Thousands of US law enforcement officers fanned out across the country Saturday, enforcing new security measures following a new terrorism alert and looking for an illegal Pakistani-born immigrant the FBI wants to question.
"We are still asking the public's for help," said Federal Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman Charlene Sloan, adding that authorities so far had made no breakthrough in their hunt for Mohammed Sher Mohammad Khan.
A nationwide search for the 36-year-old medium-built black-haired man, who has at least seven aliases was launched Friday, shortly after President George W. Bush approved raising national terrorism alert status to "orange", or high.
The "high" terrorism threat level was last declared in the United States in September, when the nation marked the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
Khan, who is asthmatic and sometimes sports a beard, is believed to have entered the United States illegally after September 1, 2001, according to law enforcement officials.
"Although the FBI has no specific information that this individual is connected to any potential terrorist activities, based upon information developed in the course of on-going investigations, the FBI would like to locate and question this person," the bureau said in a statement.
Khan, who is also known to operate under the names of Muhammad Shir Muhammad Khan, Mohammed Essagh, Ja'Far Al-Tayar, Jaffar Tayar, Jaafar Al-Tayyar, Ali Abdul Qadir, Abdul Qadir, was born on November 11, 1966, in the Pakistani town of Swat, according to the FBI.
But the bureau warned his name and date of birth could be fictitious.
AFP