Al Qaeda Plans Attacks in West, ABC Reports

By ELI LAKE, Staff Reporter of the Sun | June 19, 2007

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda camps in Pakistan are "graduating" suicide bomber recruits to reap mayhem on the West.

The ceremony for future terrorists was captured on videotape June 9 by a Pakistani journalist whose recording made its way to ABC News for an exclusive story aired last night.

The tape featured a Qaeda commander, Mansoor Dadullah, congratulating individuals whom he calls Americans, Britons, and Germans in completing their terrorism training. One such individual speaking in English vows to attack Britain.

One American intelligence official asked for comment last night said the tape showed one of a number of training camps. "Northern Pakistan is now for all intents and purposes controlled by Al Qaeda and Qaeda sympathizers."

One of the centers of Qaeda activity are the North and South Waziristan provinces, areas where the Pakistani army last year stopped fighting the Islamist insurgency and allowed for a form self-governance. Other provinces along Afghanistan's border are now in the process of being relinquished.

A recently retired CIA officer who was posted in Pakistan until last year gave particularly low marks to President Musharraf's government. "Their approach was to pretend that nothing was wrong because any other approach would reveal that they were unwilling and unable to do anything about Talibanization," Arthur Keller told the Guardian Newspaper in an interview published Saturday. Mr. Keller accused former Pakistani spy chief, Hamid Gul, in the interview of supporting Taliban-like groups in Pakistan.

The intelligence officer who spoke to the New York Sun said a number of former senior Iraqi Baathists who joined the insurgency against America in Iraq have been "cycled through" new training camps established in the last two years in Pakistan.

After the September 11, 2001, attacks, President Bush struck a new bargain with Pakistan — choosing to overlook the government's past support for the Taliban if Islamabad began working against its former Islamist proxies.