U.S. Believes al Qaeda Still Deadly but On the Run

CNN reports an intercepted message indicates some members of al Qaeda are looking to the group’s founder for more visible leadership, a U.S. intelligence official told CNN Wednesday after CIA director Leon Panetta talked about the message in a newspaper interview.

Osama bin Laden is “rarely seen, rarely heard,” the official said, and that is “troubling” to those who see him as their leader.

“There are strong indications that some al Qaeda terrorists would like Bin Laden to take a higher profile,” the official said, adding that Panetta’s comments in the Washington Post were referring to the al Qaeda core that is operating along the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.

Al Qaeda “is on the run, but still coming after us,” the official said.

CNN was unable to corroborate the existence of the intercepted message or its contents outside the U.S. intelligence community, and neither the official nor Panetta provided any further information about it or its contents.

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