Police Increase Patrols In Washington, New York Following New Terror Threats

WASHINGTON, Aug 2 (AFP) - New York and Washington police were conducting extra patrols Monday around major financial institutions, following "alarming" intelligence of an al-Qaeda plot to use car bombs to attack the New York Stock Exchange and the IMF and World Bank headquarters.
Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge raised the terrorism threat level to "high" in portions of Washington and New York on Sunday following reports that the terror network planned to use truck or car bombs against financial targets, including New York-based Citigroup and Prudential Financial buildings in northern New Jersey.
Speaking on US television early Monday Ridge said, without giving a specific time or date for the possible attacks, that he would rate the quality of the information, which came from multiple, highly-reliabe sources, a "10."
"Across the board, everyone that has reviewed the sources has concluded that it is as reliable a group of sources as we have ever seen before," Ridge told NBC's "Today Show" program.
As a precaution, authorities closed New York's Holland Tunnel to commercial traffic heading into the city beginning Monday. The tunnel links an area of Manhattan where several of the financial institutions are located to New Jersey.
In Newark, New Jersey, police set up metal fences around the headquarters of Prudential Financial, blocked off two streets and armed themselves with assault rifles.
Ridge announced Sunday that the terror threat level was being raised to Code Orange, or "high", from Code Yellow, or "elevated" in the financial services districts of New York, Washington and the northern part of New Jersey. The rest of the United States remains at an "elevated" threat level.
Washington Mayor Anthony Williams however declared the entire city under Code Orange, in part because the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings are just blocks away from the White House.
Police will increase checks on large vehicles entering downtown Washington, and bomb-sniffing dogs will check the area around the buildings, Police Chief Charles Ramsey said.
Washington police also increased security at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, one of the sites where US currency is printed, as well as the Federal Reserve headquarters.
Both the World Bank and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) said they will be open for business as usual Monday, with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg scheduled to ring the bell to start the trading day.
An intelligence official told reporters that the information included details on escape routes, security cameras, the best place to park vehicles with explosives, pedestrian and traffic patterns, and even the degree of garage ramp inclines.
Police warned building managers and corporate security personnel to watch for vehicles that could be rigged with explosives and for chemical agents placed in ventilation systems.
Ridge told NBC television Monday that the elaborate plot demonstrates "the sophistication, degree of complexity and resolve that our enemies have."
The terror alert increase resulted from a series of events that began with the capture of an al-Qaeda computer engineer in Pakistan in mid-July, the New York Times reported Monday.
Pakistani officials arrested Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old computer engineer, on July 13, according to the Times. The suspect is believed to have used and managed an al-Qaeda communications system where information was transferred via coded messages, according to the Times.
A senior US official told the Times that "documentary evidence" found after Khan's capture showed in detail that al-Qaeda members had been studying the buildings they want to target even before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.
A second senior US intelligence official told the newspaper the information was more detailed than any he had seen during his 24-year career in intelligence work.
The contents of the evidence was urgently relayed to Washington Friday afternoon, which immediately increased the importance of other intelligence gathered over the past weeks from al-Qaeda suspects held in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the Times reported.
According to the Washington Post, the documents were found after Pakistani and US forces broke up an al-Qaeda cell in Gujrat, Pakistan, on July 25, after a lengthy shoot-out.
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian wanted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was arrested in the raid along with five other Pakistani and African al-Qaeda suspects, according to the Post.
One of the men arrested in that raid led authorities to the documents, according to the Post, also quoting anonymous US intelligence officials.
The documents show specific information on parking arrangements and whether guards are armed, and describe the use of phony couriers and delivery people to get inside the buildings to collect information, the Post reported.
Ridge had earlier warned that terrorists could stage attacks to disrupt the US presidential election on November 2. President George W. Bush's Republican Party is to hold its convention in New York from August 30-September 2.
Al-Qaeda carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that left about 3,000 dead. After those attacks, the New York finance industry shut down for six days.