A storm may be coming

From ABC:

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9.

A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

The tape shows Taliban military commander Mansoor Dadullah, whose brother was killed by the U.S. last month, introducing and congratulating each team as they stood.

"These Americans, Canadians, British and Germans come here to Afghanistan from faraway places," Dadullah says on the tape. "Why shouldn't we go after them?"

The leader of the team assigned to attack Great Britain spoke in English.

"So let me say something about why we are going, along with my team, for a suicide attack in Britain," he said. "Whether my colleagues, companions and Muslim brothers die today or tonight, every drop of our blood will invigorate the Muslim (unintelligible)."

U.S. intelligence officials described the event as another example of "an aggressive and sophisticated propaganda campaign."

Others take it very seriously.

"It doesn't take too many who are willing to actually do it and be able to slip through the net and get into the United States or England and cause a lot of damage," said ABC News consultant Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism official.

The Israelis produce a card with a list of the characteristics of a suicide bomber printed on it. If someone meets a certain number of those characteristics (or only one of some of them, like having wires sticking out from under your clothes) they are to be shot without warning.

At a training seminar at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Glynco, GA American federal Law Enforcement offices were presented this information by Israeli officials. The Americans said that a rule like that would never be applied in the US because of the strong emphasis we place on civil rights.

The Israelis responded that after two or three suicide bombings at crowded shopping malls or movie theaters or playgrounds packed with small children that we would change our ideas about civil rights, our laws and our institutional culture in law enforcement.

We may get to find out if the Israelis were right very soon.