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Al-Qaeda is looking to an attack similiar to the scale of the Sept 11 attacks to show tangible results after repeated threats. -- PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
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WASHINGTON - AL-QAEDA is looking to attack the United States, perhaps urgently, so that its leadership can show tangible results after repeated threats, a senior US general said.
General Gene Renuart, head of the US military command responsible for homeland defence, said recorded messages from Al-Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri show the group responsible for the Sept 11 attacks is 'looking for a way to have a big impact again'.
'If an organisation like that is to maintain credibility and continue to grow more of its extremists, it has to show tangible results,' Gen Renuart said on Thursday. 'So I think there may be a certain sense of urgency among that organisation to have an effect.'
'I do think they are continuing to work at it, maybe harder than ever,' he told reporters at the Pentagon.
Gen Renuart said he believed groups sympathetic to Al-Qaeda were operating inside the United States.
But the Air Force general also said the US military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies were doing 'pretty' well in detecting and deterring activities of those groups.
Gen Renuart said he did not see any direct effort to influence the US presidential election in November.
'Right now, I don't see a direct threat to any of that activity,' he said. -- REUTERS
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