Al-Qaeda In America: Target: America

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The intelligence was sobering. "It underscored the sophistication of the enemy," Kelly told TIME, "the detail, what might [even] be thought of as the minutiae," of al-Qaeda's planning. "We'd heard about it, but you saw it in black and white." A senior law-enforcement official says the Gujrat information was buttressed by an intelligence report, based on a warning from an overseas source, of attacks on U.S. financial institutions. "It's what made [analysts' reactions] go off the charts," says that official. Adding to the intrigue was the case of Farida Goolam Mohammed Ahmed, a woman picked up in Texas by federal agents after entering the U.S. from Mexico without a valid visa. Though not brought up on any terrorism charges, Ahmed was carrying a mutilated South African passport--an accessory of interest to counterterrorism investigators. Recent intelligence suggests that al-Qaeda has attempted to enlist non-Arab recruits because they are less suspicious. It specifically cited South African passport holders as prime targets because they enjoy visa-free entry into many countries.

That evening Ridge decided to go public with the names of the targeted buildings, arguing that employees of the targeted companies could be helpful in reporting anything relevant they had seen or heard over the past few years and in unraveling the mystery of who had done the surveillance. "This new intelligence [that we had]," Ridge told TIME, "far exceeded any potential threshold for putting the information out to the public."

But he immediately undermined his case. At the Aug. 1 press conference announcing the alert, Ridge failed to mention that the information from the Gujrat discs was from 2000 and 2001. Worse, he attributed the discovery of the information to the "President's leadership." The news prompted immediate grumbling among Democrats. Howard Dean, the onetime Democratic front runner turned attack dog, gave voice to the suspicions, saying, "It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics." Even Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission, said, "We shouldn't have found out the next day that the surveillance was done four years ago. That wasn't helpful.''

And yet the fact that the surveillance took place years ago fits al-Qaeda's methodical, deadly pattern. "The date of the casings," an FBI official says, "is immaterial." Successful attacks--like the embassy bombings in Africa and 9/11--as well as such aborted missions as a 2003 plan to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge had involved meticulous surveillance completed years in advance. Bin Laden and his lieutenants first discussed the idea for the 9/11 hijackings in 1996. In a conversation last Tuesday with New York Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Kelly, Ridge reminded them of al-Qaeda's patience. He also reiterated that some of the files on the discs from Pakistan had been updated as recently as January, indicating that the plot was likely still live as recently as eight months ago.