Nothing new in al-Qaida threats, says US security chief

AMERICA'S Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said yesterday there was nothing new in a statement attributed to al-Qaida that threatens new attacks in New York and Washington unless America stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam.

"The threats contained in that piece are the same threats we've been hearing now for the past year," Mr Ridge said.

"It's just added to the totality of the threat environment within which we're working but we don't add any special credence to it other than we know we're at war.