WASHINGTON – The Bush administration believes it has undermined al-Qaida’s plans for attacking the United States with the recent arrests of suspected terrorists and the seizure of detailed surveillance of financial buildings.
Presidential advisers also said Sunday they think some of the potential plots uncovered in the past week may have been part of a broader effort to strike the country before the November election.
Going beyond the list of targets previously disclosed, White House officials said the Capitol and members of Congress have been threatened.
“I certainly think that by our actions now that we have disrupted it,” said Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush’s homeland security adviser. “The question is, have we disrupted all of it or a part of it? And we’re working through an investigation to uncover that.”
In cooperation with U.S. intelligence agencies, authorities in Pakistan and Britain have detained suspected al-Qaida operatives, while computer files uncovered in Pakistan contained surveillance information of five financial sites in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J.
The United States issued a terror alert based on that information.
“We may see additional U.S. targets,” said Townsend as she made the rounds on Sunday TV talk shows.
Included in information obtained on three laptop computers and 51 discs seized in a July 24 raid in Pakistan were details of how al-Qaida operatives thought of using speed boats and divers to carry out attacks in New York harbor before the November presidential election, a U.S. law enforcement official told the newsmagazine Time.
They also were considering the use of helicopters in some New York operations, Time said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
