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http://www.msnbc.com/news/888153.asp?0cv=NB10&cp1=1

FBI hunts al-Qaida suspect in U.S.

Man who lived
in Miami said
to be planning
a ‘major attack’

WASHINGTON, March 20 — The FBI was hunting Thursday for a suspected al-Qaida operative with pilot training who may be in the United States and planning a “major attack,” senior counterterrorism officials told NBC News. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said authorities fear the man could be “another Mohammed Atta.”

THE OFFICIALS sent out a nationwide bulletin to police urging them to be on the lookout for Adnan G. el-Shukrijumah, who recently was using the alias Jaafaral al-Tayyar. The bulletin said word of his plans was based on information obtained from recently captured al-Qaida operatives.

“The United States has information indicating he may be involved in al-Qaida and may pose an imminent threat to U.S. interests at home or overseas,” the bulletin said.

The officials who spoke with NBC News said el-Shukrijumah was known to have been in the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, living for a time in Miami. His whereabouts now are not known.

The officials said they had no specific information about what el-Shukrijuman, nicknamed “Jaafaral the Pilot,” may be planning, but they said his pilot training raises the possibility that he might be planning an airborne attack similar to that carried out by Atta, the ringleader of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Thursday the government is investigating a possible threat against the Palo Verde nuclear power plant near Phoenix.

“This is again a coordinated effort among federal agencies with the great support of the state and locals that we’re addressing a very specific piece of threat information,” Ridge told reporters.

There was no immediate indication that the threat referred to by Ridge was linked to the FBI’s search for al-Tayyar.

Word of the investigations of the possible threats came three days after the Homeland Security Department raised the national terrorist threat assessment to “orange” — the second-highest level on the five-tier alert scheme — out of concern that war with Iraq could trigger terrorist attacks against U.S. interests at home or abroad.