In its most specific terror alert since the attacks of September 11th 2001, the US government yesterday warned of planned attacks against a number of financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, New Jersey, writes Conor O'Clery, in New York
US Homeland Security Secretary Mr Tom Ridge told a hastily-called press conference in Washington that a confluence of intelligence over the weekend pointed to attacks by car or truck bombs at financial buildings.
The government has "unusually specific information that al-Qaeda is likely to attack the financial sector in New York, New Jersey and Washington DC," he said.
The targets he named were: Citicorp buildings and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, The Prudential building in Newark and the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington.
The national colour-code alert was raised from yellow to orange - from "elevated" to "high" - in the areas targeted, Mr Ridge said, and could remain for weeks as they have no time-line for an attack.
The announcement of a threat to US financial institutions threatens to throw Wall Street markets into turmoil this morning, though the NY Stock Exchange and other institutions did not ask employees to stay away.
National Guard troops and armed anti-terrorist police appeared on subways and streets in downtown Manhattan yesterday as Mayor Michael Bloomberg told a separate emergency press conference that "we are deploying our full array of counter-terrorism resources." The city has been on orange alert since the attacks of September 11th, 2001, he said, and people should go to work as normal.
NY police chief Ray Kelly said the main threat was of a big vehicular bomb and traffic stops and searches would be stepped up in midtown around Citicorp and in lower Manhattan and trucks would be re-routed on city bridges.
Governor James McGreevy of New Jersey said he had received detailed reports which indicated "pre-operational planning against Prudential Financial" in Newark and had deployed New Jersey's anti-terrorism task force.
Mr Ridge said there was a rarely-seen level of specificity of the intelligence. "This is not the usual chatter. This is multiple sources that involve extraordinary detail," he said. He paid tribute to Pakistan's co-operation in the war on terror, indicating it was the source of the intelligence.
A senior intelligence official told AP that information in the last 36 hours described "excruciating detail" and meticulous planning".
Intelligence included security of buildings; the flow of pedestrians; the best places for reconnaissance; contact with employees; construction; traffic patterns; locations of hospitals and police departments, and days of lower security.
It also included information on whether some explosives might melt steel and bring down buildings. Some Democrats greeted the news with scepticism. The government had a history of manipulating the terror alert level, said former Vermont governor, Howard Dean.