US to release intelligence report on Qaeda

Washington, July 17: The Bush administration will release tomorrow an unclassified intelligence document describing al Qaeda's resurgence as a threat to the United States, officials said.

The document consists of key judgments from a larger classified report called a ''National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland,'' which will also be released tomorrow to President George W Bush and Congress.

Officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the document will lay out the intelligence community's concerns about a growing al Qaeda threat one week after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said he had a ''gut feeling'' that the United States is facing an increased risk of attack.

Top intelligence officials told Congress last week that al Qaeda's activities have increased at sites in remote areas of northwestern Pakistan.

But Bush and Chertoff denied subsequent media reports that US intelligence believes al Qaeda is as strong now as it was before the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

Reuters>