WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (AFP) - US authorities in Boston, Massachusetts, are looking for an additional 10 people, at least half of them Chinese, in an unspecified potential threat against the city.
Five of the 10 individuals in the FBI's list of "persons of interest" in the investigation have Chinese passports. Four others have Chinese names and one has a Hispanic name, but the FBI did not indicate their nationalities.
"None of the names has been validated as a person of interest on any previously existing watch list," the FBI said in a statement released late Thursday asking the public for information regarding the individuals.
They were identified after authorities in Boston said earlier this week they were looking for four Chinese nationals in an "unspecified potential threat" to the northeastern US city.
The five Chinese nationals identified Thursday included one woman named Yu Xian Weng. The FBI had two spellings for the names of two individuals, identified as Qinquan Lin or Qiquan Lin, and Xiang Wei Liu or Xing Wei Liu. The two other Chinese nationals are named Liqiang Liang and Min Xiu Xie.
Four people with Chinese names were identified as: Mei Xia Dong; Xiuming Chen; Cheng Yin Liu; and Zao Yun Wang.
One of the 10 individuals was identified as Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones. His age and nationality were not released.
The FBI said the threat information was "uncorroborated and of unknown reliability and that all law enforcement agencies are working together to address the issue."
01/21/2005 18:17 GMT - AFP