

The new assessment, to be presented to Congress next week, says Al-Qaeda represents the gravest danger even though a number of Muslim extremist groups unconnected to the terror organization also are committed to “jihad,” or holy war, against the United States, Israel and other countries.

The report comes as the United States amasses military power for a possible war with Iraq to force disarmament. Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence to the United Nations on Wednesday to buttress the US position, including assertions that Al-Qaeda has some ties to Iraq.

The FBI’s central conclusion is that “Al-Qaeda led by Osama Bin Laden remains, for the foreseeable future, the most serious threat against the United States,” a government official familiar with a declassified version of the assessment said Wednesday.

Other terrorist groups provide “varying degrees of support” for Al-Qaeda but are less likely to strike within the United States, the report adds.

Recent intelligence, coupled with the Muslim holy days, could lead to a higher level of warning in the nation’s terrorism alert system, according to US government officials speaking on condition of anonymity. It now stands at yellow, or elevated, which is the middle tier in a five-color system.

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, said the threat level is evaluated daily and there are no immediate plans to raise it.

The government official declined to discuss whether the FBI assessment describes a greater danger of terrorism if the United States goes to war with Iraq.

But Germany’s top counterterrorism official, Interior Minister Otto Schily, told reporters Wednesday that such a war — which his government opposes — would inflame Muslim extremists worldwide and increase the terror threat.

“If a war takes place, the emotions will intensify,” said Schily, who met this week with Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. “It’s a matter of concern. You can’t exclude repercussions.”

The FBI assessment, most of which is classified, will be delivered to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees next week by FBI Director Robert Mueller. Originally promised in 2000, a version was completed just a day before the Sept. 11 terror attacks and has since been rewritten amid criticism from Capitol Hill for the delay.

The report cites various US intelligence sources as evidence that Al-Qaeda operatives around the world continue to discuss large-scale strikes against the United States. Al-Qaeda is actively attempting to acquire chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons, the report adds.

Intelligence breakthrough linked Al-Qaeda to Iraq

The careless use of a satellite phone led to the arrest of an Al-Qaeda operative as he drove through Turkey and to information linking the extremist group to Iraq, The New York Times said yesterday.

The unidentified operative was congratulating the murderers of US diplomat Laurence Foley, who was killed in Jordan in October, the daily quoted a senior intelligence official as saying.

The official was working with a coalition of intelligence services from the United States, Britain, Jordan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that unraveled the Al-Qaeda-Iraq link, the paper said.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday the Al-Qaeda suspect had told his interrogators that a senior member of Al-Qaeda, Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, had financed and armed Foley’s murderers.

Powell told the United Nations Security Council, in a presentation on Iraq’s alleged concealment of illegal weapons, that Zarqawi’s network had established a poison and explosive training center camp in northeastern Iraq, which is not under the control of the Baghdad regime. He also alleged that Zarqawi had overseen a “terrorist” training camp in Afghanistan in 2000.

Zarqawi, whom Washington has accused of planning Foley’s murder, fled Jordan in 1999 and was sentenced in his absence in October 2000 to 15 years in jail during a trial of 28 members of a network linked to Al-Qaeda. (Agencies)