The United States has credible intelligence that Al Qaeda had planned an attack or multiple attacks at some point last week and that members of the Congress could have been the terrorist outfit’s likely target, a media report said today. Counter-terrorism officials were today quoted as saying they had received a phone tip that members of the US Congress could have been targets of assassination attempts by Islamic fundamentalists. Intelligence reports gathered from human and electronic sources around the world suggested what intelligence officials had suspected for weeks — Al Qaeda operatives ‘‘are in the execution phase of some of their operations,’’ a senior US official was quoted by Time magazine as saying. Officials said the intelligence specifically mentioned that the likely targets were New York City and Washington on February 12. Even though the feared attacks failed to materialise, the anxieties did not subside and inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) fears of a devastating attack are as high as they had been in months, particularly because of the possibility that ‘‘other tools’’ or biological and chemical weapons that could be used, it said. Telephone calls and e-mails exchanged between several suspected terrorists and intercepted by the US and foreign intelligence agencies pointed to a plot inside the US using nerve gas, poisons or radiological devices. ‘‘It wasn’t just chatter,’’ said Republican Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ‘‘It was a pattern.’’ A senior official tells the magazine that domestic law-enforcement agencies are investigating a report that Islamic fundamentalists in this country are trying to acquire parts to build an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) abroad that could be deployed to spray chemical agents over populated areas. The fear is that a UAV assembled overseas could be used against US assets there, Time says.
