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ShareWashington: Terming Mumbai terror attacks as "successful" from the perspective of terrorists, America's top US intelligence official has warned that such strikes could be replicated in the US and other parts of the world.
Warning such attacks could be viewed by terrorists as a possible way of proceeding in the future, FBI director Robert Muller said intelligence and other security agencies
would have to reinvigorate efforts to make certain that we've done everything we can to prevent such type of attacks.
Delivering a speech on 'Global Terrorism: The FBI's Role', Muller said the Mumbai attack, which killed more than 170 people and wounded over 300 was an attack both highly coordinated and deceptively simple in its execution.
Muller, who took over the FBI just days before September 11, 2001, said the Mumbai attack had displayed the "terrorists with large agendas and little money can use
rudimentary weapons to maximize their impact."
"It again raises the question of whether a similar attack could happen in Seattle, San Diego, Miami or Manhattan," he said.
Muller said although al_Qaeda remains a threat to the US and worldwide, security planners "must also focus on les well known terrorists groups as well as home grown
terrorists".
The FBI chief warned "terrorist could be merely e-tickets away from the US".
The US, Muller said, is concerned with people and groups around the world that identified with al-Qaeda and its ideology. He said Mumbai attacks had brought to the fore the need for better coordination and cooperation among intelligence and security agencies of major countries like US, India, Pakistan, UK and others.
Responding to a question from the audience, Muller said: "If you look at the attacks over a period of time, you start with September 11th, and it was box cutters. You didn't
even have weapons when it came to September 11th. Yet you see, whether it be Fort Dix or Mumbai, the planning that goes into undertaking such an attack, which was to a certain extent successful in Mumbai, that does not escape the attention of those down the road." ZH
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