Expert: Al Qaeda Planning Mass Attacks In U. S.

Yuval Aviv, who predicted the Al Qaida strikes on London’s mass transit system in 2005, said he believes Al Qaida was planning a series of mass-casualty strikes throughout the United States.

Aviv said the most likely targets were places such as Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, malls and subways.

“The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country — terrorists like big impact — involving at least five to eight cities, including rural areas,” Aviv, a former Mossad official said.

Aviv, responsible for the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the early 1970s, said many of those sites designated by Al Qaida comprise easy targets. He said an Al Qaida agent could simply drive a car loaded with explosives into the parking lot of the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas and walk away.

Al Qaida does not plan suicide hijackings similar to its attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. Aviv said Al Qaida has determined that American passengers would immediately fight Islamist hijackers.

Instead, Al Qaida could bomb the entrance to the departure terminal of a major U.S. airport. Aviv, chief executive officer of the New York-based Interfor, cited the failure of airport authorities to check baggage before people enter the facility.

“It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they go to the restroom, and then detonate the bags before security even gets involved,” Aviv said. “In Israel, security checks bags before people can even enter the airport.”

Aviv, today a consultant to the U.S. Congress, said the federal government has been alerted to the prospect of a major Al Qaida strike. He said U.S. intelligence has determined that a likely source of a mass-casualty strike would be an American Muslim, particularly one who flew often to the Middle East.

“These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won’t know or understand a thing about them,” Aviv said.