Barbara Ferguson, Arab News

WASHINGTON, 28 May 2004 — The nation’s top law enforcement officials issued an appeal late Wednesday night for information regarding seven Al-Qaeda members believed to be in the country, who they said could be planning new attacks on the United States.

Attorney General John Ashcroft cited “credible intelligence from multiple sources,” that Al-Qaeda is planning to launch an attack somewhere in the US during the next few months, and that the attack could be linked to a major event such as the upcoming G-8 economic summit or the summer political conventions.

Following the March 11 train bombings in Madrid an Al-Qaeda spokesman said the terrorist organization’s plans for an attack on America were 90 percent complete, Ashcroft said during a Justice Department news conference with FBI Director Robert Mueller at the bureau’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

That, coupled with a steady stream of intelligence about Al-Qaeda gathered before and after the Spain bombings, “suggest that it’s almost ready to attack the United States,” he said, adding the Group of Eight summit from June 8 to 10 at Sea Island, Georgia; the Democratic National Convention from July 26 to 29 in Boston; and the Republican National Convention from Aug. 30 to Sept. 2 in New York could be “especially attractive targets.”

Ashcroft and Mueller asked state and local law enforcement and the public for help tracking down the seven Al-Qaeda members. “All present a clear and present danger to America. All should be considered armed and dangerous,” Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft also said that federal agents would begin conducting interviews nationwide to gather information that could be used to disrupt attack plots. He said similar FBI-led interviews begun prior to the Iraq war developed valuable intelligence that had protected American lives.

Additionally, he warned Americans that the “face of Al-Qaeda could be changing,” saying terrorist groups are seeking to infiltrate young Islamic extremists into America. He said Al-Qaeda was seeking recruits who could depict themselves as Europeans and was recruiting Muslim extremists among many nationalities and ethnicities, including North Africans and South Asians.

FBI officials said they are particularly worried about Adnan G. El-Shukrijuma, a Saudi national who lived in South Florida in the mid-1990s.

“We know he has been involved in terrorist planning with senior Al-Qaeda members overseas and has scouted sites across America that might be vulnerable to a terrorist attack,” Ashcroft said, adding Shukrijumah has made many repeated attempts to get back into the Untied States by using false passports.

Ashcroft also said they wanted to interview Adam Yahiye Gadahn, a convert to Islam from California who the FBI accused during the briefing as being an associate of Al-Qaeda.

Mueller said Gadahn, 25, who was born Adam Pearlman, became an associate in Pakistan of one of Al-Qaeda’s top operatives, Abu Zubaida, who is now in US custody. They believe Gadahn attended Al-Qaeda or Taleban training camps in Afghanistan and translated documents between Arabic and English for Al-Qaeda.

Others the FBI are seeking include Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who received a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian under indictment in New York for his alleged involvement in the 1998 US Embassy bombing in East Africa; Fazul Abdullah Mohammed of the Comoros Islands, also indicted in the embassy bombings; Amer El-Maati, a Canadian citizen born in Kuwait; and Abderraouf Jdey, a Canadian citizen born in Tunisia who appeared in a “martyrdom” video found in Afghanistan.

But the law enforcement officials seemed to send out mixed messages yesterday. Just hours before Mueller and Ashcroft spoke, Homeland Security Tom Ridge appeared on five television networks urging Americans to carry on with their summer holiday plans and normal routines. While acknowledging the government’s concern about the possibility of a attack, Ridge tried to reassure viewers by saying: “We need Americans to just go about living their lives and enjoy living in this country,” Ridge said on CBS’s “Early Show.” Ridge said there are no immediate plans to raise the color-coded terror threat level because the threat information is not specific enough.