US Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge has played down the latest threat from al Qaeda warning of more attacks against America, and says a top operative of Osama bin Laden's network is cooperating with authorities.
Referring to a new six-page document given to a journalist at the Arabic-language television channel al-Jazeera that stated new attacks would be aimed at civilians in New York and Washington, Ridge told "Fox News Sunday" U.S. officials were "familiar with that piece of information" and assigned it no particular credence.
"There are no new threats, there are the same old conditions," he said. "It's really nothing new."
The director of the Office of Homeland Security, appointed in the wake of last year's September 11 attacks on the United States, said additional precautions were already being taken. The FBI warned last week that al Qaeda was planning "spectacular" terrorist actions.
"We have to be prepared, and I think we are, for every eventuality," Ridge said.
On CNN's "Late Edition," he said the nation's threat alert remained at yellow, but "at the upper end of" the "elevated" level in the middle of the range of five colours. He said it could be raised to the next level of orange for "high" risk of terrorist attacks, "depending on the information we have available."
On ABC's "This Week" program, he added: "The fact of the matter is, on a day-to-day basis, the information we receive from our own agencies and agencies around the world are piecemeal."
He claimed authorities were making significant advances against al Qaeda, in large part from interrogations of some 2,700 people now in custody around the world.
Ridge, whom sources have said will be tapped by U.S. President George W. Bush to head the new, massive department for homeland security, said the unidentified al Qaeda operative recently taken into U.S. custody was cooperating.
"That's correct," Ridge told the Fox program.
While refusing to disclose his name or where he was being held, Ridge told CNN, "He is a highly placed operative within the al Qaeda organisation." Sources also have declined to name the person caught in the past week or so but said it was neither top lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri, operational leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, nor bin Laden's son Saad.