Yahoo! News - Bin Laden Asks Zarqawi to Make U.S. a Target -Source
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden recently asked his chief ally in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to consider the territory of the United States as a target for terrorist attacks, a U.S. counterterrorism official said on Monday.

"There has been communication between bin Laden and Zarqawi, with bin Laden suggesting to Zarqawi the U.S. homeland as a target," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official called the bin Laden communication "a fairly recent development" but declined to provide details for fear of compromising U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

The Department of Homeland Security said it issued a classified intelligence bulletin over the weekend warning state officials that the federal government had received nonspecific information about al Qaeda plans to attack the United States.

Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the threat was still being analyzed, but was not enough to raise the U.S. terrorism alert level, which is currently set at yellow to signify an elevated threat.

Sounds a lot like the "non-specific" warning that was issued a whole two weeks ago. Why all the warnings all of a sudden? I think that this is just yet another attempt at playing the "terrorism" card for the sole purpose of scaring the public so that Bush can push his agenda. I also see it as an attempt to raise the significance of Zarqawi up to a Bin Laden level of infamy so that if we do catch him it turns into a huge media-event victory for Bush.

Thinking of changing the name of this blog to "Cynicism Abounds".