Al-Qaeda In America: Target: America

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But there remains plenty of cause for concern. Al-Qaeda has cased targets for years before attacking; preparations for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa began in 1993, for instance. Intelligence and law-enforcement officials familiar with the material recovered in Pakistan told TIME that the discs revealed far more detailed, wide-ranging and current research and planning by a terrorist group than have so far been made public. Though the surveillance information on the discs was done mostly in 2000 and 2001, one disc contained an updated photo of the Prudential Plaza building that was added to the al-Qaeda file in January of this year. The discs also detailed the operatives' extensive reconnaissance of the design, construction and layouts of four other sites: the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup building and the Washington headquarters of both the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The plot's specificity is alarming. A surveillance report noted that the windows behind the six columns at the front of the N.Y.S.E. building made it appear "a little fragile," while another concluded that attacking the IMF and the World Bank structures would be "tricky" because of the heavy security surrounding them. The terrorists reported that the Citigroup building, "like the World Trade Center, is supported on steel, load-bearing walls, not on a steel frame." The operatives recommended employing "usual methods" and specifically discussed using a heavy gasoline truck or an oil tanker to attack facilities. The computers also contained surveillance of helicopter ports in New York City as well as cockpits and controls of helicopters, suggesting that al-Qaeda has investigated the possibility of using them for an airborne attack. "This new information is chilling in tone, dramatic in its detail and very professional," says a senior U.S. intelligence official. "It was done by someone who clearly knew what he was doing."

The discovery of such material would be unsettling at any time. But the trove of raw data from Pakistan has hit the intelligence community amid escalating worries that al-Qaeda may be on the verge of attempting another 9/11-size attack inside U.S. borders. A U.S. law-enforcement official told TIME that a recent Pakistani intelligence report made available to senior U.S. intelligence and security officials offers details of alleged al-Qaeda plans to use speedboats and divers for attacks in New York harbor before the November 2004 elections. A top U.S. intelligence official says, "There is nothing current we deem credible" about such an attack but noted that reports of possible attacks on the harbor are not unusual. Two federal officials said the government is also concerned about the use of large trucks and "vehicular bombs" by al-Qaeda operatives or unwitting third parties. A law-enforcement official said Islamic extremists posing as local drivers but hailing from overseas are a "huge, huge concern." Assessing the accumulation of evidence of a possible attack inside the U.S., a senior intelligence official says, "This is looking more like the real deal every day."