Massachusetts Law Enforcement Network

Massachusetts Police News, Information and Discussions on MassCops

Posted by: kwflatbed

AP Photo/Mary Altaffer

An armed member of the New York Police Department patrols Times Square.

By MATTHEW LEE
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON --
The government is urging Americans to be vigilant about suspicious activity after British police defused a bomb in downtown London, but officials said they saw no potential terrorist threat in the United States ahead of next week's Fourth of July holiday.
"At this point, I have seen no specific, credible information suggesting that this incident is connected to a threat to the homeland," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in a statement.
"We have no plans at this time to change the U.S. threat level," he said. The current national threat level is yellow, or elevated, meaning there is a "significant risk" of terrorist attacks.
"We encourage the public to enjoy the upcoming holiday but ask, as always, that they be vigilant and report any suspicious activities to authorities," Chertoff said.
President Bush was briefed on the incident by national security adviser Stephen Hadley in Maine, where the president is at his family's home to meet Sunday and Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We commend the British security services and local officials for their action today. U.S. officials are in contact with their U.K. counterparts and will continue to monitor the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.
The car bomb near Piccadilly Circus was powerful enough that it could have caused "significant injury or loss of life" - possibly killing hundreds, British anti-terror police chief Peter Clarke said.
The FBI distributed a bulletin to law enforcement officials around the country Friday morning. According to someone who read the report and summarized it for the AP, the bulletin said that while July 4 festivities might make an attractive target for terrorists, authorities have no credible intelligence that such an attack is planned.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said the agency was monitoring the London investigation and sharing information with investigators there.
"At this time, we have no specific information on any threats related to this incident here in the U.S., however, as always, we ask people to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity to law enforcement," Kolko said.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee who was briefed on the investigation, said British authorities had recovered a cellular phone that they believed was to be the trigger for the explosion.
"They found a cell phone and it was going to be used to detonate the bomb," he said.
But two officials also briefed on the probe said British authorities had found no link between the bomb and any terrorist group at least in the early hours of their investigation.
The officials said the inquiry in London's bustling nightclub district had yielded no suspects and no definitive description of anyone leaving the vehicle. They said British forensic investigators were still poring over the car, looking for fingerprints and clues left behind in the undetonated device.
The London threat comes at the same time as U.S. counterterrorism authorities are worried about terrorist activity in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where al-Qaida continues to have a presence, although officials said it was too early to know if there were links to extremist elements there.
A threat from that region would not be new to London, officials said. On July 7, 2005, four bombs exploded in the city's transit system, and investigators found that attack had links leading back to Pakistan.
However, a second U.S. counterterrorism official said it was also too early to know who may have been behind the foiled attack or if there were any links to extremist elements in Pakistan.
In London, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement to Americans that the "incident serves as a reminder to all Americans living and traveling abroad to remain aware of their surroundings at all times and be vigilant to suspicious activity."
At the Pentagon, the matter was brought up at a regular early morning briefing among members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to make officials in Washington aware of the incident. A staff member said later that if there had been any request for Defense Department involvement in the investigation, he was not aware of it.
___
Associated Press Writers Katherine Shrader, Pauline Jelinek, Matt Apuzzo and Devlin Barrett in Washington and Deb Riechmann in Kennebunkport, Maine contributed to this report.

Wire Services

---

vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.
vB Easy Archive Final ©2000 - 2008 - Created by Stefan "Xenon" Kaeser