Al-Qaida may have been planning an attack on American soil for the tenth anniversary of 9-11, according to records seized from Osama bin Laden's Pakistan home, reports MSNBC.

The plot involved attacking U.S. trains on 09/11/2011, according to information found in last weekend's raid that resulted in bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. Navy Seals.

Among the suggested plots are the idea of tipping a train so it falls off the tracks at a valley or a bridge, or targeting of a mass transit hub. According to the article, a government advisory was sent to the rail industry on Tuesday, "as far back as February 2010, al-Qaida was contemplating 'an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary' of the 9/11 attacks." However, the article states that U.S. officials told NBC that there is no intelligence indicating that such a plot is active.

According to MSNBC [1]:

Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler issued a statement Thursday that the department has no information on "any imminent terrorist threat to the U.S. rail sector, but wanted to make our partners aware of the alleged plotting; it is unclear if any further planning has been conducted since February of last year."

"We want to stress that this alleged al-Qaida plotting is based on initial reporting, which is often misleading or inaccurate and subject to change," Chandler said.

He said the department and its partners since Sunday have reviewed protective measures for all potential terrorist targets, including critical infrastructure and transportation systems across the country and deployed additional officers to non-secured areas at airports.

The assault team that raided bin Laden's compound took more than 100 storage devices and 10 hard drives, along with five computers and five cell phones. The information is being analyzed and unencrypted now.

photo by jpmueller99/flickr [2]

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