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NY subway attack warning for Sunday - report

Posted on: Saturday, 8 October 2005, 10:27 CDT

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)

Source: REUTERS

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