From St. Paul Pioneer Press...freaking idiot INS, I'm surprised they didn't give 'em a new citizen stipend before they let 'em go:
Security tightened after attack alert
BY MARTIN MERZER, LENNY SAVINO and SUMANA CHATTERJEE
Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- As the nation again stands on high alert, the FBI is searching for six men whom police stopped in the Midwest last weekend but released, even though they possessed photographs and descriptions of a nuclear power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, a senior law enforcement official said Tuesday.
The six men police stopped in the Midwest were traveling in groups of three in two white sedans, said the senior law enforcement official, who requested anonymity. It could not be learned in what state the six men were stopped or how they aroused suspicion.
Besides photographs and other suspicious material, the men carried "box cutters and other equipment," the official said. They appeared to be from the Middle East and held Israeli passports.
They were let go after the Immigration and Naturalization Service determined the passports were valid and that the men had entered the United States legally, the official said.
The FBI declined comment. A spokesman for the INS called the report unfounded. "We have absolutely no information at this point in time to substantiate that story," said INS spokesman Russ Bergeron.
It was not clear how the six men aroused suspicion.
It was not known if their true identities matched those on the passports, or why the FBI was not releasing their names or descriptions.
Investigators think the men almost certainly have changed cars by now and have fled to Canada or elsewhere.
Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were "furious" that the INS allowed the men to be released without consulting the FBI, the senior law enforcement official said.
Ashcroft and Mueller appeared Monday evening at a hastily called news conference to announce that the government had "credible" but vague information that another wave of terrorist attacks could strike Americans within a week.
A terrorist alert issued Monday was based on intelligence involving Afghanistan and known al-Qaida supporters elsewhere in the world, including Canada, officials said. Attorney General John Ashcroft warned that Americans at home or abroad could be struck by another terrorist attack this week.
Tuesday's concerns over new attacks came from intelligence information suggesting one of bin Laden's lieutenants in Afghanistan recently urged new attacks on Americans. U.S. officials have long suspected that bin Laden's top deputies, Ayman al-Zawahri and Mohammed Atef, were involved in the planning or support of the Sept. 11 hijackings.
They cautioned, however, that U.S. intelligence also is open to the possibility that the terrorists are aware their communications are being monitored and may be planting false information.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a new threat advisory Monday night to all nuclear power plants, other electrical plants, a dozen decommissioned reactors and three nuclear fuel-manufacturing facilities, said spokesman Victor Dricks.
The action was in response to the FBI's general warning, he said, and the commission was "not aware of any specific threats" against any power plant.
The advisory suggested the plants fortify perimeter security and, if necessary, call in help from local or state law officers or the local National Guard.
Also Tuesday, the FAA restricted all flights below 18,000 feet and within 10 miles of 86 "sensitive nuclear sites" until Nov. 6, the agency said. Exceptions can be made for law enforcement, medical and firefighting flights.
The 800-mile-long Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which delivers 17 percent of the nation's domestic oil production, runs from Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean to Valdez on the Pacific.
An employee at the Valdez security office for Alayeska, the company that runs the pipeline, said there has been no companywide alert.
Still, the incident in the Midwest apparently contributed to the many pieces of information that triggered the FBI's general alert.
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the agency's warning was based on messages from known or suspected operatives of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network in Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan and elsewhere during the past week, coupled with a new message Sunday that suggested an attack within the next week.
However, the official said the sudden flood of messages could be "deliberate deception of the kind we saw before Sept. 11," when bin Laden associates sent a flurry of messages suggesting a forthcoming attack on U.S. interests in Europe or the Middle East. Those messages held no hint of the U.S. hijackings to come.
On Capitol Hill, some senators criticized the White House warning as alarmist.
"We all know that there could be another terrorist threat, and we know it could be imminent," Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J.
Others said the president was doing the best he could under the circumstances.
"I give him the benefit of the doubt," said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge defended the administration's decision to issue the alert, and he said it was unavoidably imprecise.
"If we had specific information about the type of weapon or a specific location, this would have certainly been shared with the local or state officials," Ridge said. "Unfortunately, we view the information as credible, but not specific."
He said it was a "convergence of credible sources that occasioned the alert. More than the usual, is all I can tell you."
This report includes information from the Associated Press. |
