Al-Qaida may have sent American terrorists or men carrying U.S. travel documents to launch an attack on Washington or New York to coincide with memorials marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11, government officials say.
One U.S. official says al-Qaida dispatched three men, at least two of whom could be U.S. citizens, to detonate a car bomb in one of the cities. Should that mission prove impossible, the attackers have been told to simply cause as much destruction as they can.
D.C. police chief Cathy Lanier said in a press conference Friday that both local and federal law enforcement were looking at the possibility of small explosive packages, like propane containers or gas tanks. Lanier said her department has been on alert for months now in anticipation of the September 11 anniversary, and had been conducting sweeps through hundreds of locations even before the latest threat.
Lanier said on Saturday that reports of suspicious activity and vehicles around the District were up 60 percent since the new threat was announced. She said the D.C. police would check on every tip.
Word that al-Qaida had ordered the mission reached U.S. officials midweek. A CIA informant who has proved reliable in the past approached intelligence officials overseas to say that the men had been ordered by newly minted al-Qaida leader Ayman al Zawahri to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks Sunday by doing harm on U.S. soil.
The tipster says the would-be attackers are of Arab descent and may speak Arabic as well as English. Counterterrorism officials were looking for certain names associated with the threat, but it was unclear whether the names were real or fake.
Counterterrorism officials have been working around the clock to determine whether the threat is accurate, but so far, have been unable to corroborate it, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the investigation.
All D.C. police officers will be working 12-hour days indefinitely, the AP reported. Unattended cars parked in odd locations risk being towed in the next few days, Lanier said.
On Saturday afternoon sources told NBC News sources that the FBI was interviewing hundreds of people around the country whose travel patterns might match those of terrorist suspects. Agencies have also searched for purchases of chemicals that could be used to make a weapon, without detecting anything unusual. Although several cars have been reported missing in the New York and D.C. areas, authorities said these crimes have not changed the heightened alert level for law enforcement.
On Saturday afternoon, there was no more evidence of the suspected terror plot. "It's tough to downgrade things at this point," a source told NBC. "But at the same time, there's nothing to upgrade it either."
