Officials Heighten State of Alert Due to Terror Threat

FBI agents and their Canadian counterparts shifted into a heightened state of alert Friday, moving to question dozens of people who may have information about an alleged terrorist plot by Algerians to disrupt millennial celebrations.

Law enforcement officials stepped up their aggressive efforts as the midnight hour approached and they sought to prevent violence that could ruin celebrations of the new year. Their inquiries followed by one day the arrest and detention of a number of Algerians in New York and Boston who generally have not been cooperating with authorities, leaving unanswered the question of whether other militants may be active in the country.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said the questioning of people who may know something about the plot was proceeding Friday on an “expedited basis and on an international basis to ensure that no piece of information remains unexplored.”

FBI agents focused their efforts Friday on people who may have information about either the Armed Islamic Group, an Algerian terrorist organization, known by its French initials GIA, that has never targeted the United States before, or Ahmed Ressam, the man caught carrying explosives from Canada into Washington state Dec. 14. Ressam allegedly was at the center of the group’s alleged scheme to carry out attacks that authorities believe were aimed at millennial celebrations.

While federal law enforcement officials have not identified any specific U.S. city or site that could be the focus of an attack, they remain concerned that others with links to the Algerian terrorist group may have eluded their nationwide manhunt.

“We are obviously all over the country today, set up in every field office, following up on every piece of information that comes to our attention from every source,” Collingwood said Friday. “We are talking with people whose name surfaced during the course of the investigation and may be in a position to be helpful.”

Added the Justice Department’s Myron Marlin, “We are continuing to track every lead and take whatever preventive steps we can.”

In Manhattan, Abdel Ghani, an Algerian arrested on Thursday in Brooklyn and charged with playing a key role in the terrorist plot, shook his head during a court hearing in which Assistant U.S. Atty. David Kelley said he attempted to assist Ressam with the terrorist plot. After U.S. Magistrate Ronald L. Ellis ordered him held without bail, Ghani’s attorney, Roland Thau, said it was pointless to seek bail since the government alleges Ghani is in the country illegally and lacks ties to the community.

“I try not to do futile things,” he said outside court.

Moments earlier, Thau had asked Ellis to toss the case out on the grounds that none of the alleged crimes occurred in the jurisdiction of U.S. District Court in Manhattan and because the government had not sufficiently supported the charges.

Ellis denied the request.

Ghani was charged in a criminal complaint with concealing his support for Ressam’s efforts to violate federal explosives laws and with conspiring with others to use fraudulent credit and bank cards.

According to a complaint filed in federal court in New York, Ghani has been under FBI surveillance since he traveled to Seattle several weeks ago with the intention of meeting Ressam. Ressam was to have left his rental car filled with powerful explosives and sophisticated timing devices in a parking lot, where another member of their terrorist network, possibly unknown to Ressam, would take charge of the vehicle.

But Ressam’s arrest in Port Angeles, Wash., by U.S. Customs Service inspectors thwarted the alleged scheme. Ghani told a confidential informant that the plot was devised so that each person involved would only know the tasks of two others. Thus, in the event of an arrest, no one could expose the entire group, the FBI complaint said.