Four persons associated with Osama bin Laden are arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, part of ongoing CIA operations – “disruptions” – where director George Tenet and White House counterterrorism specialist Richard Clarke believe al Qaeda’s ability to carry out attacks is being thwarted.
On May 10, Tenet tells Senate Appropriations Committee that though terrorism is on the rise, especially against the United States, the strategic initiative to pre-empt terrorist plans – and specifically bin Laden plots – has been paying off. That month, he later writes, three suspects are arrested in Malaysia for attempted robbery, but that interrogation indicated that they “had cased U.S. facilities and U.S. Navy vessels in preparation for an attack.” (At the Center of the Storm, p. 147) He warns that attacks are likely against U.S. interests over the next year but that the Agency does not have sufficient intelligence to predict either the times or places.
On May 29, Tenet, CTC chief Cofer Black, and Richard Blee, the CTC group chief with authority over the Bin Ladin unit, meet with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, telling that though the Agency was continue to “take the offensive” against al Qaeda and the Taliban in its disruption activities they also felt that bin Ladin could not be deterred.