Federal authorities said Friday that more than 100 terrorist attacks planned against the United States and its allies have been thwarted since Sept. 11, 2001, due in large part to the interrogation of enemy combatants and other captives of the war on terrorism.
Although authorities would not officially disclose the nature of the attacks, government sources said they included threats against U.S. Embassies on three continents, a U.S. military base in Europe and American cargo ships passing through the Strait of Gibraltar.
It also remained unclear how many of the threats were against specific sites inside the United States. But federal authorities noted it was the interrogation of a key Al Qaeda operative that ultimately led to the arrest last year of Jose Padilla, who allegedly was scouting fresh attack targets in this country.
The disclosure about the more than 100 planned attacks came in a legal declaration filed by Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
His nine-page affidavit was used by government prosecutors to detail how important the interrogations have become and to argue against a federal judge’s ruling last month that Padilla, formerly a Chicago gang member, be allowed to meet with a lawyer.
“I assess Padilla’s potential intelligence value as very high,” Jacoby said. “I also firmly believe that providing Padilla access to counsel risks loss of a critical intelligence resource, resulting in a grave and direct threat to national security.”
According to the CIA, more than 3,000 Al Qaeda operatives and associates have been detained in more than 100 countries since the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacked.
Authorities revealed Friday that embassies have been a particular focus of the terrorist network, especially in recent months. Asked how many have been targeted, one U.S. intelligence official replied: “Lots of them. Everywhere.”
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Other threats have been aimed at U.S. airports and the aviation industry. Gordon Johnroe, a spokesman for the Office of Homeland Security, said that “intelligence has come in that says operatives have chosen not to attack something because protective measures we put up around a particular location have improved substantially.”
The Bush administration has come under sharp criticism for holding detainees at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in jails and military prisons in the United States, without first charging individuals with crimes. But the government’s legal papers filed in the Padilla case emphasize that, without continuous and unfettered interrogations of detainees, a terrorist attack could slip through.
One of the most serious threats was to cargo ships traveling through the busy Strait of Gibraltar, through which about 200 vessels pass daily.
Authorities learned from a detainee at Guantanamo Bay that Al Qaeda was planning for small inflatable boats packed with explosives to sidle up to slow-moving cargo vessels, said a U.S. military official.
The plot was broken up when Moroccan authorities arrested 10 Al Qaeda suspects in May and June.