The United States put military bases and ports on the highest alert yesterday following the broadcast of a tape allegedly made by a top al-Qaeda leader calling for a holy war on Americans and Jews. Conor O'Clery, North America Editor reports from New York.
Warplanes patrolled the skies over New York and Washington yesterday and police emergency response teams with automatic weapons backed up by armed National Guard members patrolled near prominent buildings and airports.
The Arab satellite station al-Jazeera aired excerpts of what it said was an audio-tape of Ayman al-Zawahri, believed to be Osama bin Laden's deputy, calling on Muslims to imitate the events of September 11th, 2001, and attack the US and its allies. "Consider your 19 brothers who attacked America in Washington and New York with their planes as an example," the voice on the tape said.
Saudi intelligence may have prevented just such an attack when police arrested three al-Qaeda suspects from Morocco in Jeddah two days ago. Four more suspects were arrested yesterday. Saudi officials claimed the Moroccans planned to hijack a plane to crash into a target in the region.
The US, Britain and Germany temporarily closed their embassies and consulates in Saudi Arabia yesterday after being warned of imminent attack.
The US Defence Intelligence Agency is deploying additional anti-aircraft missile systems and increasing air patrols in the Washington area, US officials said yesterday, a day after the Bush administration had raised the national threat status from yellow to orange, the second-highest risk level.
The alert status was raised after the FBI reported two emails intercepted by US intelligence, one of which warned of "a possible devastating attack in the next 48 hours and urged all Muslims to leave all cities, especially Boston, New York and the commercial coastline".
Security was visibly tighter across the US. Queues of vehicles formed at the Canadian border and cars approaching airports were stopped at checkpoints for inspection. Aerial broadcasts at sports events were banned.
President Bush yesterday said: "America will not relent in the war against global terror. We will hunt the terrorists in every dark corner of the earth. And we're making good progress. Nearly one-half of al-Qaeda's senior operatives have been captured or killed."
In the Al-Jazeera tape, the man identified as Ayman al-Zawahri was heard urging Muslims to strike at the embassies and commercial interests of the US, Britain, Australia and Norway. "The crusaders and the Jews only understand the language of murder, bloodshed ... and of the burning towers," he said, in remarks experts said were possibly recorded in the early stages of the war.
"Oh Muslims, take your decision against the embassies of America, England, Australia and Norway, their interests, their companies and their employees," the speaker said.