US raises alert over attack fears

THE Bush administration yesterday raised the national terror alert from yellow to orange, the second-highest level in the colour-coded system.

Attorney General John Ashcroft cited an “increased likelihood” that the al-Qaida terror network would attack Americans, either at home or abroad.

Ashcroft said apartment buildings, hotels or other “lightly secured targets” in the United States could be vulnerable. The attorney general also said terrorists might seek “economic targets, including the transportation and energy sectors, as well as symbolic targets and symbols of American power.”

He told a Justice Department news conference the decision was based on an increase in intelligence pointing to a possible attack by Osama bin Laden’s organisation timed to coincide with the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, Islam’s holiest site. The holy period begins todayOK and ends in mid-February.

Tens of thousands of pilgrims are travelling during the period before and after the five-day Hajj, straining the ability of security officials to keep track of militants who might use the occasion to reposition themselves.

The change in the alert level will trigger a government-wide increase in security precautions.

“We are not recommending that events be cancelled,” nor should individuals change their travel, work or recreational plans, Ashcroft said.

Even so, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge urged Americans “in the days ahead, take some time to prepare for emergencies.” As an example, Ridge suggested that families devise plans for contacting one another if separated by an emergency.

White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the decision to raise the alert level was made after the president’s daily CIA and FBI briefings and upon the recommendation of Ashcroft and Ridge.

The alert has been at code yellow, or “elevated”, which is the middle of a five-point scale of risk developed after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The highest alert level is red.