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FBI
Issues Alert on Malls, Markets
WASHINGTON,
April 25 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. supermarkets and
shopping malls are the next possible targets of terror strikes, the
FBI warned Thursday without providing details of possible location.
The
alert, which follows a similarly ambiguous warning issued last week
for banks, was sent to Federal Bureau of Investigation field offices
around the country "so they will take it to the state and local
police," an FBI official told Agence France-Presse (AFP)
privately.
Last
week's warning of possible attacks on banks on the U.S. east coast was
later dismissed as being based on unsubstantiated evidence, though the
official said that this time, the alert was "based on
substantiated information we got," though it offered "no
specific time frame."
U.S.
media reported Thursday that the warning was based on information
provided by Abu Zubaydah, suspected of being a top lieutenant in Osama
bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan and is
held by the United States in an undisclosed location.
Zubaydah,
31, last week warned of plans to attack banks in the Northeast and
assemble radiation “dirty” bombs.
However,
U.S. officials have also described the current warning as vague and
unsubstantiated, with no specific targets mentioned.
"We
had no specifics, no time, no date or method of attack," one U.S.
official said.
Intelligence
analysts are divided over whether the claims made by Abu Zubaida are
reliable, reports the Washington Post.
The
paper quotes a law enforcement officer as saying, "You just can't
assess his credibility with any certainty…Everyone's got a theory on
why he's saying all this stuff, but at the end of the day, you have to
do the appropriate thing and issue these alerts…They're just going
to keep coming."
Officials
responsible for U.S. security have expressed fears that terrorists
seeking to do harm to the United States will take a page from the
playbook of attackers wreaking havoc on Israel.
The
alerts are the result of "an abundance of caution" the
official said. Washington chooses "not to take any risk" and
inform the public, while aware that continued warnings can frazzle the
nerves of an already-tense public.
Since
mid-March, the United States has lived under a new, color-coded
National Alert System, which ranges from red for maximum alert through
orange, yellow and blue to green, the "weak" state of
potential danger.
The
current state of the United States is yellow.
In
addition, the State Department warned Americans of unspecified
terrorist threats in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula, reported USA
Today.
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