A Palestinian Terror Threat?

For years U.S. counterterrorism officials have considered Palestinian-extremist attacks on U.S. soil unlikely for one key reason: many Palestinians have viewed the U.S. as their best hope for pressuring Israel to halt its military drive into their territories. But in recent weeks, some investigators have quietly shifted away from the assumption that the U.S. is exempt from the kind of suicide bombings that have rocked Israel. "If the frustration continues to grow and we keep meeting with lack of success, what's going to be the straw that breaks the camel's back?" asks a senior official who until recently was a disbeliever in a Palestinian threat. "What's going to stop it from happening here?"

Indeed, that growing concern, though there's no hard evidence to support it, was a key factor behind last week's decision by FBI officials to warn its 56 field offices and federal terrorism task forces of the possibility of terrorist attacks on U.S. shopping malls and supermarkets. Beyond the increasingly pessimistic analysis on the part of U.S. officials, the impetus for the latest warning--quieter than the one four days earlier alerting Americans to possible attacks on Eastern-seaboard banks--was bolstered by comments from captured al-Qaeda strategist Abu Zubaydah, the source for the previous bank warning. Arabic-speaking CIA and FBI personnel continue to interrogate Abu Zubaydah at a secret overseas U.S. facility. They are now considering the possibility that Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian, may have studied the campaign in Israel and urged al-Qaeda cell members to emulate the low-tech, effective suicide bombings. It is almost impossible so far for experts, who hardly trust Abu Zubaydah, to tell how reliable he is. "This s.o.b. may have a brilliant disinformation strategy," says one investigator. What is certain is that U.S. officials will continue to investigate and issue warnings, like the most recent ones, suggesting that Americans be "vigilant." That may not be very useful advice, but, for the time being, it's all there is.

--By Elaine Shannon