Scoop Links to Washington Post and Sydney Morning Herald stories reporting: “U.S. intelligence officials said they
intercepted communications in late September signaling a strike on a Western tourist site. Bali was mentioned in the
U.S. intelligence report.”
The reports follow reports here on Scoop that the Taiwanese Premiere has claimed to have received a warning Friday from
US intelligence services that a terrorist attack in South East Asia was imminent. The request was reportedly accompanied
by a request that the advice be kept secret, notwithstanding the fact that the US President has been regularly warning
the US population about terrorist threats. See… More News On Taiwan’s Attack Warning From The US and Translation: Taiwan Report On Bali Attack Warning
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WASHINGTON POST
Experts Say New Strategy Aims at Disruption
By Peter Finn and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 15, 2002; Page A01
Recent suicide bombing attacks and plots against Westerners show that al Qaeda loyalists are heeding their weakened
leadership's call to initiate a new terror campaign using rudimentary, smaller-scale operations aimed at creating
economic hardship, according to U.S., Western and Arab intelligence officials and experts.
…snip…
U.S. intelligence officials said they intercepted communications in late September signaling a strike on a Western
tourist site. Bali was mentioned in the U.S. intelligence report, officials said.
For Full Report…
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SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
By Mark Riley and Tom Allard
October 16 2002
The Central Intelligence Agency issued an intelligence report listing Bali among possible targets of a pending terrorist
attack just two weeks before the weekend's devastating Kuta bomb blast, the Washington Post is reporting.
The warning was based on intercepted communications picked up in late September, which signalled a strike against "a
Western tourist site". "Bali was mentioned in the US intelligence report," the paper says.
All information gathered by United States and Australian intelligence agencies is shared between the countries. But the
Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday he had no knowledge of the US report.
…. Snip…
Australian intelligence experts said the existence of the advice would suggest a huge breakdown in the international
intelligence community before the Bali attack.
"It would be an unthinkable and unforgiveable failure of the intelligence network," said Warren Reed, a former head of
the Indonesian desk of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.
"If the Americans had this information, they would have passed it directly to us and others in the intelligence club."
For Full Report: