Terror threat clouds start of 9/11 ceremonies

A New York police officer examines the rear section of a truck at a vehicle checkpoint on Friday, Sept. 9, 2011 in New York. The city is deploying additional resources and taking other security steps in response to a potential terror threat before the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. US counterterrorism officials are chasing a credible but unconfirmed al-Qaeda threat to use a car bomb on bridges or tunnels in New York or Washington. AP

NEW YORK—Major US cities were on high alert Saturday as the nation began marking the poignant 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks amid warnings of a new Al-Qaeda linked terror threat.

Although details of the new suspected plot possibly involving car bombs in New York and Washington were sketchy, a US official told Agence France-Presse the threat was credible and somewhere between “aspirational” and a “boom.”

According to The New York Times, word of the plot was passed to US intelligence officers by an informer based in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan on Wednesday.

The informer said two American citizens of Arab ancestry had left Afghanistan, traveled through one or more other countries and reached the United States as recently as last week, the report said.

But the informer’s report included only a vague physical description of the two men, the paper said.

One plotter was described as five feet (1.5 meters) tall, the other five-foot eight (1.7 meters), and the first name for one was Suliman, which is common in the Middle East, The Times noted.

The informer also described a third conspirator, but he appeared to have traveled to Europe, the report said.

Former national security advisor Frances Townsend told CNN Friday that US spy networks had been alerted to a new threat after intercepting communications from a known, reliable operative in Pakistan.

“It’s Washington or New York. A car bomb, three men. We know that one or two are US citizens,” she said, when asked about the specifics of the threat.

“The general outlines of the initial report are three individuals coming into the country” last month, a US official told AFP, confirming the plot had links to militants in Pakistan.

President Barack Obama was briefed again Friday on the threat and repeated his order for security agencies to “redouble” efforts to take all necessary precautions, his spokesman Jay Carney said.

But there have been no changes to his plans to attend Sunday’s ceremonies on at Ground Zero in New York, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A memorial to the victims of United Airlines Flight 93 who died in that Pennsylvania field will be unveiled in a solemn ceremony on Saturday.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called on all Americans to remain vigilant and report anything suspicious, vowing to “protect the American people from an evolving threat picture both in the coming days and beyond.”

Somber ceremonies began around the country Friday to mark the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks as armed police patrolled New York streets and subways.

Memories remain raw of the day when Al-Qaeda hijackers slammed three passenger planes into the World Trade Center, destroying its iconic Twin Towers, and the Pentagon, in the nation’s capital.

A fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field when the passengers valiantly overpowered the hijackers. Almost 3,000 people were killed that day in the worst ever attacks on American soil.

In New York, heavily armed police patrolled the busy streets, trucks and cars were stopped and inspected at vehicle checkpoints and bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the subway.

“I would say that people should be alert. I don’t think anybody should be panicked,” Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told CNN.

The decision to go public with the information was “important because it alerts everybody to be on guard this weekend. And be careful,” he added.

ABC television said the latest plot was ordered by Al-Qaeda’s new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has vowed to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden in a US raid on his Pakistani compound in May.

Former vice president Dick Cheney meanwhile defended the previous administration’s “war on terror” launched after the attacks, and the use of tough interrogation techniques — denounced as torture by rights groups.

“Three people were waterboarded, not dozens, not hundreds, three,” he said, insisting the interrogations provided valuable counter-terrorism information and had made the nation safer.

America’s response to 9/11 showed that when attacked, “we will come and get you,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned Friday as he thanked the firefighters and emergency teams who rushed to the Pentagon after it was struck.

“The people who attacked us on 9/11 were trying to weaken America, trying to hurt America. And instead they strengthened us,” Panetta said. “Because you don’t mess with this country.”

Former president George W. Bush will lay a wreath at the Pentagon in a private ceremony on Saturday and is also due to attend Sunday’s ceremonies.