The news that many al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan have emptied out is quite worrisome:

the Asia Times’ Syed Saleem Shahzad reported al Qaeda and Taliban camps in North and South Waziristan have emptied, the Taliban and al Qaeda are expanding into the settled districts of the Northwest Frontier Province, and are reorganizing in both Afghanistan and Pakistan for a major fight.

The Fourth Rail interviewed a senior military intelligence official and a military officer, both of whom are familiar with the situation in the Northwest Frontier Province and wish to remain anonymous. The sources confirmed Mr. Shahzad’s information concerning the al Qaeda and Taliban camps in North Waziristan and the Taliban’s reorganization is accurate. Both sources are particularly concerned about the implications of the emptying of the camps.

Mr. Shahzad reported there were 29 al Qaeda and Taliban camps in North and South Waziristan, and all but one "have been dismantled, apart from one run by hardline Islamist Mullah Abdul Khaliq."  While The Fourth Rail sources verify the camps’ existence, they noted the camps have not been dismantled, but the infrastructure is still in place. "The physical infrastructure (camps and the like) still exist, they haven’t been dismantled. They’ve just been abandoned or are being operated by skeleton crews," the senior military intelligence source said, while noting "the Khaliq camp is only churning out Taliban, not al Qaeda."

The al Qaeda and Taliban personnel abandoned the 28 camps after "the US had presented Islamabad with a dossier detailing the location of the bases as advance information on likely US targets," Mr. Shahzad reported. "All other leading Taliban commanders, including Sirajuddin Haqqani, Gul Bahadur, Baitullah Mehsud and Haji Omar, have disappeared,” said Mr. Shahzad.

"Similarly, the top echelons of the Arab community that was holed up in North Waziristan has also gone." Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies are believed to have leaked information to the Taliban and al Qaeda in the past, and appears to have done so again.

The emptying of the camps is a cause for great concern in the military and intelligence communities. "We don’t know where they went to or who was in the camps," the military officer told The Fourth Rail.. "They are well trained, these aren’t your entry level jihadis. They are dangerous."

And is this related?

In a show of force, the NYPD mobilized hundreds of anti-terrorism cops last night after an Internet report of a "dirty bomb" threat targeting the city surfaced, authorities said.

An Israeli-based Web site claimed al Qaeda communications accuse the United States of failing to take seriously the videotaped message last Sunday of an American member of the terror group, who vowed to attack the "spy dens" of U.S. and allied embassies throughout the Islamic world, police said.

DEBKA file – which attempts to report on the actions and chatter among al Qaeda cells – posted the story yesterday on its Web site, claiming that New York would be attacked in the coming days "by means of trucks loaded with radioactive material against America’s biggest city and financial nerve center."

The threats were allegedly found in an exchange of messages over the terror group’s internal Internet sites.

Now, DEBKA may not be the most trustworthy source for information but with camps emptying out in Pakistan a week after the warning from AQ that an attack was imminent, tied together with this report, the warning should be taken seriously