NY subway attack warning for Sunday – report

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. authorities warned New York
officials that a team of “terrorist operatives” planned to
attack the subway on Sunday with remote controlled bombs hidden
in briefcases or baby strollers, a newspaper said on Saturday.

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security sent the memo
to state and city officials on Thursday, the same day that New
York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the threat but withheld
details, saying they were classified, the New York Daily News
reported.

Federal authorities “have doubts on the credibility of the
threat,” the memo said, but Bloomberg took it seriously enough
to warn the public.

“A team of terrorist operatives, some of whom may travel to
or who may be in the New York City area, may attempt to execute
an attack on the New York City subway on or about October 9,
2005,” the joint FBI/Homeland Security memo said, according to
the Daily News.

The memo said bombers planned to hide explosives in
briefcases, suitcases or baby strollers — the same items
Bloomberg warned New Yorkers not to take on the subway or risk
being searched by police.

City Hall and police officials would not immediately
confirm the text of the memo.

The threat alert was based on an uncorroborated claim to
Iraqi authorities that prompted raids by U.S. and Iraqi forces
and resulted in two suspects being taken into custody in Iraq,
U.S. officials told Reuters on Friday.

A third was being sought, and the New York Times reported
on Saturday that he had been detained, also in Iraq.

U.S. officials said the claim that spurred the raids came
from an informant who suggested there was an operation
involving more than a dozen operatives in Iraq and the United
States.

“There were a lot of unanswered questions about what these
people knew,” said one official, who asked not to be identified
because the information was classified.

A U.S. counterterrorism official said authorities were
forced to act because the intelligence was unusually specific,
came within months of the July 7 London bombings and involved a
U.S. city known to be a target for Islamist militants.

(Additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington)