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Jeffrey Goldberg speaks with Steve Coll, author of, “The Bin Ladens” on the possibility of an al Qaeda October surprise terror attack.

The Interview

When you want cogent thinking about terrorism, you go to Steve Coll. Which is what I did this morning:

Jeffrey Goldberg: Do you think al-Qaeda is planning an “October surprise,” an attack on an American target, here or overseas, in order to influence the election?

Steve Coll: AQ leaders, maybe because they spend a lot of time trapped and bored in safehouses, seem to be obsessed with calendars. They like anniversaries and they pay attention to elections abroad. So I’m sure they have the American election in mind. My last well-sourced conversation is a few weeks dated, but last I checked the US intel system was very quiet in terms of “chatter” or other indicators of any attack in the U.S. What seems more likely are more attacks against US-affiliated targets in the Pak-Afghan region, coupled with media tape releases, similar to Osama’s election-eve video of 2004. They like to be heard at big moments in American politics, and this campaign is certainly such a moment.

JG: What do you think the next President’s first Pakistan-related crisis will be? Will it be prompted by intelligence suggesting that Pakistan’s nuclear program is no longer secure, or will it be the need to put ground troops into the tribal areas? Or something else entirely

SC: The big in-box item is going to be fixing Pak-Afghan strategy comprehensively. What to do about the tribal areas will be at the heart of that. Petraeus and the Joint Chiefs will present the next president with some sort of plan, but exactly what it will be, and how radical a departure from current policy it will represent, I’m not sure. More troops, more politics, more jobs for angry young tribal men - something along those lines.
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