“We are quite aware of the potential for activity and are highly vigilant on that matter for that reason,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney. Carney also noted that an Al-Qaeda message issued earlier confirmed the death of Osama Bin Laden.
The SITE monitoring group reported that the terror network confirmed the death of Bin Laden Friday and swore revenge for his killing by elite US commandos, some of whom President Barack Obama met on Friday.
“We in Al-Qaeda organization pledge to the Almighty and ask His help, support and steadfastness to continue on the path of jihad, the path walked upon by our leaders, and on top of them, Osama,” SITE said, quoting the statement.
The statement specified the location of Bin Laden’s death and those responsible, and so is likely to squelch fringe conspiracy theories that were beginning to form about his demise.
The statement directly threatened Pakistan’s leaders. “We call upon our Muslim people in Pakistan, on whose land he was killed, to rise up and revolt to cleanse this shame that has been attached to them by a clique of traitors and thieves who sold everything to the enemies.”
The killing of Bin Laden will give “a new impetus” to the fight against foreign “invaders” in Afghanistan, the Taleban said in a statement issued on Friday. “The sapling of jihad has always grown, spruced and reached fructification through irrigation by pure blood,” it added.
Meanwhile, Bin Laden was scheming how to hit the United States hard again, according to newly uncovered documents that show Al-Qaeda plans for derailing an American train on the upcoming 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
Details of the plan emerged as some of the first intelligence was gleaned from the trove of information found in Bin Laden’s residence.
The confiscated material reveals 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.
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 preferred anonymity.
In related news, one of three wives living with Bin Laden has told Pakistani interrogators she had been staying in the hide-out for five years without leaving its upper floors, a Pakistani intelligence official said Friday. The woman, identified as Yemeni-born Amal Ahmed Abdullfattah, and the other two wives of Bin Laden are being interrogated in Pakistan after they were taken into custody following the raid.
