more terror likely, say researchers

[verte76]

Researchers on Terror Warn Another Sept 11 Likely

Updated 7:25 PM ET August 17, 2003


By Matthew Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States is highly likely to face another attack similar to September 11 within the next 12 months, a London-based research organization said on Sunday.

"America is the number one target for many terrorist groups," said Guy Dunn, author of a report by the World Markets Research Center (WMRC) assessing the risk of terror attacks in 186 countries around the globe.

"Networks of militant Islamist groups are less extensive in the U.S. than they are in Western Europe, but U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan and Iraq has exacerbated anti-U.S. sentiment," Dunn told Reuters.

"Another September 11 style terrorist attack in the United States is highly likely," he said.

The WMRC, which provides risk assessments for multinational companies, said its ratings of terror dangers placed the United States fourth and close ally Britain 10th.

Colombia, battling against leftist guerrillas and widespread kidnapping, topped the list, with Israel second and Pakistan third.

The country with the lowest risk of terror attacks was North Korea.

"The country is so tightly controlled there is little opportunity for anything untoward happening," said Dunn.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

I know it's coming-just a matter of when and where

I guess we just live in denial sometimes-how would we get through every day otherwise?

Why does the world have to be so up?

 

[BVS]

Will we ever have an attack along the lines of Sept. 11th? It's possible, anything's possible. I don't think we should have ever been so arrogant in the first place to believe this wouldn't ever happened?

But how is it these "experts" research this and narrow it down to a year, but know nothing else? This just doesn't make sence to me.

 

[nbcrusader]

It is an easy prediction to make. If you are correct, your media value skyrockets. If you are wrong, you can always point to (a) Homeland Security efforts, (b) terorists are still planning the attacks or (c) attacks in other countries.

 

[verte76]

The way I look at it as long as we have terrorists we will have terrorist attacks. Will the next attack be on the scale of 9/11? Will the attack be in the U.S. or in an allied country? Time will tell. Ugh.

 

[BVS]

Exactly, that's my point. Is that these pieces of "information" just boost an already high state of paronoia even higher. Unless there's a true threat of some kind and telling would prevent my harm then don't tell me something I may already know. You're just risking a higher state of profiling, judgement and paronoia.

But I guess that is what sells papers...

 

[tiny dancer]

It just happened today over in Baghdad at the UN Headquarters. No word yet on how many people were killed.

 

[verte76]

I don't know that much about it either but I'm upset. It's being reported that some U.N. big shot was seriously hurt in the bombing. Ouch.

 

[Popmartijn]

Hello,

The reports I've read speak of at least 3 dead and dozens wounded. The special UN representative for Iraq (Vieira de Mello) is seriously injured. Apparently there was just a press conference when the bombing occurred.


Marty

 

[Red Ships of Scalla-Festa]

who pays these dumbasses to come up with this shit? who's stupid enough to think terror is over and done with now that 9/11 is out of the way?

 

[anitram]

who pays these dumbasses to come up with this shit? who's stupid enough to think terror is over and done with now that 9/11 is out of the way?

I want to get paid for stating the obvious too.

Terrorism may become a way of life, not in the sense that it will permeate your every day, but it will always be in the back of people's minds. I don't understand how some people fail to see that you can kill a man but you can't kill an idea, no matter how offensive you happen to find it.

 

[verte76]

Terror isn't going anywhere. It's part of our daily existence, not in the sense of your apartment building being a terrorist target, but in the sense of certain political institutions and establishments being vulnerable to attack. It's shocking and horrible that two terrorist attacks, in Baghdad and Jerusalem, took place in one day, but we'd better get used to this. It makes me sick, too, but it's true that you can't kill an idea.

 

[Lilly]

I don't understand how some people fail to see that you can kill a man but you can't kill an idea, no matter how offensive you happen to find it.

exactly.

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/st...ff/story/0002/20030822/110835803.htm&sc=rontz

 

[verte76]

Damn, that's scary.

 

[Scarletwine]

I can't believe this!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4523.htm

.

Deal between Musharraf and U.S. on bin Laden?
Indo-Asian News Service
London, August 23

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has struck a deal with the US not to capture Osama bin Laden, fearing this could lead to unrest in Pakistan, according to a special investigation by The Guardian.

The paper reported on Saturday that bin Laden was being protected by three elaborate security rings manned by tribesmen stretching 192 km in diameter in northern Pakistan.

The paper's information is based on comments made by Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistan origin who, the papers said, knows Al-Qaida better than most people and has had close contacts in Pakistan's intelligence agencies.

Ijaz believed an agreement was reached between Musharraf and US authorities shortly after bin Laden's flight from his stronghold Tora Bora in Afghanistan in December 2001.

The Pakistanis feared that to capture or kill bin Laden so soon after a deeply unpopular war in Afghanistan would incite civil unrest in Pakistan and trigger a spate of revenge Al Qaida attacks on Western targets across the world.

"There was a judgment made that it would be more destabilising in the longer term. There would still be the ability to get him at a later date when it was more appropriate", Ijaz told The Guardian.

The Americans, according to Ijaz, accepted the argument, not least because of the shift in focus to the impending war in Iraq.

So the months that followed were centred on taking down not bin Laden but the "retaliation infrastructure" of Al-Qaida.

.....

 

[BVS]

If true, that's F ed up.

 

[verte76]

Geez, maybe there's a political reason why we haven't gotten bin Laden. I agree it is fked up.