Al Qaeda cell headed to US

Brian Ross, ABC News:

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat.

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"It suggests they have information that the cell or cells coming this direction want to attack a government facility," Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and ABC News consultant, said.

Law enforcement officials say the recent failed attacks in London have provided important new clues about possible tactics.

And officials say the London attackers use of the Internet left important clues that are being used to decode other e-mails that had initially been deemed unimportant but are now taking on new significance.

A senior administration official said the level of concern of a new terror attack is now higher than it has been in some time, and the meeting this week in the situation room is one of a number that have been convened in light of the new intelligence and what happened in London.

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If they can wait a couple of days for the meeting it probably has a modest level of urgency at this point. Breaking the email code could be important. As earlier post one of the characteristics of the UK attack was using "clean skins" from India as part of the plot. This expands the profile of potential terrorist considerably and it would not be too surprising to see other Muslim nationalities used such as those in eastern Europe. It also could be that al Qaeda is just trying to test our response in order to gauge what it will take to get around our defenses. The overt threat to the UK was also issued today by al Qaeda's head coward behind a microphone, Dr. Death and mass murder, Zawahiri.

The AP reports on sec. Chertoff's comments on teh summer threat from al Qaeda.