The US government raised its terror alert to the second highest level on Sunday and warned Americans there was a high risk militants might launch attacks around the holidays in the US that could be bigger than those of Sept. 11, 2001.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said threat indicators are "perhaps greater now than at any point" since the 2001 attacks and promised that all federal departments and agencies would increase their defenses against what he called "al-Qaeda's continued desire to carry out attacks against our homeland."
The warning came despite White House assurances that many of al-Qaeda's operations had been disrupted and that the occupation of Iraq was making the world safer.
Ridge said al-Qaeda might try to use aircraft in new attacks -- as Osama bin Laden's global network of militants did to strike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon more than two years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people.
US officials attributed the warning to "credible sources," and ordered the color-coded alert system raised to orange -- denoting "a high risk" of terrorist attacks -- from yellow, which the Department of Homeland Security defines as "a significant" or "elevated" risk of terrorist attacks.
It is the fifth time that the orange alert has been activated since the system was instituted in March last year.
"The information we have indicates that extremists abroad are anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will either rival or exceed the attacks that occurred in New York and the Pentagon and the fields of Pennsylvania," said Ridge, who met early on Sunday with President George W. Bush's homeland security advisers.
At a hastily arranged news conference, Ridge said security would be beefed up at the nation's airports and more agents would be deployed along its borders. Coast Guard air and sea patrols will also increase to protect the nation's critical ports and shipping lanes.
"We will not broadcast our plans to the terrorists. But extensive and considerable protections have been or soon will be in place all across the country," Ridge said.
US officials singled out New York and Washington as possibly the highest-profile targets.
The new warning comes one week after the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, which gave Bush a pre-election year boost in the polls. Bush has portrayed the occupation of Iraq as a front in the war on terrorism.
But Democrats complain the government has not done enough to boost security in the US.
"Homeland security is not nearly what it ought to be," Rep. Dick Gephardt, a Missouri Democrat seeking his party's presidential nomination, told Fox News Sunday.
The alert announcement came amid the year-end holiday travel rush. In the past, the administration has been wary of spooking travelers and setting back the nation's economic recovery and Ridge sought to reassure anxious Americans preparing for the holidays.
"If you've got travel plans, travel," he said. David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association, said he thought the announcement came too late to prompt a spate of cancellations.
Ridge's decision had an immediate effect across the nation.
In New York, which has been continuously on orange alert, police patrols were being increased and deployed, the officials said, to cover bridges, tunnels, landmarks and "signature buildings" such as the New York Stock Exchange. "We're not letting our guard down," said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Chicago said it had asked federal authorities to change flight paths over downtown Chicago for the duration of the alert.
Experts have said the top alert -- red -- on the five-level scale would be declared only if an attack on US soil were imminent or underway.
Ridge cited a "substantial increase in the volume of threat related intelligence reports" suggesting the possibility of attacks within the US around the "holiday season and beyond" -- referring to Christmas, the Jewish celebration of Hanukkah and New Year's Day.
Due to the raised threat level, the State Department repeated a worldwide caution warning of a potential threat to Americans overseas.
On Friday, al-Jazeera television broadcast a purported audio tape by bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, saying al-Qaeda would target Americans everywhere, including the US.
MILESTONE: The foreign minister called the signing ‘a major step forward in US-Taiwan relations,’ while the Presidential Office said it was a symbol of the nations’ shared values US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed into law the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, which requires the US Department of State to regularly review and update guidelines governing official US interactions with Taiwan. The new law is an amendment to the Taiwan Assurance Act of 2020 focused on reviewing guidelines on US interactions with Taiwan. Previously, the state department was required to conduct a one-time review of its guidance governing relations with Taiwan, but under the new bill, the agency must conduct a review “not less than every five years.” It must then submit an updated report based on its findings “not later
CROSS-STRAIT COLLABORATION: The new KMT chairwoman expressed interest in meeting the Chinese president from the start, but she’ll have to pay to get in Beijing allegedly agreed to let Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) around the Lunar New Year holiday next year on three conditions, including that the KMT block Taiwan’s arms purchases, a source said yesterday. Cheng has expressed interest in meeting Xi since she won the KMT’s chairmanship election in October. A source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a consensus on a meeting was allegedly reached after two KMT vice chairmen visited China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao (宋濤) in China last month. Beijing allegedly gave the KMT three conditions it had to
STAYING ALERT: China this week deployed its largest maritime show of force to date in the region, prompting concern in Taipei and Tokyo, which Beijing has brushed off Deterring conflict over Taiwan is a priority, the White House said in its National Security Strategy published yesterday, which also called on Japan and South Korea to increase their defense spending to help protect the first island chain. Taiwan is strategically positioned between Northeast and Southeast Asia, and provides direct access to the second island chain, with one-third of global shipping passing through the South China Sea, the report said. Given the implications for the US economy, along with Taiwan’s dominance in semiconductors, “deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority,” it said. However, the strategy also reiterated
‘BALANCE OF POWER’: Hegseth said that the US did not want to ‘strangle’ China, but to ensure that none of Washington’s allies would be vulnerable to military aggression Washington has no intention of changing the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Saturday, adding that one of the US military’s main priorities is to deter China “through strength, not through confrontation.” Speaking at the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, Hegseth outlined the US Department of Defense’s priorities under US President Donald Trump. “First, defending the US homeland and our hemisphere. Second, deterring China through strength, not confrontation. Third, increased burden sharing for us, allies and partners. And fourth, supercharging the US defense industrial base,” he said. US-China relations under
RSS