NYC on terror alert, specific info comes from AQ-linked Pakistani technogeek captured in July
Terrorists may try to blow up the New York Stock Exchange, the Citigroup Center and other high-profile economic institutions with car or truck bombs, the federal government said yesterday.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the warning — the most detailed since Sept. 11 — was based on new, highly specific information from "multiple sources."
The intelligence indicates terrorists must have "cased" their targets because they know details of the insides of the buildings — even the location of security cameras and escape routes.
Past Homeland Security alerts have tended to be vague and general. But yesterday's announcement was extraordinary:
* Ridge named five targets — the NYSE, Citigroup's Midtown tower, the Prudential Building in Newark, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
* Ridge cited a specific method of attack. "The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," he said.
* The government raised the alert level, from yellow (elevated) to orange (high) specifically for "the financial-services sector."
But Ridge and Mayor Bloomberg stressed that no time frame emerged from the intelligence.
"We know where but not precisely when" an attack is planned, Ridge said. The alert will remain at least until the Nov. 2 elections.
Sid Caspersen, head of New Jersey's counterterror office, described the terrorists' plot as "a long-term operations plan developed over months, perhaps years."
The Homeland Security secretary wouldn't go into detail about the "unusually specific information" that triggered the heightened alert. But a source told The Post that it came from Abu Talha, a major al Qaeda figure arrested in Pakistan in July by Pakistani officials acting on a CIA tip.
[Now, you see, the CIA still is capable of getting good "humint!"--Jen]
The Washington Post reported that "a treasure trove" of information was found on two laptop computers recovered in Talha's hideout when he was arrested after a shootout.
Citing Pakistani sources, The New York Times said that Talha, is a 25-year-old computer whiz who operated al Qaeda's secret communications system.
The material obtained from Talha included drawings of some buildings, indicating where elevators and security staffers are positioned, the source said. The Washington Post quoted a suspected terrorist as saying, "Getting up to the higher floors is not very difficult if you go there midweek, as I did."
[...]
The Washing Post also described unprecedented teamwork by the nation's intelligence community that led to yesterday's announcement.
[Even without the White House yet implementing the suggestions of the 9/11 Commission, which they will do as soon as tomorrow, the changes put in place by the Bush Administration are working!]
Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin led a meeting that included operatives from the agency's Counterterrorism and Terrorist Threat Integration centers, the FBI, the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. All of those groups were once prohibited by law, or disinclined by habit, from working together.
Officials stressed yesterday that the alert was based on fresh information, some obtained in the last 24 to 36 hours.
City officials said that they had been briefed and that new anti-terror measures have been taken.
Bloomberg noted that New York has been on orange alert since 9/11, but would take even more measures.
[A lot of we Americans who live in the Heartland didn't know this, but it's true: NYC never goes off orange alert, poor things!]
[...]
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, at Bloomberg's City Hall briefing, said Manhattan-bound trucks will now be banned from the Williamsburg Bridge.
Later, the Port Authority announced that the inbound Holland Tunnel would be closed to commercial traffic starting today. And police said that the Manhattan-bound lanes of the Battery Tunnel would also be off limits to trucks and commercial vans.
Kelly had a closed-door meeting last night with the security directors of 13 major financial firms, including Morgan Stanley, NASDAQ, the American Stock Exchange, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Citigroup, MetLife, JPMorgan Chase and the NYSE, the Police Department said.
Ridge downplayed the possibility of a radioactive "dirty" bomb or biological attack, but Kelly said heating vents in potential targets would be secured.
[...]
Ridge said the targets apparently were selected because they were "iconic" and attacks on them would disrupt the U.S. economy.
But he and Bloomberg insisted the new information would not change plans for the Republican convention, which begins four weeks from today at Madison Square Garden.
Well, if you're reading this and you work in or near these buildings, may God bless you and protect you!
Keep your eyes open and try to stay calm, although I'd be a nervous wreck, particularly if I'd been working down in lower Manhattan on 9/11.
This represents a lot of good work on the part of our people--and that includes the CIA, the FBI and Homeland Security, plus the NY leadership like Nurse Bloomberg, Ray Kelly and NY's Finest and Bravest-- and the Pakistanis, too.
It could be that the AQ operative woman they caught at the Texas/Mexico border [See story below.] last week who was
may have supplied some other info in addition to whatever Abu Tahla told us.
And then there's those detainees at Gitmo.
I'm going to hope and pray that we got onto the Evildoers in time to stop an attack, because they'd love to kill a lot more "infidels" and to inflict harm on our powerful financial institutions.
They hate our robust capitalist economy because they equate it with Jews and the Muslim "sin" of charging "usury."
We love you, New York (and our nation's capital, as well)-- so stay safe and beautiful!
after being closed since the 9/11 attacks.
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