FBI claims al-Qa'ida could create disasters via the internet

Fears that al-Qa'ida could trigger a remote-controlled disaster in the United States via the internet are growing among government experts.

The FBI has traced a pattern of surveillance from unknown web browsers in the Middle East and South Asia, exploring the digital systems that manage utilities and government offices nationwide. These visitors, traced to Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, apparently studied emergency telephone systems, electricity generators and transmitters, water storage and distribution, nuclear power plants and gas facilities.

Government analysts, quoted in The Washington Post yesterday, believe terrorists could exploit security loopholes to take control of, say, a dam's floodgates. They suggested that al-Qa'ida was planning a conventional and a cyber-attack, but offered little evidence.

Al-Qa'ida prisoners from Afghanistan have reportedly admitted under interrogation that their network intends using the internet for an attack.

Ronald Dick, of the FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Centre, recently spoke of such a strike, where emergency services could not respond, water did not flow and hospitals had no power. "Is that an unreasonable scenario? Not in this world," he said.