WASHINGTON – At least two of the three men involved in a possible al-Qaida plot to pull off an attack coinciding with the 10th anniversary of 9/11 are believed to be U.S. citizens or have U.S. traveling documents, government officials said Friday.
Their primary mission is to explode a car bomb in either New York or Washington, but if that proves impossible, they have been ordered to simply cause as much destruction as they can, one U.S. official said.
Word that al-Qaida had dispatched would-be attackers reached U.S. officials midweek. A CIA informant who has proven reliable in the past approached intelligence officials overseas to say that the men had been ordered by newly minted al-Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahri to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Sunday by doing harm on U.S. soil.
The tipster says the would-be attackers are of Arab descent and may speak Arabic as well as English. Counterterrorism officials were looking for certain names associated with the threat, but it was unclear whether the names were real or fake.
Counterterrorism officials have been working around the clock to determine whether the threat is accurate, but so far, have been unable to corroborate it, the officials said, speaking
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