Terror Threat Intelligence 'years Old'

Much of the seized al-Qaida intelligence that led to the current raised security alert at US financial targets was three or four years old, US newspapers reported today.

US officials quoted anonymously by the New York Times and the Washington Post said a significant part of the information recovered after the arrests of two militants in Pakistan last month pre-dated the September 11 2001 attacks.

But the officials stressed that the age of the data did not diminish the seriousness of the threat as al-Qaida had been known to attack targets years after reconnoitring them. There was also some evidence that the intelligence had been partially updated, perhaps as recently as January this year.

One senior government official told the New York Times: "You could say that the bulk of this information is old, but we know that al-Qaida collects, collects, collects until they're comfortable ... only then do they carry out an operation."

The news that a substantial proportion of the surveillance intelligence - which focused on big financial targets in New York, Washington DC and New Jersey - was old may have reassured the public.

It may also provide further ammunition to George Bush's political opponents, some of whom accuse the administration of manipulating the colour-coded terror warning system introduced after 9/11. The threat level in the apparently targeted areas was raised at the weekend from yellow to orange. Some have claimed that the threat level has been raised at politically expedient times - although Senator John Kerry has distanced himself from this view. Mr Bush is trailing Mr Kerry in presidential election polls after the Democrats' successful convention last week.

The government triggered the concerns on Sunday when it announced that terrorists had recently observed the stock exchange and the Citigroup Centre in Manhattan, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, and Prudential Financial's headquarters in Newark, New Jersey. Security in all these areas has been raised.

Since then, officials have acknowledged that the information came largely from a Pakistani computer engineer, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, captured last month and that most of the information was amassed in 2000 and 2001. The other arrested militant was Khalfan Ghailani, wanted in connection with al-Qaida attacks on US embassies in east Africa in 1998.

Mr Bush yesterday described the US as a "nation in danger" and announced that he would accede, with some changes, to the 9/11 commission's recommendations for a new director of national intelligence and a new centre for national intelligence to improve the apparently dysfunctional relationship between domestic and international spy agencies.

It also emerged today that Pakistani authorities have arrested at least two more al-Qaida suspects in the past three days, with possible links to Khan, although it was not clear how significant the suspects were.

A senior government official said one man was seized trying to leave the country from an airport in the eastern city of Lahore and another arrested in a nearby, undisclosed town. The official said the man arrested trying to board a plane had several questionable documents.

US officials have said that the arrests of Khan and Ghailani yielded the most specific domestic terrorism warnings since the 2001 attacks although there was no potential timeframe for an attack.

The Pakistani information minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, said the files also revealed targets in the UK. The British government was under pressure today to be as explicit about the nature of the intelligence as Washington has been.

Many workers in New York, New Jersey and Washington were yesterday confronted with ID checks and bag searches as they headed for work. Officials sealed off some streets in New York, put financial employees in Washington through extra security checks, and added concrete barricades and a heavily armed presence in Newark.

Police said the restrictions would remain in effect today and would be reviewed daily.

Later today the department of homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge, along with the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, were to meet financial executives from affected companies to discuss security concerns.

Prudential chairman and CEO Arthur Ryan reported that customers were not fleeing and the "overwhelming majority" of employees reported to work yesterday. "Everything we've heard so far has been reinforcing. 'We're with you.' That's basically what we've heard from most of them," Mr Ryan said.

In response to the east coast terror alert, security measures were also heightened in central Los Angeles and in the Century City complex where LA's high-rise buildings and financial institutions are located.

"We have received no credible information to indicate any of these threats are directed against southern California. However, we are going to continue to remain on a heightened state of vigilance," Los Angeles mayor James Hahn said at a news conference.

Later today the Statute of Liberty was set to reopen for the first time since the national monument was shut to visitors following the 2001 terror attacks, although the crown will remain out of reach for now.

Mr Bloomberg was expected to join a crowd later today for the ceremonial reopening of the pedestal to tourists. Also expected was an army band and chorus, and a flyover by New Jersey Air National Guard fighter jets.