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Officials warn of attacks on US citizens abroad

The US State Department is warning of possible al-Qaeda attacks against Americans overseas in connection with the second anniversary of Sept. 11.

"We are seeing increasing indications that al-Qaeda is preparing to strike US interests abroad," the State Department said in a statement distributed on Thursday. The statement cited the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks as a concern.

American officials played down the relevance of the new Osama bin Laden videotape in the new State Department warning. Bin Laden appeared in a videotape aired on the Arab Al-Jazeera television network on Wednesday.

Some taped messages from al-Qaeda leaders are thought to announce a coming attack; however, intelligence officials said the latest message appeared to be a propaganda effort.

President George W. Bush said the tape "reminds us that the war on terror goes on."

"You can't negotiate with these people," Bush said. "The only way to deal with them is to find them and bring them to justice."

Despite the warning about possible attacks abroad, US officials had no plans to raise the level of the terrorism threat alert at home.

"The information and analysis that we are dealing with mostly in this report was the possibility of attacks overseas," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher during a press briefing.

One intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said a recent report suggested Americans in Europe could be a target. But that report provided no specifics.

In past months, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have been blamed for bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Casablanca, Morocco, and Bali, Indonesia, the State Department said.

"We assess that European or Eurasian locations could be venues for the next round of attacks, possibly to closely coincide with" the anniversary, the department said.

The latest caution updates a July 29 warning about possible hijackings of commercial aircraft. The domestic terrorist threat level in the US remains at yellow, signifying an elevated risk of attacks. The five-level, color-coded system was last raised to orange, or high risk, for 11 days in May.

The FBI, in its nationwide weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies, cautioned officials to watch for signs of terrorist activity to coincide with the Sept. 23-Oct. 3 UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

As for the tape, the CIA authenticated a section of the audio as an actual recording of bin Laden's chief deputy, but analysts were unsure whether the voice purported to be bin Laden's was truly his, officials said.
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