- President Bush's political opponents have given a sceptical
reception to a new warning that al-Qaeda may be close to staging an attack
in the US.
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- Attorney General John Ashcroft said information showed
al-Qaeda intended "to hit the United States hard". However, Washington
has not raised the level of its national security alert.
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- The president's Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry,
said homeland security should not be part of the rhetoric of the campaign.
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- "We deserve a president of the United States who
doesn't make homeland security a photo opportunity," he said at a
rally in Seattle.
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- "We deserve a president who makes America safer."
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- A Democratic member of the Senate intelligence committee,
Dick Durbin, said he thought there was growing scepticism about warnings
from the Bush administration.
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- "We'll never know if the administration has new
and justifiable information for this new warning," Mr Durbin said.
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- White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied they were
overplaying the threat, pointing to a "stream of credible intelligence"
over the last couple of months.
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- However, the alert level remains at yellow, the mid-point
on the five-degree scale.
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- Yellow indicates an "elevated" level of risk,
two degrees away from the red "severe risk".
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- Public appeal
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- In his Wednesday press conference, Mr Ashcroft named
seven people who he said presented a clear danger.
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- He listed future events that could be targets, and, together
with FBI chief Robert Mueller, said there was intelligence about a plot,
but added this did not indicate the date, time, nor method of a possible
attack.
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- Mr Mueller said 4 July celebrations, the Democratic and
Republican party conventions, and the presidential elections in November
could be at risk.
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- "The same events which fill most of us with hope
and pride are seen by terrorists as possible targets for attack,"
he said.
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- They released the names and photographs of the seven
suspects, including one woman, and asked for the public's help in tracking
them down.
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- Some were US citizens or people who had spent a long
time in the country.
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- Two of the men, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Fazul Abdullah
Mohammed, have already been indicted by a US court for alleged involvement
in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in east Africa, which left several
hundred dead.
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- "All present a clear and present danger to America.
All should be considered armed and dangerous," Mr Ashcroft said.
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- Mr Ashcroft also warned that al-Qaeda may be changing
its tactics, as members might travel with their families "to lower
their profile" or be able to portray themselves as Europeans.
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- He said that the Madrid railway bombings, which came
just before the Spanish general election, were believed by al-Qaeda members
to have advanced their cause.
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- Political fallout from those attacks is believed to have
contributed to the defeat of the governing party.
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- Mr Ashcroft warned al-Qaeda might try the same tactics
in advance of the US poll.
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- © BBC MMIV http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3752163.stm
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