Ridge Warns of Specific Threats

WASHINGTON —  U.S. government officials, citing unusually detailed information, warned Sunday of plans by terrorists to attack financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and the District of Columbia and, for the first time, raised the threat level on a localized basis.

Buildings targeted for possible car- or truck-bomb attacks include the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Inc. offices in New York, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington, and the headquarters of Prudential Financial Inc. in Newark, N.J., officials at the Department of Homeland Security said.

“This afternoon we do have new and unusually specific information about where Al Qaeda would like to attack,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told reporters Sunday, maintaining that the quality of the intelligence was in stark contrast to the “usual chatter.”

Terrorists assembled a wealth of information about the institutions, officials said -- including details about their construction, the best methods of discreet observation, the locations of nearby hospitals, police stations and schools, and even the number of pedestrians who pass by on weekdays.

As a result, Ridge said, law enforcement and private security would impose an array of measures to enhance the security of those facilities, including parking restrictions, added police and more careful screening of individuals, motorists, mail and deliveries. New York City officials said they would increase their monitoring of bridge and tunnel traffic.

Homeland Security officials said they had no details on when attacks might occur. But they said the intelligence, gleaned from multiple sources in multiple locations, appeared to be part of an effort to disrupt the U.S. political process, which culminates with the Nov. 2 presidential election.

“I certainly realize that this is sobering news, not just about the intent of our enemies but of their specific plans and a glimpse into their methods,” Ridge said, describing the financial institutions as “iconic economic targets” of great interest to Al Qaeda.

The information has sparked a frenzy of activity in intelligence circles over the last 48 hours, including frantic attempts to confirm it and emergency briefings with officials in the affected areas.

“The [U.S.] intelligence community got it sometime Friday, shared it with its members, and the information was so specific they immediately began trying to corroborate it,” one senior Homeland Security official said in an interview. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

Briefing reporters, several senior counterterrorism officials from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and CIA at times seemed to be reading from what appeared to be physical evidence seized from terrorism suspects. One official said the information contained the most specific detail he had seen in two decades of counterterrorism work.

“What these people had in their materials [included] surveillance materials, what types of explosions would be needed to melt the [building] infrastructures, where the banks of elevators were and the security checkpoints,” the senior Homeland Security official said in an interview.

Terrorists also possessed specific information about what security personnel wore at the buildings in Washington, whether they were armed and when they made their rounds, the senior official said.

“The quality of this intelligence ... is rarely seen, and it is alarming in both the amount and specificity of the information,” Ridge told reporters.

Officials did not disclose the sources of the information, which they said included striking details that arrived Friday night. Last week, Pakistani authorities captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, one of the FBI’s 22 most wanted terrorists and an alleged participant in the 1998 bomb- ings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Ghailani had been the subject of an intense manhunt by U.S. officials, who feared he was plotting devastating attacks in the United States or against American interests overseas.

U.S. officials raised the threat level to orange, indicating a high probability of a terrorist attack, but only for the possible target areas in Washington and Newark, while leaving most of the nation at yellow, or elevated risk -- the mid-point of the scale. Nationwide, the threat level has been raised to orange, and then lowered to yellow, five times since the Sept. 11 attacks.

New York City has remained at orange since the scale was instituted in March 2002, although officials there made clear that the latest information would prompt additional security measures around the financial district.

“New York City continues to be a target of choice for those who want to destroy our way of life,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a City Hall news conference. “There will be an even greater law enforcement presence at sensitive and symbolic locations across the city.”

The Republican National Convention is to be held at Madison Square Garden starting Aug. 30.

The New York Stock Exchange already is protected by barriers and checkpoints, making it extremely difficult to reach by vehicle. Bloomberg and New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said that steps were being taken to improve security at all the financial targets.

In a display of force, members of the city’s anti-terrorist heavy-weapons unit gathered for a time outside the 59-story Citigroup Center in Midtown Manhattan, which stands atop a subway station and is surrounded by skyscrapers.

Bloomberg said police have asked corporate security managers to safeguard their heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems to prevent a chemical or biological attack.

“Let me assure New Yorkers of one thing,” he added. “We are deploying our full array of counterterrorism resources. We will spare no expense, and we will take no chances.”

Kelly said that extra police units would be dispatched to Citigroup’s skyscraper annex in Queens and that police would be watching Prudential locations in Manhattan.

In Newark, police set up metal fences surrounding the Prudential Plaza building, blocked off two city streets, and armed themselves with assault rifles, according to Associated Press.

The mayors of New York and Washington urged residents and visitors to go on with their lives as usual while maintaining vigilance.

“Whatever you’re going to do, continue to do it,” Washington Mayor Anthony Williams advised, adding: “What we’re protecting here is our way of life.”

Sen. John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, who in the past has criticized President Bush’s response to the terrorism threat, sought a careful response.

His national security aide, Susan Rice, repeated Kerry’s call to swiftly implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission, declaring in a statement: “No matter what threats we face, the terrorists will not divide us. Our nation is united in its determination to defeat terrorism.” The campaign said in a statement.

The government’s announcement led former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean to question whether the Bush administration sought to capitalize politically on a terrorist threat. “It’s just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there’s some of both in it,” Dean said on CNN’s “Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.”

His comment drew a quick response from Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush reelection campaign, who called Dean’s remarks “reckless and irresponsible.”

“To suggest that, I think, corrodes the confidence of the people of this country,” Racicot said on the same program. “And Howard, quite frankly, should perform in a different fashion, in my view.”

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairwoman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees Homeland Security, said, “I commend the secretary for sharing an unprecedented amount of in- formation with state and lo- cal law enforcement agencies about this extremely serious threat.”

IMF and World Bank officials said the two institutions were briefed Sunday by U.S. authorities and were implementing additional security measures. They declined to discuss details of the Al Qaeda advisory or the new security measures, but they indicated that the threat was general.

The 2,400 IMF employees and 7,000 World Bank staffers in Washington were advised to report for work as usual today. In Washington, officials sought to assure residents that local law enforcement had stepped up protection of the threatened buildings. In addition to the World Bank and the IMF, security would be increased around the Federal Reserve and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the officials said.

Many of the District’s increased security efforts will go unnoticed by the public, said Metropolitan Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey.

“You won’t see a ring of cops around the IMF and World Bank building,” he said. Nor was his department planning to shut down traffic near the threatened buildings, which are across the street from one another about three blocks west of the White House, he added.

“We want to maintain as much normalcy as possible,” he said. At the same time, he said, “there is a tremendous amount of investigative activity taking place.”

In Los Angeles, which was not cited in the new terrorism alert, Mayor James K. Hahn said he had been in “constant communications” with local and federal law enforcement officials, including Ridge.

“I want to reassure all residents that there is no specific threat against the City of Los Angeles, and that the Los Angeles Police Department and local and federal law enforcement agencies will continue to remain on a heightened level of vigilance to help ensure the safety and security of all residents,” he said.

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Times staff writers Warren Vieth and Vicki Kemper in Washington, John J. Goldman in New York and Michael Finnegan in Bowling Green, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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Potential targets

Facts about the financial institutions named in Sunday’s government warning about possible terrorist attacks between now and the Nov. 2 election.

* The World Bank has a headquarters and five other buildings in Washington where 7,000 of the World Bank’s 10,000 employees work. They were expected to report to work today, although the buildings would have increased security.

* The International Monetary Fund has about 2,400 employees in Washington. IMF spokesman William Murray said that the international lending agency planned to be open today, with “appropriate security precautions.” The building is next door to the World Bank headquarters.

* The Citigroup Center is on New York’s Lexington Avenue, between 53rd and 54th streets. Built in 1978, the 59-story building is the third-largest in Midtown Manhattan, with an aluminum- and reflective-glass facade and angled roof.

* The New York Stock Exchange is in the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan, blocks away from the World Trade Center site. Since Sept. 11, 2001, security measures have included barricades on all sides and multiple checkpoints for entry into the building.

* Prudential Plaza is in downtown Newark, N.J., about 10 miles west of New York. It is 24 stories high and houses the headquarters of Prudential Financial Inc. About 1,600 employees work in the building, and an additional 1,200 employees work in a building nearby. On Sunday, police surrounded the building with metal fencing, blocked off streets and stood guard with assault rifles.

Source: Associated Press

Los Angeles Times