Al-Qaeda weighed attacks on US trains

Updated at: 0556 PST, Friday, May 06, 2011
WASHINGTON: Intelligence seized from Osama bin Laden's compound showed his Al-Qaeda network pondered strikes on US trains on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, US officials said.

As of February 2010, Al-Qaeda "was allegedly contemplating conducting an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001," the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advised law enforcement agencies.

A source said the warning arose from intelligence seized in a daring raid on bin Laden's fortified compound in which elite US commandos shot dead the terrorist mastermind and gathered computer hardware and other material.

The official message noted that it was based on "initial reporting" and warned that such information "is often misleading or inaccurate due to a rapidly developing situation and is subject to change." "While it is clear there was some level of planning, we have no recent information to indicate an active ongoing plot to target transportation and no information on possible locations or specific targets," the bulletin said.

Al-Qaeda "was looking into trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or a bridge," according to the department. The terror network "noted that an attack from tilting the train would only succeed one time because the tilting would be spotted." (AFP)