FBI alert over al-Qaeda attack plans in US

Reuters via Times of India - April 25, 2002

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_ID=7942032

FBI alert over al-Qaeda attack plans in US

WASHINGTON: The FBI has notified its regional offices of
unsubstantiated information that the al-Qaeda may be planning attacks
in the United States, but the tip was not detailed enough to alert
the public, an FBI spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

"We had learned that al-Qaeda was possibly planning attacks on
civilian targets such as shopping malls, supermarkets, banks and
shops," said the spokeswoman, who said the information was passed on
to FBI field offices on Tuesday.

The FBI thought the information was worth sharing with local
authorities, but contained too few details to issue a broader alert
to all of the nation's law enforcement agencies or the general
public, said the spokeswoman, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"We had no specifics, no time, no date or method of attack," she
said.

"It did not require notification to the public or general law
enforcement alert, it was merely passing of information to our field
offices for them to share with their terrorism task forces throughout
the United States," she said.

She said the information was gleaned from FBI investigations and was
information "pertaining to the same bank information that went out
last Friday."

The US government issued an alert last Friday about a possible act of
terrorism against banks in Northeastern states, and officials said
the information came partly from interrogating Abu Zubaydah, the most
senior al Qaeda member in U.S. custody.

US officials said the threats were coming from the al-Qaeda network
of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, blamed by Washington for the
September 11 attacks on the United States that killed about 3,000
people.

Zubaydah has also told interrogators al-Qaeda knew how to build a
radiological dispersal weapon known as a "dirty bomb." A US official,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said Zubaydah's claims could not
be substantiated.

The FBI spokeswoman said that like Friday's bank alert, the new
warning did not change the US threat level from yellow on the federal
government's color-coded scale for rating the severity of terrorist
threats.

A yellow alert is in the middle of the range, indicating
"significant" risk of attack. The next level, orange, could prompt
calling in armed forces to back up law enforcement, and the highest
alert of red would warn of a "severe risk" of terrorist attack.

 
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