WASHINGTON, Aug 8 (AFP) - Senior US officials Sunday hailed the capture of a top al-Qaeda suspect in the United Arab Emirates as a serious blow to the terror network, capping a week of arrests around the world amid heightened security around key US financial centers.
"It's a big moment," Frances Townsend, US President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, told the Fox New Sunday program, speaking about the arrest of al-Qaeda agent Qari Saifullah Akhtar.
The capture of Akhtar, who was arrested last week in the United Arab Emirates, followed arrests in Britain and Pakistan of other top al-Qaeda members. Computer files discovered during a raid in Pakistan contained detailed surveillance plans that led Washington to heighten security around five key financial centers in Washington and the New York area.
"This is a clear picture now that is beginning to emerge about the intentions of the terrorists and our enemies to attack the homeland," Townsend told CBS television, saying the latest intelligence built upon previous warnings about the threat of an attack before the November 2 presidential election.
"While it's not clear that this was the entire pre-election plan, this certainly looks like it was a piece of it."
The Bush administration's decision was criticized because of its reliance on three-year-old intelligence, but Townsend said Sunday that the threat was current and real, and said raising the alert appeared to have slowed the planning for a strike.
"The question is did we disrupt all of it or a part of it," Townsend said.
Bush aides initially acknowledged that most of the information that led to the raised alerts had pre-dated the September 11, 2001 attacks, but then claimed that the heightened security level had been prompted at least in part by new data.
Townsend said the latest intelligence "feels more serious, more urgent than it did even" before the September 11 attacks.
"The intelligence now is much better. I think It's more definitive, clearer and much more detailed," said Townsend.
"They want something bigger than 9/11. They want a catastrophic attack," she told Fox.
Akhtar, who currently is in Pakistan's custody, is reported to have trained militants in Afghanistan before the Taliban's ouster in late 2001.
He also is wanted in connection with two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf late last year.
Opposition Democrats, noteably former Vermont governor Howard Dean, accused the Bush administration of politicizing the terror alerts, after the Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge hailed "the president's leadership in the war against terror" when he announced the heightened security measures.
Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN that there was "absolutely" no politics in the warning.
"I can't imagine that he wouldn't have warned the New York Stock Exchange or warn the World Bank that their buildings have been cased, that people were -- were pointing out things that needed to be done in terms of security," she said of Dean.
"I don't think this was a campaign pitch," Rice told NBC, while adding: "the president of the United States deserves credit" for the war on terror.
Despite the criticism of politicking, Townsend also credited Bush's policies with leading to the recent arrests.
"What we are seeing now are the dividends based on the president's counterterrorism policies," she said.