Al-Qaida Targeting America’s Banks

The terrorists are also planning “a nuclear Sept. 11”

The terror organization al-Qaida has once again put itself in the spotlight. The terrorists are planning to carry out an attack on the largest American banks, report the American media. According to their reports, the FBI has sent out warnings about dangers to financial giants such as Goldman Sachs, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Barclays. At the same time, WikiLeaks published a secret cable from the U.S. State Department, which contained a warning that Al-Qaida is close to developing the so-called “dirty bomb.”

Wall Street banks and their executives have received warnings from the U.S. government that they may be attacked by al-Qaida, according to information released to NBC through a senior official. The anonymous source mentioned that these attack threats were based on messages intercepted from al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and have already resulted in several attempted attacks. He stressed that the U.S. government remains vigilant and in light of these threats has sent out these warnings. Agents of terrorist organizations may attempt to send mail bombs to these banks. The source noted that there were no signs indicating plans to murder the bank directors themselves, though the U.S. government is concerned that the intercepted documents mentioned these top managers by name.

The FBI has refused to officially comment on this information, reports AFP. It is known that the Internet portal Inspire — which was founded by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in order to recruit English-speaking Muslims for the international jihad movement — has called for its supporters in January to carry out attacks against banks and multinational corporations.

On Wednesday the British newspaper the Telegraph published a secret cable from the U.S. State Department, which it acquired through the WikiLeaks website. The dispatch says that al-Qaida is collecting radioactive materials and is recruiting rogue scientists in order to develop a so-called “dirty bomb,” which was also reported by American intelligence officials at the NATO summit in 2009. The use of a radioactive bomb — for example, in Afghanistan — would irradiate the area for many years, noted the diplomats.

The terrorists have sufficient technical knowledge for the production of an explosive device more complicated than a simple dirty bomb, reported an adviser from the Indian prime minister’s national security office to American intelligence services in June 2008. In addition, they are close to being able to produce functioning and effective chemical and biological weapons that would be able to kill thousands of people.

In order to acquire the necessary materials, al-Qaida has resorted to smuggling. The documents mention a freight train intercepted at the border of Kazakhstan and Russia, which was found to be carrying materials for weapons production, a bus carrying enriched uranium in Uganda, and even a dealer in Lisbon, who was attempting to sell radioactive materials that were stolen from the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl. Another dispatch mentions a meeting between the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and air travel security ministers from the EU. In that meeting, the head of the Federal Interior Ministry of Germany, Thomas de Maizière, expressed concern that terrorists may use items intended for children to smuggle explosives aboard aircraft.

Members of al-Qaida may even attempt to steal dangerous materials from the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency’s plutonium laboratories, where serious problems have been found in the safety of production procedures and the prevention of theft, write the American diplomats. WikiLeaks reports that IAEA Deputy Director General Tomihiro Taniguchi privately warned representatives from the U.S. that the world faces the threat of a “nuclear Sept. 11” if supplies of uranium and plutonium do not have adequate protection from terrorists.