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Terror Alert Level to Fall to Yellow

Posted on: Friday, 9 January 2004, 06:00 CST

The nation's terror alert level will be lowered one step, to yellow, on Friday, a Homeland Security official said. The move suggests the immediate threat of attacks on U.S. targets has abated somewhat.

Homeland Security officials were expected to announce the change later Friday morning at a news conference, an agency official said on condition of anonymity.

The official offered no reason for the expected change. In the past, such a drop in the terror alert level has been based on continuous reviews of existing terrorism intelligence.

Even after the alert status has been lowered, however, some of the security precautions undertaken during the period when the nation was at orange alert will remain in effect, the official said. No details were provided.

The level was raised to orange, or the second-highest level, on Dec. 21.

The new system ranks threats by colors, starting with green at the bottom and followed by blue, yellow, orange and red as perceived dangers intensify. The warning level can be changed for the entire country or for specific regions and economic sectors.

Some officials have worried that operatives of the al-Qaida terrorist network were deliberately trying to spoof U.S. and international intelligence networks aimed at uncovering terrorist threats, by planting misinformation on lines of communications they believed were monitored.

However, other U.S. officials said the amount and energy level of the threatening intelligence were too widespread for this to entirely be a disinformation campaign.

During the orange alert period, U.S. officials said they were focused on possible threats to the aviation system, particularly the threat of overseas flights being hijacked and used in Sept. 11, 2001-style attacks on American targets.

Security was raised to extraordinary levels over the last several weeks. In particular, several international flights were canceled and military helicopters patrolled during the large celebrations on New Year's Eve in Las Vegas and at Time's Square in New York City.

The terror alert has been raised to orange several times since the color-coded alert system was put in place in early 2002 after the Sept. 11 attacks.

No attacks have taken place on U.S. soil during those orange alerts in the past.

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