WASHINGTON, Aug 8: "Information received from Pakistan shows that Al Qaeda is planning a terror attack in the United States before the November election," US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday.

In interviews to US television channels on Sunday, she said the arrests of Al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan last week 'produced physical evidence' about a pre-election threat.

"And while it was not imminent, it did give a timeframe that suggested some urgency," she said. Ms Rice said among the things that were found were casing reports on several financial targets in New York City and Washington and the decision was made that "you had no choice but to warn people that their buildings had been cased".

She acknowledged that some of these reports were more than three years old while some had been updated but 'whether they had or not, we know that Al Qaeda meticulously plans over a number of years'.

She said that for bombing the US embassies in East Africa, Al Qaeda had planned five years before it carried out the attacks in 1998. Confronted with this information, the Bush administration decided to declare a high security alert last week, she added.

Ms Rice said the United States received this information because of its liaison with Pakistan in the war against terror. "Three years ago, Pakistan was not a fighter in the war on terrorism. And here you have them able to take down terrorists and to provide information (which allowed the US administration to give) an effective response to these terror threats," she said.