-Caveat Lector-
What’s Behind Latest ‘Orange Alert’
http://www.msnbc.com/news/870219.asp?0cv=CB10&cp1=1
New intelligence reports that point to the possibility of multiple, imminent
attacks by Al Qaeda against Jewish groups and Jewish-owned businesses in
the U.S.
By Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE
Feb. 7 — The Bush administration raised the national threat alert from
“yellow” to “orange” Friday after receiving new intelligence reports that
pointed to the possibility of multiple imminent attacks by Al Qaeda against
Jewish groups and Jewish- owned businesses inside the United States,
NEWSWEEK has learned.
ACTING SWIFTLY ON the reports, FBI
officials began contacting Jewish leaders and rabbis around the country
Friday to warn them to be especially vigilant and to enhance security at
Sabbath services and other events over the weekend, law- enforcement
sources said. State and local police were also being asked to provide extra
patrols for Jewish religious services and other gatherings. Officials said the
new intelligence warned about the possibility of attacks on synagogues,
Jewish community centers, Jewish hospitals, youth groups, hotels and
resorts.
Law-enforcement officials stressed that they had no information that
could help them identify any specific targets and that it was difficult to
stress the credibility of much of the intelligence reporting. But officials
said they were unusually worried both because of recent electronic
intercepts—both inside the United States and overseas—that “strongly
suggests” an imminent attack as well as the sheer volume of reports
mentioning Jewish targets that came in over the last few days.
“This is a full-court press,” said one FBI official about the bureau’s
sudden outreach to Jewish groups. “There’s real anxiety about this.” A
senior law- enforcement official said the “volume of threats relating to
Jewish interests” inside the United States was a major factor in prompting
President Bush to raise the intelligence threat level to “orange,” which is
the color code for a “high risk” of terrorist attack.
Among those Jewish leaders who were contacted by the FBI Friday was
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of
the country’s leading Jewish civil-rights groups, which has been holding its
annual meeting at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Fla.
Foxman said the FBI asked his help in identifying Jewish organizations
and businesses that should be notified about the new intelligence threats.
He said the FBI told him the information was “nonspecific,” adding that his
organization has already implemented the kinds of enhanced security
measures that the FBI advised.
“We’ve been through this before,” Foxman said. “Whenever the country
goes on higher alert, Jewish interests are seen as a softer target,” he said.
But Foxman said the FBI did appear to focus on one area: to identify
hotels that are owned by Jews. The issue of possible attacks on Jewish-
owned hotels was specifically raised by senior FBI officials with field-office
chiefs during a 90-minute conference call on Friday, officials said. During
the conference call, a senior official cited the recent Al Qaeda attack on
a Bali nightclub that killed nearly 200 people last October, saying that the
bureau now believes the facility was targeted because the owner was
Jewish. NEWSWEEK could not independently confirm that assertion.
Another recent Al Qaeda attack in Mombasa, Kenya, was aimed at a hotel
that was frequented by Israelis. In addition, sources said, German law-
enforcement agencies have collected information from defectors
indicating that terror suspect Abu Moussab Al-Zarqawi, a Palestinian whom
the Bush administration says is the link between Al Qaeda and Iraq, had
recently been inciting followers in Europe to attack Jewish targets.
The information about threats to Jewish-related
interests was alarming to U.S. officials because of the unusually large
number of them that came in over the past few days, the senior law-
enforcement official said. But the official stressed that there were also
concerns about other threats inside the United States, including reports
of an attack using chemical, biological or radiological weapons. “We had
much more information on chem-bio stuff,” the official said. “That really
unnerved me.”
But other officials said the new threats were not materially different
than others that have been picked up by the U.S. intelligence community
periodically ever since the September 11 terror attacks. In the past, those
threats have prompted Bush administration officials to issue public
warnings yet no terrorist attacks actually took place. Some intelligence
officials say it’s still hard to know what to make of some of the electronic
intercepts of Al Qaeda operatives that prompted the latest action. “You
can’t always tell whether this is idle boasting” or evidence of a looming
plot, one official said.
But the FBI is leaving little to chance. On Tuesday, before the new
threats to Jewish targets came in, FBI issued a classified advisory to all 56
field offices entitled “Al Qaeda Set to Attack.” The advisory reviewed a
series of recent intelligence reports—including “reliable information” from
the CIA that Al Qaeda is “moving forward with plans for near- term attacks
in multiple locations.” The advisory said “the attacks appear timed to
occur in the next two months to coincide with the period immediately
after the end of the Haaj,” the annual Muslim pilgrimage to the holy city of
Mecca. It also mentioned the likelihood that the attacks would be timed
to coincide with the outbreak of war in Iraq.
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.
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