WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The WikiLeaks website released a secret CIA memo on Wednesday warning of fallout if the United States came to be seen as an "exporter of terrorism," given al Qaeda's interest in American recruits.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade Union Confederation headquarters in Stockholm August 14, 2010. The WikiLeaks website released a secret CIA memo warning of fallout if the United States came to be seen as an "exporter of terrorism," given al Qaeda's interest in American recruits. (REUTERS/Scanpix/Bertil
The document by the CIA's so-called "Red Cell" was the latest classified memo to be published by the whistle-blowing website, which last month released more than 70,000 secret U.S. military documents on the war in Afghanistan.
It has threatened to release some 15,000 more, despite Pentagon criticism that the leaks endangered the lives of sources and exposed sensitive intelligence gathering methods to enemy fighters.
The three-page CIA memo released by WikiLeaks did not appear to expose any state secrets and one U.S. official quipped it was hardly a "blockbuster." Indeed Red Cell reports are meant to provoke thought, rather than provide an authoritative assessment.
But it addressed the hypothetical and highly sensitive question about the potential impact on the United States if allies saw it as a nation whose citizens frequently operate abroad to carry out acts of terrorism.
It said the United States could lose leverage over allies to cooperate on terrorism -- particularly on "extra-judicial activities." Foreign governments might even take the extraordinary step of secretly extracting U.S. citizens suspected of carrying out extremist acts abroad.
"Primarily we have been concerned about al Qaeda infiltrating operatives into the United States to conduct terrorist attacks, but AQ may be increasingly looking for Americans to operate overseas," the document proposes.
coppied by http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/8/26/worldupdates/2010-08-26T030359Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-510682-1&sec=Worldupdates
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