The Bush administration on Sunday put the United States on a high state alert, saying it had picked up credible intelligence of a possible terrorist attack ”that could either rival or exceed” September 11.
The homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, did not give details of the expected nature of a potential attack, but mentioned ”significant concern” that aircraft could be used again.
Homeland security officials said there was also concern about the possible use of chemical, biological or radiological weapons.
It is the first time in seven months that the US has issued an orange alert — the second highest status after red — and Ridge said the threat was ”perhaps greater now than at any point since September 11, 2001”.
He made the announcement, raising the alert status from yellow, after a ”substantial increase” in the volume of ”chatter” among suspected terrorists being picked up by US intelligence. ”We continue to hear … the interest in using aircraft as a means of attack,” he said.
The threat level has never reached the red alert. This would mean a terrorist attack is either imminent or underway.
In Britain, a Home Office spokesperson said the US warning had no bearing on Britain’s own state of alert, which has been at ”heightened readiness” for weeks.
”This is a matter for the Americans,” the spokesperson said. ”We are not changing the threat level.” The spokesperson said that under the current ”real and serious” threat, the public should remain ”alert but not alarmed”. There would be warnings if necessary to protect safety.
US officials said it was impossible to tell whether the currently threatened attack would be aimed at US or allied interests abroad or against US territory, but Americans were warned that extra security precautions would be taken at airports around the country, lengthening holiday queues.
”Extensive and considerable protections have been or soon will be in place all across the country,” Mr Ridge said at a hastily arranged news conference. ”Your government will stand at the ready 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to stop terrorism during the holiday season and beyond.”
The security alert status has vacillated between yellow and orange since the code was established last year. However, it was the first time US officials had compared the scale of a possible attack to the devastation wrought on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania by al-Qaeda.
Ridge warned Americans about the possibility ”in the coming days and weeks” of ”near-term attacks that could either rival or exceed what we experienced on September 11”.
The choice of language appeared aimed at catching the attention of a public that has been suffering from ”alert fatigue”.
The last time the threat code was raised to orange was May 20, after a string of suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, blamed on al-Qaeda. The raised alert lasted 10 days.
It was unclear last night whether the decision to raise the state of alert was connected to a broadcast on Friday on the Arabic television network al-Jazeera — the station aired an audio tape of a statement attributed to Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy and an Egyptian-born al-Qaeda strategist.
”We are still chasing the Americans and their allies everywhere, even in their homeland,” al-Zawahiri said on the tape.
In the past, such broadcasts have preceded al-Qaeda attacks, and US intelligence officials believe they could be used as a signal to al-Qaeda cells around the world, or as an attempt to gain credit for the attacks by demonstrating prior knowledge
Evan Bayh, a Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN yesterday: ”The greatest risk is probably abroad, but they would like nothing better than to have an attack here at home.”
Richard Myers, the chair man of the joint chiefs of staff, told America’s Fox television yesterday: ”There is no doubt, from all the intelligence we pick up from al-Qaeda, that they want to do away with our way of life.
”And if they could cause another catastrophic event, a tragedy like 9/11, if they could do that again, if they could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and make it 10 000, not 3 000, they would do that, and not just in the United States but in any of the free world or any peoples that treasure their freedom. So we take all these intelligence tips very, very seriously.” – Guardian Unlimited Â