US warns of terror attacks on financial institutions

THE US government warned yesterday of possible terrorist attacks against 'iconic' financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark.

It has said that a confluence of intelligence over the weekend pointed to a car or truck bomb.

Specifically, the government named as potential targets:

The Citicorp building and the New York Stock Exchange, New York City.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington.

The Prudential building in Newark.

"The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," said Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

The government said the intelligence indicated the meticulous planning of al-Qaida. He identified explosives as the likely attack mode, as opposed to chemical or biological attacks or a dirty bomb.

Mr Ridge said the government's colour-coded threat level for financial institutions in just these three cities would be raised toorange, or high alert, but would remain at yellow, or elevated, elsewhere.

The government provided a wealth of detail that it had picked up in the past 36 hours. A senior intelligence official described "excruciating detail" and meticulous planning "indicative of al-Qaida".

The official said the intelligence included security in and around these buildings; the flow of pedestrians; the best places for reconnaissance; how to make contact with employees who work in the buildings, the construction of the buildings, traffic patterns and locations of hospitals and police departments.

To illustrate the level of detail obtained, the official cited these examples: midweek pedestrian traffic of 14 people per minute on each side of the street, that some explosives might not be hot enough to melt steel, and that the construction of some buildings might prevent them from collapsing.

The official said he had not seen such extraordinary detail in his 24 years in intelligence work.

Mr Ridge said it would be up to New York City officials to decide whether to move to the highest level, red. The city has been on orange since September 11.

The threat potential remains to the November 2 elections, Mr Ridge said. He said the government took the unprecedented step of naming particular buildings because of the level of specificity of the intelligence.

A White House spokeswoman, Erin Healy, said the intelligence on the threat was "very new, coming in during the last 72 hours".