The Bush administration said on Wednesday that the US and its allies had begun a campaign to disrupt terrorist operations around the world, including the arrest of a suspected senior member of al-Qaeda in the UK.
The suspected al-Qaeda operative was among 12 men being questioned by UK authorities after raids prompted in part by the same intelligence information that led the administration to elevate the terror threat level in the US over the weekend, including detailed reports about buildings housing major financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. The al-Qaeda member, referred to as Abu Mussa al-Hindi or Abu Eisa al-Hindi, was of intense interest to the US, a senior US official said.
A day after senior White House officials said the decision to raise the terror alert level on Sunday had been driven in part by new intelligence beyond the information about specific buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, told reporters that "there are some ongoing operations under way" to disrupt terrorist activity.
It was not clear whether the arrests in the UK were directly linked to the apparent risk of an attack on the buildings or whether they were tied more generally to suspected al-Qaeda plotting in Pakistan and elsewhere. One senior official in Washington said there were "possibly" direct ties.
The official described the arrests as "part of this web that emanates from Pakistan."
Administration officials signaled that in light of the new information from Pakistan and the second strain of intelligence reporting, they had stepped up their efforts at home and abroad to track down suspected terrorists and guard against the possibility of an attack.
As new information came into the White House over the weekend, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called her coun-terparts in several countries to request help from their intelligence services, an official said.
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Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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