| Al-Qaeda had planned attacks on
US on Feb 12. Members of Congress targeted
New York, February 17
The US has credible intelligence that al Qaeda had an attack or
multiple attacks set to begin at some point last week and that
members of the Congress could have been the terrorist outfit's
likely target, a media report said today.
Counter-terrorism officials were today quoted as saying that they
had received a phone tip that members of the United States Congress
could have been targets of assassination attempts by Islamic
fundamentalists.
Intelligence reports gathered from human and electronic sources
around the world suggested what intelligence officials had suspected
for weeks- al Qaeda operatives "Are in the execution phase of
some of their operations," a senior US offficial was quoted by
'Time' magazine as saying.
Officials said the intelligence specifically mentioned that the
likely targets were New York City and Washington on February 12.
Even though the feared attacks failed to materialise, the
anxieties did not subside and inside the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) fears of a devastating attack are as high as
they had been in months, particularly because of the possibility
that "other tools" or biological and chemical weapons
could be used, it said.
The Homeland Security has increased the level of alert.
Telephone calls and e-mails exchanged between several suspected
terrorists and intercepted by the US and foreign intelligence
agencies pointed to a plot inside the US using nerve gas, poisons or
radiological devices.
"It was'nt just chatter," said Republican Senator Pat
Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It was
a pattern." (more)
A senior Administration official tells the magazine that domestic
law-enforcement agencies are investigating a report that Islamic
fundamentalists in this country are trying to acquire parts to build
an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) abroad-the kind of machine that
terrorism experts believe could be deployed to spray chemical agents
over populated areas.
The fear is that a UAV assembled overseas could be used against
U.S. Assets there, Time says.
The US has credible intelligence that al Qaeda had an attack or
multiple attacks set to begin at some point last week and that
members of the Congress could have been the terrorist outfit's
likely target, a media report said today.
Counter-terrorism officials were today quoted as saying that they
had received a phone tip that members of the United States Congress
could have been targets of assassination attempts by Islamic
fundamentalists.
Intelligence reports gathered from human and electronic sources
around the world suggested what intelligence officials had suspected
for weeks- al Qaeda operatives "Are in the execution phase of
some of their operations," a senior US official was quoted by
'Time' magazine as saying.
Officials said the intelligence specifically mentioned that the
likely targets were New York City and Washington on February 12.
Even though the feared attacks failed to materialise, the
anxieties did not subside and inside the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) fears of a devastating attack are as high as
they had been in months, particularly because of the possibility
that "other tools" or biological and chemical weapons
could be used, it said.
The Homeland Security has increased the level of alert.
Telephone calls and e-mails exchanged between several suspected
terrorists and intercepted by the US and foreign intelligence
agencies pointed to a plot inside the US using nerve gas, poisons or
radiological devices.
"It wasn't just chatter," said Republican Senator Pat
Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "It was
a pattern."
A senior Administration official tells the magazine that domestic
law-enforcement agencies are investigating a report that Islamic
fundamentalists in this country are trying to acquire parts to build
an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) abroad-the kind of machine that
terrorism experts believe could be deployed to spray chemical agents
over populated areas.
The fear is that a UAV assembled overseas could be used against
U.S. Assets there, Time says.
At a closed-door briefing Thursday a group of Senators grilled
Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge about whether they should
clear their families out of the capital in anticipation of an
attack.
Ridge counseled them against it, but when pressed by the Senators
for the odds of an attack on U.S. Targets at home or abroad in the
next several weeks, Ridge, according to one source familiar with the
meeting, put the probability at "50 per cent or greater."
In private, Time says White House officials sounded almost
resigned to the inevitability of catastrophe. "All we can
do," Vice President Dick Cheney told a gathering of top
administration officials to discuss bioterrorism, "is ask
ourselves, Have we done everything we can to prevent an
attack?.."
The U.S. Still doesn't have a "credible and comprehensive
system" in place to cope with such attacks, the magazine said.
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