ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: We begin tonight with a new warning from the CIA about al Qaeda operatives in Baghdad. The U.S. intelligence agency says American forces may be targets of terrorist attacks if a ground war is launched on Iraq. CNN national security correspondent David Ensor has the chilling details.</s>DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): U.S. officials say the new two page report by the CIA warns that terrorists based in Iraq are planning attacks against American and allied troops if they should invade. The CIA report says one group of four to eight or more al Qaeda operatives have been spotted in Baghdad, a cell set up by Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Secretary Powell spoke about that group before the U.N. last month.</s>COLIN POWELL, SECRETARY OF STATE: And they've now been operating freely in the capitol for more than eight months.</s>ENSOR: The other group are al Qaeda fighters who fled Afghanistan for the small enclave controlled by a sympathetic group in northern Iraq, Ansar al Islam. U.S. officials say there may be 200 or more of them. The CIA report says, according to officials, that after U.S. forces move into Iraq, terrorist fighters may blend in the Iraqi population, and then try to get close enough to troops to conduct terrorism, possibly using conventional explosives or "toxins." The report said such attacks are being planned as independent terror operations. The groups are tolerated by the government of Saddam Hussein, it says, but not controlled by it. (on camera): U.S. officials say the CIA report was not designed to help the Bush administration make a case for war, but to warn policymakers and military leaders of a possible threat. David Ensor, CNN, the Pentagon.
CIA Warns About al Qaeda Cell in Baghdad