U.S. officials yesterday issued a new warning over potential terrorist attacks against the United States over the next few weeks, possibly connected with religious holidays (see GSN, Oct. 30).

Intelligence agencies have monitored increasing numbers of threats recently and confirmed they were credible enough to call for a warning, Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said yesterday.  He added that U.S. President George W. Bush had personally approved issuing the warning.

“The threats we are picking up are very generic,” Ridge said.  “They warn of more attacks but are not specific about where or what type.  We do know that the next several weeks, which bring the final weeks of Ramadan and important religious observations in other faiths, have been times when terrorists have planned attacks in the past.”

Ridge alerted U.S. governors to the threat yesterday afternoon during a conference call.  The FBI contacted 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies regarding the warning, the third potential terrorist attack warning since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks (Alison Mitchell, New York Times, Dec. 4).

The terrorist group al-Qaeda has been linked to past attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, according to the Washington Post.  The 1993 World Trade Center bombings occurred three days after Ramadan started that year.  The United States stopped a series of attacks during last year’s Ramadan that were linked to millennium celebrations (Pianin/Miller, Washington Post, Dec. 4).

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