No change to terror threat despite bin Laden tape
The Bush administration left the terror threat level unchanged today, despite warning state and local officials that a videotape message from Osama bin Laden may portend a new terrorist attack.
“We don’t have to go to (code level) orange to take action in response either to these tapes or just general action to improve security around the country,” Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told reporters.
Ridge urged Americans to go ahead with plans to vote in Tuesday’s elections without undue concern.
His words and appearance both seemed designed to convey a lack of alarm. The nation’s top anti-terrorism official made his remarks in casual clothes standing outside his office, rather than at a formal news conference of the type he and other administration officials have conveyed word of increased danger in the past.
Ridge’s agency and the FBI issued a memo late Friday to local and state officials, hours after a new videotape of bin Laden surfaced.
“We remain concerned about al Qaida’s interest in attacking the American homeland, and we cannot discount the possibility that the video may be intended to promote violence or serve as a signal for an attack,” it said.
Most of the United States has been at code yellow, the midpoint of a five-point colour-coded warning scale, for much of the year.
Since August, the terror alert for the financial section in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey, has stood at orange, or high. At that time, administration officials disclosed al-Qaida had conducted surveillance of four buildings.
Injecting himself into the election, bin Laden said the United States must stop threatening the security of Muslims if it wants to avoid “another Manhattan.”
While he did not directly warn of new attacks, the al Qaida leader and 9/11 mastermind warned: “There are still reasons to repeat what happened.”
While Ridge sought to convey reassurance, he also said the government would strengthen anti-terrorism measures.
“In the hours and the days ahead, we’ll increase our Coast Guard patrols of the harbours. We’ll change some of the inspection protocols at our ports of entry and our airports. We’ll work with our cities to re-route, as we’ve done from time to time in the past, hazard material, be it in truck or railroads, around some of our major urban areas,” Ridge said.
