Posted on 08/08/2004 11:15:35 PM PDT by conservative in nyc
ASHINGTON, Aug. 8 - Pakistan has given American officials what they regard as credible and specific information indicating that Al Qaeda has considered using tourist helicopters in terror attacks in New York City, domestic security officials said Sunday.
As a result, the officials said, security measures for helicopter operators in New York City will be stepped up in a new directive as early as this week. Among the new measures under review is a requirement for operators to conduct airport-style screenings of passengers for suspicious items, said an official with the Department of Homeland Security who had been briefed on the plan. So far, no groundings of helicopter operators are planned.
Personnel at several Manhattan helicopter charter companies said Sunday that although they had already conducted varying degrees of passenger screening themselves, they had heard of no specific safety concerns in recent days from the federal government.
Separately, a senior American intelligence official said that more than 1,000 computer disks had been seized by British authorities during arrests last week of 12 suspected operatives for Al Qaeda in England.
The seized files are now being subjected to intensive analysis by British and American intelligence, but they appear to contain evidence of previously unknown terrorist planning activities in the United States, the official said. As a result, Bush administration officials are preparing for the possibility of expanded public and private threat alerts.
The senior official, who has been briefed on the information from Britain and Pakistan, would not discuss specific operations that were emerging from the new computer data, saying that the evaluation of the material was still under way.
The Bush administration raised the country's terror alert level on Aug. 1, after computer information turned over by authorities in Pakistan about possible reconnaissance gathering by operatives of Al Qaeda led American officials to tighten security at five financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington.
The senior intelligence official and security advisers to President Bush have said they increasingly see the intelligence about the financial institutions and about possible plans by Al Qaeda to stage an attack in the United States as part of a unified terror plot to disrupt the elections in the fall.
The reconnaissance missions appear to have been conducted three or four years ago, but officials said they considered the information about Al Qaeda's possible interest in things like helicopters and financial institutions to be critical in understanding how or where terrorists might strike, if not when.
"Current intelligence streams, concurrent with our own threat analysis, is leading us in this direction," the homeland security official said of the threat to chartered helicopters.
Still, intelligence officials have long pointed out that Al Qaeda has planned for possible attacks over several years only to abandon many of them. It was still unknown whether the group's top leaders had decided whether to carry out any specific plot against the financial companies or tourist helicopters.
An article in the Aug. 8 issue of Time magazine said that after conducting surveillance of the Prudential building in Newark, operatives of Al Qaeda wrote a report suggesting that a limousine carrying enough explosives to destroy the building might be able to enter the parking lot more easily than trucks or vans. A law enforcement official who has received regular briefings on counterterrorism matters in the region confirmed the report on Sunday.
The computer information found last month in Pakistan and last week in Britain continues to yield new details about who carried out the reconnaissance operations at the five financial institutions in 2000 and 2001, the official said.
The authorities now believe that one of the men who conducted the surveillance at the New York Stock Exchange was Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, who was born in Saudi Arabia, has relatives in Florida and on May 26 was the subject of an F.B.I. bulletin seeking information about seven men with suspected ties to terrorists.
Some intelligence officials believe that Mr. Shukrijumah is a close associate of Abu Issa al-Hindi, a suspected operative of Al Qaeda who was one of the men arrested last week in Britain and who was believed to have traveled to the United States at the direction of senior terrorist leaders to supervise and take part in the surveillance of the financial institutions.
There are no charges in the United States against Mr. Shukrijumah, but officials said investigators had been seeking him since shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks because he is believed to have taken flight training and is fluent in English.
The F.B.I. said in its bulletin that Mr. Shukrijumah carried a Guyanese passport but might try to enter the United States with a Saudi, Canadian or Trinidadian passport. One law enforcement official said recent sightings had suggested that he has been in Mexico and Honduras, but those have not been confirmed.
In London, one Western official said that in coming days there will be a focus on the legal process, with American and British officials working to see if, under British law, there is enough information to hold the 11 men arrested with Mr. Hindi.
An article in The Washington Post on Sunday said that Mazen Mokhtar, from New Brunswick, N.J., was under investigation because of suspected ties to Babar Ahmad, a computer specialist who was among the men arrested in London last week. Citing an affidavit released Friday by the United States attorney's office in Connecticut, the report said Mr. Mokhtar operated a Web site identical to one used by Mr. Ahmad to solicit money for terrorist groups.
Reached at his home on Sunday, Mr. Mokhtar said, "I am not interested in giving any interview, at least until I better understand what is going on."
On Sunday, President Bush's security advisers said some of the surveillance activity and possible plots might be part of an effort by Al Qaeda to disrupt the November elections. They said they believed that the arrests may have interfered with at least some of the group's plans.
"I certainly think that by our actions now that we have disrupted it," said Frances Fragos Townsend, Mr. Bush's domestic security adviser, on the television program "Fox News Sunday." "The question is, have we disrupted all of it or a part of it? And we're working through an investigation to uncover that."
Some democrats have expressed skepticism about the timing of the administration's reports about possible terrorist plots, and they have specifically accused the White House of playing politics when it recently stepped up the terror alert based on possible actions by Al Qaeda that happened more than three years ago.
In an appearance on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, dismissed such complaints of political motivation.
"The idea that you would somehow play politics with the security of the American people, that you not go out and warn if you have casing reports on buildings that are highly specific - are you really supposed to not tell?" she said.
Intelligence officials were continuing to analyze new material from Pakistan on Sunday. While no specific timing for any potential attack has been established, "we've seen that Al Qaeda appears determined to attack again in the near term,'' a government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sunday.
Officials say they are particularly concerned about the possibility of an attack before the November election, but they say there is still no evidence that indicates Al Qaeda moved from the planning to actual preparations to launch such an attack.
In New York, tourist helicopters operate out of three main heliports and are considered "an area of identified risk based on specific and credible intelligence that United States intelligence officials have recently received," the domestic security official said. "This is restricted to New York right now," the official said.
Counterterrorism officials have been concerned that terrorists might seek to use a wide range of vehicles and other instruments for attacks, from crop-duster planes and hazardous-material trucks to underwater bombs carried by scuba divers because people who work in those industries are generally subjected to less rigorous security measures.
The possible use of chartered helicopters in a terrorist attack has also attracted fresh scrutiny from the F.B.I., officials said. Helicopters "are on the list with everything else - it's another one of the areas we're concerned about," a federal law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sunday.
Helicopter tour operators in Manhattan offer a popular way for tourists, usually up to seven at a time, to get an aerial view of landmarks. Tours can be as quick as five to seven minutes.
At the West Side heliport overlooking the Hudson River, the city posted two police officers last week near the gate where some 600 to 700 helicopter flights take off and land each week, said Edward Miletich, who works for Air Pegasus, which operates the heliport, and Rich Curry, a pilot for New York Helicopter, a tour and charter company. But the move appeared to be a response to the news about Al Qaeda's reconnaissance of nearby financial companies rather than specific information from the federal government.
Reporting for this article was contributed by Patrick E. Tyler in London, Jason George in New Brunswick, N.J., and Michelle O'Donnellin New York.
Vegas -- and ALL cities with similar helicopter tours -- should do the same.
Separately, a senior American intelligence official said that more than 1,000 computer disks had been seized by British authorities during arrests last week of 12 suspected operatives for Al Qaeda in England.
1,000??
Yes, MORE than 1,000 computer disks.
I'm sure the Slimes will be reporting that all 1,000+ disks contained nothing but old information....
I guess if its been recorded its old.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Not surprising. It would be difficult to hit the New York Stock Exchange with an airplane or bomb due to its low profile and tight security. Hitting it from a helicopter might be easier.
We will spend more Millions on increased security as a result of a new declaration, yet we continue to "INVITE" our terrorist friends in through our northern and southern borders. The longer the gate stays open, the more opportunity that these different plots can be carried out.
It's like the Sarin gas shells. If they're old, they're no harm to anyone. (end/sarcasm)
Profile, Profile, Profile.........and screw CAIR.
and limousines too.
12 people. I guess "some floppy disks." *bump*
There's poor security at most informal airstrips that cater to hobby pilots--why just copters?. If I was a terrorist--I'd plan a charter attack using a private pilot and commandeer his plane.
A while ago, a person committed suicide by flying a light airplane into a Tampa, FL office building... It was back open for business the next day...
Finally, since there are relatively few people involved in General Aviation, it's rather like a small town - everyone on an airport pretty much knows one another and strangers are noticed and commented on.
We have been screaming about these helicopters and the risks they pose for years.
I suppose I'd take your comments at face value, but I have some experience myself with the blase attitude of pilots and the kneejerk opposal to anything that might work to limit their flying.
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