Report: Al-Qaida's power is back
WASHINGTON -- A new top-level intelligence assessment concludes that the al-Qaida terrorist network has rebounded and is at its greatest strength since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Calling al-Qaida the most potent terrorist threat to U.S. national security, the classified draft makes clear that the Bush administration has been unable to cripple Osama bin Laden and the violent terror movement he founded.
The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.
Chertoff says Qaeda not posing pre-Sept 11 threat
WASHINGTON, July 12 (Reuters) - U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Thursday the threat to the United States from al Qaeda has not returned to levels seen just before the Sept. 11 attacks nearly six years ago.
Chertoff played down media reports the militant network has regained strength and was now as great a threat as in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York.
Ummmm....media reports? It wasn't media reports that said Al-Queda regained its strength. It was a "top level" US government intelligence report.
