Washington — The United States is closely studying intelligence from terrorist bases and prisoners in Afghanistan for clues that could pre-empt terrorist acts potentially more deadly than those on Sept. 11, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday.
Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and his top al-Qaida lieutenants is still a high priority, Rumsfeld said, but "equally or more important" is stopping any terror attack plans already in the works.
Although al-Qaida leaders no longer can operate effectively inside Afghanistan, U.S. officials have believed since before the military campaign began Oct. 7 that al-Qaida cells in other parts of the world have attack plans that could be acted out even in bin Laden's absence.
Rumsfeld would not elaborate on the Singapore government's announcement Friday that it had stopped a plot by terrorists linked to al-Qaida to blow up Western embassies, U.S. Navy vessels, a shuttle bus carrying American military members and the offices of U.S. companies. Singapore said a videotape and other al-Qaida materials seized in Afghanistan helped thwart the plans.
Asked whether other countries have arrested suspected terrorists on the basis of intelligence collected in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said: "I'm reasonably sure there are, although I can't name one." Other U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said several countries besides Singapore had used information gathered in Afghanistan to break up al-Qaida cells. They would not elaborate.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the videotape given to the Singaporean government was not the first indication that American forces were under threat there.
Rumsfeld said prisoners from the al-Qaida terror network and Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban militia told U.S. interrogators that two senior Taliban leaders who the United States thought were still at-large were killed weeks ago by American bombs. He raised the possibility that this was "disinformation" from the prisoners.
In all, no more than 15 senior al-Qaida and Taliban figures have been captured or killed, Rumsfeld said. The number of prisoners now under U.S. control in Afghanistan stands at 445, Myers said.
Rumsfeld gave no indication that the U.S. military was moving closer to finding bin Laden or other senior leaders of al-Qaida or the Taliban. He said the manhunt would continue, and in the meantime the interrogation of prisoners and the capture of documents was providing vast amounts of new information.
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