Mule festival listed as Al-Qa'eda target

Francis Harris
The Telegraph
Jul. 13, 2006

Al-Qa'eda is planning to attack a mule festival, ice-cream parlours, a kangaroo conservation centre and "a beach at the end of a street", according to America's latest list of terrorist targets.

The 77,000-item list was compiled by the much-criticised Department of Homeland Security.

An audit by the department's inspector general said that 11,000 of the sites met the required level of a target of national significance and that 32,000 did not. The importance of the rest was unclear.

The department asked state authorities to identify which sites "if attacked would result in catastrophic loss of life and/or catastrophic economic loss".

But the guidelines issued by officials were so unclear that the 50 states often failed to understand what the department required. While some gave the names and addresses of potential targets, others simply provided general information such as "school" and "restaurant". Among the supposed targets were the American society of young musicians, a bourbon festival, an insect zoo, Old McDonald's petting zoo, a shop called Amish County Popcorn and a theological seminary.