Terrorist Risk Raised to "High"

Sept. 10 — Citing new threats against U.S. targets abroad, the Bush administration planned Tuesday to raise the nation's terror alert level to designate the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon as a "high risk" period, NBC News has learned. One official said that the move was being taken "out of an abundance of caution."

The decision to raise the threat assessment level from "yellow," indicating an elevated threat of terrorist attack, to "orange," or high risk, came after U.S. intelligence learned of "specific and credible" threats against U.S. targets, said officials who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity.

Most of the threats involved U.S. facilities overseas, but intelligence officials said a general increase in al-Qaida "chatter" — electronic communications among suspected terrorists and their supporters — over the past few days also had been detected.

The "orange" designation is the fourth of five levels of risk, one level below "extreme" risk of terrorist attack. The change is the first time the threat designation has been shifted to "high risk" for the entire nation since the system was introduced by the Home Security Office in March, though the higher designation has been applied regionally before.

Under the elevated designation, authorities and employers are advised to coordinate security efforts with armed forces or law enforcement agencies, take additional precautions at public events, prepare to work at alternate sites or with a dispersed workforce and consider restricting access to workplaces to essential personnel. The system also is intended to warn members of the public to be vigilant.

The change in the threat assessment was to be announced at a 1 p.m. ET news conference by Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

The increase in the threat assessment came as authorities ratcheted up security at public gathering spots around the nation and potential targets around the globe. Even more extraordinary measures were being contemplated: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was expected to approve the positioning within hours of surface-to-air missiles around the nation's capital, Pentagon officials told NBC News.

In advance of the news conference, sources told NBC News that U.S. embassies in Indonesia and Bahrain, and a consulate in Indonesia, had been closed.

Five other embassies — in Ethiopia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Pakistan — were to close on Wednesday, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

At least two of the closures were attributed to "credible" threats of terrorist attack, while others were described as precautionary.

AL-QAIDA THREAT CITED

The U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Ralph Boyce, attributed the closure of the embassy in Jakarta to a threat from al-Qaida, the terrorist network that U.S. officials say carried out last year's attacks.

The U.S. Navy also issued an unprecedented warning Tuesday that al-Qaida might be planning attacks on oil tankers in the Middle East Gulf, citing "unconfirmed reports circulating within the regional shipping community."

The State Department also issued a worldwide caution Monday night urging Americans to remain especially vigilant this week.

Both the FBI and the White House say they have no specific information that terrorists intend to mark the day with renewed violence, but White House spokesman Ari Fleischer made it clear Tuesday that the Bush administration is not viewing the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as just another day.

"Our concerns are growing," he said at a briefing for White House reporters Tuesday morning. He said the new sense of foreboding was based on "information" that U.S. officials had obtained, but he did not provide any specifics on the nature of the intelligence. He also indicated that the concern also was based in part on the "general threat" posed by the anniversary.

The tone of Fleischer's comments at a briefing for White House reporters was markedly more cautionary than on Monday. During that briefing, he responded to reports that U.S. counterterrorism officials have seen a mild increase in the "chatter" in the run-up to Wednesday's anniversary by saying that intelligence experts don't believe it is significant or a sign of a major impending attack.

"I can't characterize the chatter level as anything out of the ordinary at this time," he said.

While sources indicated that the threat was considered higher overseas, authorities weren't letting down their guard on the home front.

FBI WARNING

The FBI last week warned police, utilities, banks and the transportation industry to be alert for possible attacks.

"A large volume of threats of undetermined reliability continues to be received and investigated by the FBI," the bulletin said. "Several of these threats make reference to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and to New York City and Washington, D.C."

Military jets also were patrolling the skies over New York and Washington around the clock and Defense Department strategists recommended to Rumsfeld that he order deployment of 300 troops with Avenger ground-based air defense batteries and shoulder-fired stinger anti-aircraft missile systems for several days to protect several key sites in the capital from air attack, according to the Pentagon officials, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity.

Rumsfeld was expected to formalize the decision on Tuesday, they said.

Bush will mark Wednesday's anniversary of the attacks with a speech to the nation, followed by an address Thursday to the U.N. General Assembly.

Sources told NBC News that the president and Vice President Dick Cheney would remain apart for the next few days, with Cheney spending part of the period at an undisclosed secure location.

SIGNS OF CONCERN:

Evidence of how seriously the government and private security forces are taking the anniversary has been accumulating in recent days:

The Pentagon resumed round-the-clock patrols by military jets over New York and Washington on Friday. The Defense Department started the round-the-clock patrols after the Sept. 11 attacks and continued them until April. Since then, they have flown sporadically when officials received threats considered credible.

Pentagon officials declined to say whether the resumption of air patrols was because of a specific threat or because of the one-year anniversary of the attacks.

Authorities in the nation's capital were reported Monday to be on a heightened state of alert for terrorist attacks after videotape showing the Washington Monument, the Pentagon and other buildings was recovered.

The alert was issued Wednesday after U.S. intelligence officials obtained a copy of the videotape, the Washington Times reported, quoting sources that it did not name.

The paper said that a man it described as being of Middle Eastern origin videotaped the buildings and also paced off several distances around the monument.

A similar videotape detailing features of the Port of Los Angeles was recovered in June.

Officials have said the tapes may be surveillance of potential targets for a terrorist attack, though they know of no specific threats against the subjects of the videotapes found so far.

Prosecutors alleged Monday that explosives residue had been detected on the luggage of an Islamic religious leader arrested Sunday at the Portland, Ore., airport as he was preparing to board a flight. Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, 40, was charged with falsely obtaining official documents, but a Justice Department source told NBC News he was under investigation for possible terrorist connections.

A GLOBAL PHENOMENON

The signs of nervousness are not confined to the United States.

British police advised major companies in London, Europe's biggest financial center, to tighten security ahead of the anniversary in case of copycat attacks.

Police said they were talking to "a whole range of organizations" about security, although they had no specific intelligence pointing to an al-Qaida anniversary attack.

Britain is considered a potential target because of the government's support of Washington's "war on terror" and because British cities are seen by some as havens for radical Islam.

Officials in other European countries either declined to discuss preparations or said that no additional security was planned.

In Afghanistan, the Turkish-led International Security Assistance Force said it had increased security measures after Thursday's bid to kill President Hamid Karzai in Kandahar and a car bomb that killed 16 people in the Afghan capital the same day.

Officials in neighboring Pakistan said Gen. Pervez Musharraf's pro-Western government had beefed up security at what it had identified as potential targets.