US: The FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security claim to have foiled a plot to blow up tunnels in New York and flood the city's financial district. Lebanese intelligence officials have arrested a man they say has confessed to being part of an international network planning to attack subway tunnels in Manhattan.
"We have disrupted a terrorist network that was in the planning stages of an attack," the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said in a joint statement.
New York congressman Peter King said that federal agents and New York police had been monitoring a plot to attack New York's mass transport system for at least eight months. "There was nothing imminent, but it was being monitored for a long period of time," he said.
NBC News yesterday cited a counter-terrorism official with knowledge of the plot as saying that the alleged plotters "never cased the tunnels, never had any bomb-making materials to pull off the job, and were not even in the US, but rather overseas".
The plot appears to have been discovered through close monitoring of internet chat rooms used by Islamist extremists in Canada, Lebanon and elsewhere. The suspect arrested in Lebanon is Assem Hammoud, a Beirut native whom the authorities say has links to al-Qaeda.
"Hammoud is a member of al-Qaeda and he confessed to this [ plot] information frankly and without coercion," a Lebanese security official told the Associated Press news agency.
Homeland Security and the FBI said their investigation into the plot was continuing, although they acknowledged that it was nowhere close to realisation when it was discovered.
"We know al-Qaeda continues to have an interest in attacking the United States. At this point in time there is no specific or credible information that al-Qaeda is planning an attack on US soil. At the same time, the FBI, through the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, will continue to investigate suspected activities here and abroad with our partners from the US and the international intelligence community," the agencies said.
The New York Daily News reported yesterday that the plotters wanted to blow up the Holland Tunnel, the southernmost link between Manhattan and New Jersey, but later reports suggested that the target was subway tunnels.
The Daily News said the intent was to flood the Wall Street financial district. But experts said such an action would not flood Lower Manhattan. The tunnel is dug under bedrock and reinforced with concrete and steel, and a blast inside would not have flooded areas above the water level.
A US official described the plot as "largely aspirational", involving internet conversations but no transfer of money or other operational measures.
New York senator Charles Schumer praised the FBI, which faced criticism after the attacks on September 11th, 2001.
"This is one instance where intelligence was on top of its game and discovered the plot when it was just in the talking phase," he said.
It was the second recent domestic threat authorities have said they broke up in the early stages, following the arrest of seven people last month on suspicion of a plan to attack the Sears Tower in Chicago.
The Daily News also reported that the plot was linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq recently killed by US forces.