Terror alert based on pre-9/11 reports: US newspaper's assessment
WASHINGTON, Aug 3: Much of the intelligence that prompted US authorities to raise alerts around major financial institutions indicated that Al Qaeda studied the sites as potential targets before the Sept 11, 2001
, attacks, The Washington Post said on Tuesday.
The newspaper cited anonymous US intelligence and law enforcement officials as saying that most of the information was at least three years old and had been obtained through the Internet or other "open sources" available to the public, including some floor plans.
"There is nothing right now that we're hearing that is new," said one senior law enforcement official who was briefed on the alert. "Why did we go to this level? ... I still don't know that."
A Homeland Security alert was issued on Sunday identifying as possible Al Qaeda targets the New York Stock Exchange and Citi group in New York City, Prudential Finance in Newark, New Jersey, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
The five cited targets were subjected to their highest level of security since the Sept 11 attacks, with barricades, rapid response teams and sniffer dogs providing several rings of protection.
The information that sparked the terror alert was stored in computer files, e-mail addresses and cell-phones text messages seized by Pakistani authorities after the June 12 arrest and interrogation of suspected Al Qaeda operative Musaad Aruchi in Karachi, officials told the Post.
The computer information, which officials said included logs of pedestrian traffic and notes on the types of explosives that might work best against each target, was evaluated in light of recent intelligence indicating Al Qaeda was preparing to strike before the Nov 2 US presidential election.
Information gathered on the plot also included details on escape routes, security cameras, the best place to park vehicles with explosives and even the degree of garage ramp inclines.
ALLIES SCORN ALERT: The latest "code Orange" has drawn mild scorn from US allies in the "war on terror", who say Washington's high-profile alerts cause undue panic and could make people less safe by undermining trust in intelligence.
Most of Washington's major allies have avoided colour-coded alerts like those Washington introduced in the wake of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, saying the public can do little with warnings unless it is told specifically how to respond.
Officials and experts in other countries have been careful not to comment on the nature of intelligence that prompted this week's clampdowns in Washington and New York, after Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge declared "code Orange" in those cities.
But allies also say such public warnings, often with few details, do little to make countries safer. Britain, which honed its approach over decades of combating Irish militants, made its position clear by what it did not do.
News reports said intelligence seized in Pakistan that prompted the US clampdown had also referred to targets in Britain. But while armed squads took to the streets in New York, British police took no public steps.
"There is no change to the deployment. We haven't put hundreds of police officers on the streets," a security source told Reuters. Instead, comments by British officials reinforced the differences between the British and American approaches, emphasising that Britain avoids public statements about security threats unless it can tell people exactly how to respond.
"The government will never hesitate to issue a warning if it is the best way to protect any community or venue facing a specific and credible threat. Advice would be issued immediately if the public needed to take specific action which could make them safer," a Home Office spokeswoman said.
Kevin Rosser of Control Risks Group consultancy in London said Britain's approach "is not to make colour-coded warnings, not to publish every possible threat, but work closely with institutions that may be affected to help them tighten security and address threats in the least disruptive way possible.
"The problem (with the American approach) is that it creates public anxiety. If the goal of terrorists is to spread fear and unease then to some extent they've done that job for them without anybody carrying out an attack."
"NO ADVANTAGES": Other countries take similar views. A spokeswoman for Germany's Interior Ministry said it has an internal threat assessment system, but no equivalent of the public, colour-coded US scheme, and "we see no advantages" of introducing one.
France, which created its four-colour "Vigipirate" threat system after a July 1995 attack at the St Michel suburban railway station in central Paris, is one of the few other countries with colour codes.
It raised security in June when dignitaries including US President George W. Bush visited for the anniversary of D-Day. But such changes are generally not announced with the fanfare of televised news conferences as in the US. -AFP/Reuters
