U.S. Says Signs Point to Summer Terrorism Plot

Citing intelligence that terrorists are looking to “hit us hard,” the Justice Department and the FBI are launching an intensive campaign to head off a possible terrorist attack in the United States this summer, law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The intelligence community has recently developed information indicating that Al Qaeda or other Middle Eastern terrorist groups are in the United States and gearing up for a major strike this summer, a top law enforcement official said.

The intelligence offers no specifics in terms of times, dates or methods of attack, the law enforcement official said. The official said authorities considered the threat information as among the most credible received by the government since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people died.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III are expected to address their concerns about the new intelligence at a news conference today, federal officials said, and will discuss measures they are taking to root out potential suspects.

Officials said the FBI also plans to issue a special bulletin to law enforcement authorities around the country warning of the summer threat.

“This is similar to the potential threats over the Christmas break,” the law enforcement official said. “There is a stream of information, but no specifics. The suggestion is they are going to hit us hard.”

Federal officials gave no indication that they were planning to raise the national threat index. It was last raised to orange, or high, in December amid roughly similar reports that Al Qaeda was planning near-term attacks that might rival or exceed the magnitude of the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Actions taken over the Christmas holidays included the cancellation of a number of flights from Europe to the United States, including several from Paris to Los Angeles.

The threat level has been at yellow -- the midpoint of the five-level color-coded range -- since Jan. 9.

One law enforcement source said that earlier this week, the FBI delivered to counterintelligence personnel new lists of individuals to watch in the coming months.

At a news conference in Los Angeles, police and city officials said they had received no details of the threat but warned that recent terrorism events may reflect a heightened danger.

“No information has been given as to the time, place or method of attack,” LAPD Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said. “The city’s threat level has not increased.”

John Miller, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department’s counterterrorism bureau, said the department was aware of the generalized announcement planned by federal officials today regarding potential summer threats.

“There is a new threat every day that comes out of some intelligence report,” he told reporters. “We haven’t been told of any [specifics] in regard to this latest information.”

He added: “What we are doing as a result of this new posture on the part of the federal government is not anything we haven’t been doing all along. We are constantly looking at the information as it comes in and assessing it.”

Federal authorities have been increasingly concerned that Al Qaeda has the means and the motive to launch another attack on the United States.

The concerns have been fueled in part by the Madrid railway bombings in March that killed 191 people.

There is also growing concern among intelligence analysts that Al Qaeda or a related group could detonate a “dirty bomb” -- a small device that could spew radioactivity across an American or European city. Although it would not cause massive devastation or horrific numbers of deaths, such a device could create widespread fear and panic, officials believe.

In a reflection of those concerns, the Energy Department is to announce today at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna that it is creating a $450-million program to collect and dispose of spent nuclear reactor fuel and other materials that could be used to build such a device, Associated Press reported.

Without citing specific threats, U.S. authorities have in recent months already boosted security measures along the nation’s rail and subway systems and announced special plans to counter the threat of terrorist attacks aimed at the national political conventions in July and August and at the U.S. presidential election in November. The Madrid attacks occurred just before Spain’s national election, which resulted in a change in the country’s ruling party.

Besides adopting measures to protect the election process, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge last month announced special security planning that would encompass the dedication this weekend of the World War II Memorial in Washington, and next month’s meeting of the leaders of the G-8 group of industrialized nations on Sea Island, Ga.

Ridge cited “a season that is rich with symbolic opportunities for the terrorists to shake our will.”

The wave of new warnings and actions shows how U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials are chastened in the wake of breakdowns that preceded the Sept. 11 attacks. Those breakdowns have been highlighted in a series of public hearings this year by a bipartisan commission investigating the attacks that is expected to publish its findings in July.

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Schmitt reported from Washington and Winton from Los Angeles.