WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (AFP) - Top US security officials on Tuesday defended the decision to raise terrorism alerts at major financial institutions this weekend based on information dating back to before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The officials acknowledged that much of the data was at least three years old, but said that it had only recently been uncovered in Pakistan, where authorities have stepped up efforts against Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
US President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend, said that the group carried out detailed surveillance of key financial targets "in 2000 and 2001, but some were updated as recently as January" 2004.
"And what we know from the way al-Qaeda does business, including on the 9/11 attacks, they do their homework well in advance and then they update it just before they launch an attack," she told CNN.
Some opposition Democrats, including former White House hopeful Howard Dean, have suggested that Bush's administration milks the alerts for maximum political advantage ahead of the November 2 election.
"We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security," the head of that agency, Tom Ridge, said during a joint news conference with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and New York Governor George Pataki.
But Ridge explicitly praised Bush in announcing the new alert on Sunday, saying: "We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror."
That global campaign powers much of Bush's reelection pitch, which centers on his contention that he is better at keeping the United States safe from terrorism than his Democratic rival, Senator John Kerry, would be.
"I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush he plays this trump card which is terrorism," Dean said after the latest alert, which came days after Kerry became his party's champion.
"It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it," Dean told CNN.
"Howard Dean's comments were outrageous and irresponsible," Townsend told Fox News Channel on Tuesday, noting that Kerry and other Democrats had refused to align themselves with the former Vermont governor's comments.
"This information we received from our allies in Pakistan. And with its detail and thoroughness, particularly with the detail and thoroughness, we felt it was essential to share it with the appropriate communities and the companies so they could act upon it," said Ridge.
Meanwhile, a Pakistani security official told AFP that an intensive swoop on al-Qaeda cells in the east of the country had netted at least 18 suspects including four African operatives and a computer mastermind.
The captures have also netted "valuable information" from computer records, cds, emails, detailed maps of Islamabad airport, documents and photos of key financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark.
Ridge issued a Homeland Security alert Sunday warning that al-Qaeda may be targeting the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup in New York City, Prudential Finance in Newark, New Jersey, and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
The five cited targets were subjected to their highest level of security since the September 11, 2001 attacks, with barricades, rapid response teams and sniffer dogs providing several rings of protection.
The color-coded terror threat level for the financial institutions was raised from yellow, or "elevated," to orange, or "high" -- its second-highest level.