Intel: Attack by al-Qaida westerners possible

YAAKOV KATZ AND HERB KEINON
Jerusalem Post
Saturday, July 26, 2008

Information recently obtained by the Mossad and Military Intelligence indicates that global jihad elements are working to recruit European and American nationals who have been indoctrinated with radical Islamic ideology to carry out attacks inside Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Slideshow: Pictures of the week On Wednesday, the security cabinet convened to discuss the growing global jihad threat against Israel and heard assessments from MI chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin as well as representatives from the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Mossad.

The ministers were briefed on the growing presence of global jihad elements in Lebanon, Jordan and Sinai as well as attempts by al-Qaida to infiltrate harmless looking people into Israel to carry out attacks.

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There are a number of cases of American and European nationals who have undergone radical Islamic indoctrination and tried to perpetrate attacks. One example is Adam Yehiye Gadahn, an American of Jewish descent who recently appeared in an al-Qaida videotape, as well as Richard Reid, a British national known as the “shoe bomber” who was recruited into al-Qaida and is currently serving a life sentence in the US for planning to destroy a commercial airliner with plastic explosives hidden in his shoes.

The concern within the defense establishment is that al-Qaida will try to use the Westerners to enter Israel inconspicuously and then connect with local terror infrastructure that will help them carry out attacks.

Before the cabinet meeting, deputy head of the National Security Council Col. (res.) Shaul Shay said the threat al-Qaida posed Israel was mainly overseas and not from within the country or the Palestinian territories.

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