WASHINGTON – Federal officials sought the public’s help Wednesday in finding seven people associated with al-Qaida, and warned that terrorists are plotting an attack inside the United States this summer.
Credible information from multiple sources indicates that al-Qaida plans to strike within the next few months, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller said.
The seven wanted people who were identified Wednesday – one of them an American – are not believed to be working together and are not known to be in the United States.
But officials say one or more could be part of a terrorist plot. Most of them could easily blend into their U.S. surroundings, having spent years in the country, are fluent in English and know American customs.
“We ask you to be on the lookout for each of these individuals associated with al-Qaida,” Ashcroft said. “They all pose a clear and present danger to America. They all should be considered armed and dangerous.”
He warned that al-Qaida might seek recruits who can portray themselves as Europeans or can travel easily with families to lower their profile.
The seven people sought vary by age and ethnicity. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed of the Comoros Islands and Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of Tanzania have been indicted in the 1998 East Africa bombings of U.S. embassies.
Others include a woman, Aafia Siddiqui, a 32-year-old Pakistani who attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology until January 2003. Before that, she studied at Brandeis University. FBI officials say they believe she has returned to Pakistan.
The American, Adam Yahiye Gadahn, 25, who converted to Islam in his teens, is not believed to have been in the United States since at least before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Public records show his last address was in Garden Grove, Calif., from 1997 to 2000.
Mueller said intelligence officials believe Gadahn acted as a translator for al-Qaida and trained in terrorist camps in Afghanistan.
The FBI is also looking for Adnan El Shukrijumah, who has lived in the United States for years, and has tried to re-enter the country using various passports; Amer El-Maati, a 41-year-old Kuwaiti and licensed pilot who is believed to have discussed hijacking a plane in Canada to fly into a building in the United States; and Abderraoup Jdey, a 35-year-old Tunisian with Canadian citizenship who left a suicide message on videotapes found in the rubble of an al-Qaida military chief’s house.
Ashcroft warned that “this disturbing intelligence indicates al-Qaida’s specific intention to hit the U.S. hard.” But in television interviews Wednesday, Tom Ridge, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was more cautious. Ridge would say only that America remains a top target of al-Qaida and that major public events in coming months, starting with the dedication of the World War II memorial in Washington, D.C., this weekend, are obvious targets.
Ashcroft said there were no plans to raise the terror threat alert from yellow, the midpoint on the scale, because the information officials have is not specific enough or targeted to a precise time period. But he said potential targets would include the G-8 meeting of industrial powers in Georgia next month, and the Democratic and Republican conventions in Boston and New York this summer.
Some of the threat information, the attorney general said, has come from al-Qaida’s own public statements. Without elaborating, he said al-Qaida announced early this year that plans to attack the United States were 70 percent complete. After the Madrid train bombings in March, according to Ashcroft, an al-Qaida spokesman indicated that plans were 90 percent ready.
Some representatives of law enforcement officers and emergency personnel questioned the timing of Wednesday’s announcement, suggesting that President Bush, saddled by record-low approval ratings and a bloody war in Iraq, might be trying to divert public attention.
Ashcroft disputed that.
“We plan to make announcements whenever they would be in the national interest to make announcements,” he said. “One of the reasons we make announcements is that the American people can help us reduce the risk by participating in an aggressive approach to disruption.”
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