CIA veteran: al-Qaeda will rebuild within Afghanistan

On Thursday, a panel is planned to discuss the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the September 11 attacks.

The CIA man who briefed President George W Bush on September 11, 2001, and later President Barack Obama on the intelligence that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden said Tuesday that he’s convinced the Taliban will invite al-Qaeda to rebuild in Afghanistan. “There is no doubt in my mind,” said Michael Morell, who twice served as acting CIA director. “I believe that the Taliban will give safe haven to al-Qaeda, and I believe it will be al-Qaeda’s intention to again build its capability so that they can attack us here at home.” Morell spoke at an online forum sponsored by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, which is holding multiple panels this week to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. Counterterrorism efforts fall into a pattern, Morell said, in which their capabilities can be easily degraded by a focused effort, but easily rebuilt when that focus fades. He pointed to the time in 2002 and 2003 when the U.S. shifted its focus to Iraq, which he said led to a resurgent al-Qaeda prompting attacks in Madrid in 2004, London in 2005 and elsewhere.