A "credible threat" to the subway system

Sources: Subway threat made




By Joshua Robin and Rocco Parascandola
STAFF WRITERS

October 6, 2005, 4:31 PM EDT

A "credible threat" to the subway system has prompted a vast mobilization of police officers, law enforcement sources said today.

Hundreds of officers were expected to be dispatched as early as this afternoon to every station in Manhattan -- and possibly system wide -- to thwart the attack, which was said to timed to the Jewish High Holidays and the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Scores of officers from various narcotics units are being called in to assist in patrolling the subways, beginning as early as this afternoon. Many were expected to convene first at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Police sources also said that cops were expected to be kept on 12-hour tours over the weekend.

Police could not yet identify the source of the threat, other than to call it "credible."

It comes as the city emerges from two days of hightened alert during the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashana. Police officers patrolled outside of synagogues as thousands of congregants attended services.

MTA officials said they were unaware of the threat until alerted by a reporter. They were expected to return calls later this afternoon.

Police Investigate New York Subway Terror Threat

Oct. 6, 2005 — The New York City Police Department is investigating what it deems a credible tip that 19 operatives have been deployed to New York to place bombs in the subway, and security in the subways will be increased, sources told ABC News.

While the police department is taking the threat seriously, it is also urging the public not to be alarmed because — while the source is credible — the information has not been verified.

According to sources in intelligence, emergency services and police headquarters, when three Iraqi insurgents were arrested several days ago during a raid by a joint FBI-CIA team, one of those caught disclosed the threat. Because it slipped out during the arrest, the plot was deemed credible.

After several days of work, sources said, the NYPD is increasingly concerned because it has been unable to discredit the initial source and additional information from the source.

The 19 operatives were to place improvised explosive devices in the subways using briefcases, according to two sources.

The police are deploying additional officers, dogs and heavy weapons teams in subways and commuter rail terminals, sources said.

Department of Homeland Secuirty sources told ABC News they are very doubtful the threat information is credible, though NYPD sources said the information continues to come in and is disturbing.

Commisioner Ray Kelly to give press conference momentarily.

Penn Station partially closed

BY THE ASSCOCIATED PRESS AND NEWSDAY STAFF
STAFF WRITERS

October 7, 2005, 10:13 AM EDT

As the city coped with news of a terrorist threat, a section of Penn Station was shut down Friday morning due to an unspecified problem, with police dogs and National Guard members patrolling the transportation hub beneath Madison Square Garden.

"We do have a police situation at Penn Station," said Amtrak spokeswoman Marice Golgoski, who declined to elaborate. "The Amtrak police and the NYPD are involved."

The entrance at West 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue was closed off with yellow crime scene tape and a portion of the concourse above the tracks was also sealed to the public.

Members of the National Guard were on the scene, along with city police and dogs.

Commuters heading west out of the station were forced to use the exit on 31st Street.

According to Golgoski, Amtrak was still boarding some trains and operating some ticket windows despite the problems. New Jersey Transit and the Long Island Rail Road also operate in and out of the midtown Manhattan facility.

The incident came the morning after Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced increased security on the city's subway system due to reports of a possible terrorist threat.

Police flooded the city's subways Thursday night amid disputed intelligence reports that terrorists with links to Iraq had planned to possibly bomb the system with baby strollers fitted with explosives -- a threat the mayor called the most specific yet against the nation's largest mass transit network.

Buses, ferries, the Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North and NJ Transit also teemed with patrols, as police stepped up random searches of passenger belongings to a level not seen since the days following the July bombings of the London underground.

Commuters were asked to limit taking belongings on board trains, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg specifically asking riders to curtail large strollers and bulky bags or packages. He gave no timetable for the heightened alert.

A law enforcement source later said would-be terrorists had looked into using strollers to ferry explosives.

Speaking at an evening news conference, the mayor gave few details about the threat or how officials learned of it.

"Suffice it to say that its importance was enhanced above the normal level by the detail that was available to us," he said.

On condition of anonymity, city and federal officials gave varying accounts of the threat's origins. A city official said an informant tipped them off to the alleged plot, while a federal source said the information came after a raid in Iraq.

By Thursday, two of the three operatives whose names had been provided were arrested in Iraq, according to a city official with knowledge of the case. A federal source said up to 19 people could be involved.

But other federal officials downplayed the threat altogether. The Department of Homeland Security said the intelligence community believes the information is of "doubtful" credibility.

Still, the department shared the information with New York officials as a precaution and to allow them take whatever security steps they desired. But Homeland Security said it has no plans to alter the national threat level or that in New York, which already operates at a high level of security.

The beefed-up measures came as both Bloomberg and President George W. Bush coped with their own political battles. Bloomberg, who is facing re-election, had been invited to appear at a mayoral debate Thursday evening, but declined -- a decision that has brought him considerable criticism.

And only hours before the announcement, Bush, facing saggin poll numbers, delivered a speech insisting the battle against terrorism must be waged through fighting insurgents in Iraq.

Police and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials waited to release the information until Thursday evening, leaving even NYC Transit unaware of the threat until word leaked out and prompting some to complain the public should have known earlier.

As to why riders were not previously alerted, Mark J. Mershon, assistant director in charge of the city's FBI office, said: "We were confident the public was not at risk during that time frame."

He added that "classified operations have in fact partially disrupted this threat."

While some riders said they were nervous, Frank Broomes, a loan closer for a hedge fund from Park Slope interviewed at Grand Central, said he would not alter his riding. "You're not going to find out about it before it happens," Broomes said. "You take risks in life everyday."

At the Huntington LIRR station, Flushing resident Greg Lee, 29, said that police had asked to look his small duffel bag. "They never do that," said Lee, visiting relatives.

The subway, used by 4.5 million people daily, has long been seen as an inviting target for terrorists. In August 2004, days before the beginning of the Republican National Convention, two men were arrested on charges of plotting to bomb the Herald Squarestation.

But Bloomberg said this was the first time that agents received detailed intelligence indicating terrorists were zeroing in on the subway system.

"Some of the sources had more information that would lead one to believe that it was not the kind of thing that appears in the intelligence community every day

3rd Suspect Nabbed in Subway Terror Plot

Oct 07 3:27 PM US/Eastern


By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press Writer


NEW YORK


The investigation into an alleged plot to bomb the city's subway moved forward on several fronts Friday as a third suspect was arrested in Iraq and authorities looked into whether a fourth person had traveled to New York as part of the scheme, officials said.

A law enforcement official familiar with the case said the man's trip to New York was described by an informant who had spent time in Afghanistan and proved reliable in past investigations.

"He's been a source of multiple correct information in the past," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the continuing investigation. "Does that mean a fourth person he identified is in fact in New York? We don't know that."

The official added that authorities had not confirmed whether the fourth man even exists.

Alarmed by the informant's report of a plot to attack city subways with as many as 19 bombs in bags and possibly baby strollers, U.S. forces in Iraq arrested two suspected plotters who had been under close surveillance until Thursday morning, officials said. The third escaped until his arrest Friday.

City officials posted thousands of additional uniformed and plainclothes officers throughout the subway system and warned New Yorkers to keep their eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.

The announcement sparked behind-the-scenes jostling with security officials in Washington, who downplayed the threat and suggested that Mayor Michael Bloomberg may have overreacted.

Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vigorously defended their reaction Friday.

"We did exactly the right thing," Kelly said.

Those arrested had received explosives training in Afghanistan, a law enforcement official said Friday. They had planned to travel through Syria to New York, and then meet with an unspecified number of operatives to carry out the bombings. The official said that the threat was "specific to place," and that the window for the attack was anywhere from Friday through at least the weekend.

A federal official said one of the suspects arrested in Iraq apparently told interrogators that more than a dozen people were involved in the plot, and that they were of various nationalities, including Afghans, Syrians and Iraqis, the official said.

"There could be one or many," the official said, who had been briefed on the case and spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. "We just don't know. There may not be any."

Kelly, Bloomberg and other city officials declined to release details of the alleged plot, saying much of the information was classified.

Bloomberg called the plot report the most specific terrorist threat that New York officials had received to date and said it was essential that authorities err on the side of caution when protecting the city of 8 million.

"If I'm going to make a mistake you can rest assured it is on the side of being cautious," Bloomberg said at a news conference, flanked by Kelly.

A law enforcement official said the informant had failed parts of a polygraph test but appeared to be telling the truth in response to questions dealing with the alleged plot.

But Homeland Security officials in Washington said the threat was of "doubtful credibility."

President Bush said Friday that New York City officials exercised their prerogative in publicizing the threat. Asked if he thought New York officials had overreacted, Bush said: "I think they took the information we gave and made the judgments they thought were necessary."

Near the Port Authority Bus Terminal on Friday, more officers were visible on the streets, and one lane of traffic on Ninth Avenue was reserved for emergency vehicles.

"Hopefully, God's with me and I'll be OK," Vinnie Stella said as he entered the subway at Penn Station.

Rob Johnson, 30, said he was not worried: "The cops have it under control."

In Baghdad, spokesmen for the U.S. military and the U.S. Embassy declined to comment on the arrests.

An estimated 4.5 million passengers ride the New York subway on an average weekday. The system has more than 468 subway stations. In July, the city began random subway searches in the wake of the train bombings in London.

___