Interagency task force to address new terror threats

The FBI has created an interagency task force to coordinate intelligence and field operations in response to information that al Qaeda plans to attack the United States within a few months, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.

Ashcroft said the terrorist group has completed 90 percent of arrangements for an attack here since train bombings in Madrid, Spain, in March that killed 191 people, injured 1,500, and affected the outcome of elections in that country. He said intelligence does not indicate any specific time, place or location for an attack.

"The Madrid railway bombings were perceived by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to have advanced their cause," Ashcroft said during a press conference. "Al Qaeda may perceive that a large-scale attack in the United States this summer or fall would lead to similar consequences."

Officials are particularly concerned that terrorists might launch an attack during one of several high-profile public events, ranging from the dedication of the new World War II Memorial in Washington this weekend to the presidential inauguration in January.

Three of the events already have been declared national security special events. That designation, which was created in 1998, means the Secret Service becomes the lead federal agency responsible for security. The three are the G8 summit in Savannah, Ga., June 8-10; the Democratic National Convention in Boston July 26-29; and the Republican National Convention in New York City Aug. 29-Sept. 4.

"The FBI has established a 2004 Threat Task Force to focus on this developing threat over this summer and fall period," Ashcroft said. "The task force will coordinate our intelligence, analysis and field operations. Analysts at FBI headquarters and in every field office are reviewing previously collected intelligence to reanalyze it and determine what additional information we need to collect in order to be best positioned to disrupt attacks."

The task force includes representatives from the Homeland Security Department and "other members of the intelligence community," said Joe Parris, an FBI supervisory special agent. He declined to say which other agencies are part of the task force or how many people are serving on it.

He said the task force will not duplicate other federal efforts, such as those of the CIA's Terrorist Threat Integration Center. The Bush administration announced in April that TTIC would take the lead in collecting and analyzing terrorism-related intelligence gathered by other agencies, including the FBI and Homeland Security.

"We will not be reinventing the wheel to duplicate efforts that have already been undertaken," Parris said.

DHS Secretary Tom Ridge announced the creation of a homeland security interagency working group in April, saying the country will "soon enter a season that is rich with symbolic opportunities for the terrorists to try to shake our will." The group consists of representatives from the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, Transportation and Treasury.

Parris said the FBI's new task force will focus on "shaking trees" across federal agencies for information "and making sure we have the ground covered under the tree with a net."

DHS spokeswoman Katy Mynster said no new threat information exists about a specific attack in the United States that would cause the department to raise the national threat alert level, which is currently at yellow, or elevated.

Ashcroft said activities by the new task force, along with other law enforcement efforts, might produce information that results in the need to increase protection for particular targets or raise the national threat level.

"We seek unprecedented levels of cooperation with state and local law enforcement in collecting intelligence to enable America's entire terror-fighting apparatus to act decisively to disrupt any al Qaeda presence in the United States," he said. "And we will appropriately share unprecedented access to precisely what our intelligence needs and findings are."

New threat information, however, has been slow to reach state homeland security officials, said Jerry Murphy, director of the homeland security and technology division of the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

In a speech in Washington Wednesday, he said homeland security officials in some states had yet to receive information from the federal government about the new threat alert.

"There's still this disconnection," Murphy said, "in keeping state and local governments apprised of threats."