A new video made allegedly by Al Qaeda that was released on Sunday has claimed to have set New Delhi as a key target. This comes just a week after national security advisor MK Narayanan asserted in a television interview that the terrorist organisation was looking for an opportunity to strike India.
Security agencies are already looking into the veracity of the video, which first surfaced on an international website lauramansfield.com.
In an official response, however, union minister of state for home Sriprakash Jaiswal said, ?We need not worry too much on an unconfirmed threat. Our forces and the state machinery are always prepared to face such threats. I am sure they would be able to avert any such attack,? he said.
According to intelligence agencies, the video shows that this is the first time that the Al Qaeda has clubbed India as a target along with other countries, especially the US.
?Though the country?s security systems are perfectly in place, we can not take the threat lightly,? an official said and added that a high level meeting was likely to take stock of the preparedness to deal with the threat.
Intelligence agencies advisiories in the recent past have mentioned that places like Bangalore and Hyderabad, symbols of India?s new economic hubs, are at a greater risk from terrorist attacks.
In a television interview last week, the MK Narayanan had suggested that the Al Qaeda may have even done a reconnaissance of the possible targets.
?We are concerned. We are all the time on the lookout for al Qaeda’s movements here. We know that on a couple of occasions they have done it and gone back. But they have not yet done something, which is terrorizing in a big way,” he said.”There was a team that had come once to India and done a reccee and gone back, but the programme they had never worked out,” he added.
The new Al Qaeda video, features Adam Yahiya Gadahn, an American member of the terrorist group, who claims that diplomatic missions of all countries all over the world were their legitimate targets.
With regard to India, Gadahn contends that more than a hundred thousand Muslims had been killed in Kashmir with US blessing.
The video, one-hour and 17 minutes long, also has Gadahn warning that President Bush to withdraw his troops from Muslim lands or he can expect worse than September 11.
?We shall continue to target you at home and abroad just as you target us at home and abroad,? Gadahn said in the video.
