US fleet in Gulf ordered to sea, Americans warned

26/03/2001| IslamWeb

[Missile destroyer USS Cole, attacked and severely damaged in Aden, Oct. 2000.  Read photo caption below.]

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - The US naval fleet in the Gulf has been ordered to put to sea in response to a credible threat of attack against US interests worldwide by forces linked to exiled Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, US sources said Friday.
The threat information was not specifically linked to a location or target, so a number of US agencies, including the US State Department, were taking "appropriate steps" to ensure their security, according to one source.
"It's viewed as credible and it points to something that could possible occur shortly," the source said.
The State Department followed by issuing a "worldwide caution," warning US citizens of possible terrorist attacks the indictments in Alexandria, Virginia of 14 people for the 1996 bombing of a US military housing complex in Saudi Arabia. Nineteen 19 US service members were killed in the attack.
"The US government has learned that American citizens and interests abroad may be at increased risk of a terrorist action from extremist groups," the State Department said.
The announcement noted the indictments, but said it was not aware of any threats specifically related to them.
In addition, the department temporarily shuttered two of its embassies -- in Dakar, Senegal and Manama, Bahrain -- to review their "security postures," spokesman Charles Hunter said.
Hunter declined to say whether the embassy closures were related to the worldwide caution, or the decision by the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet to order its ships to sea.
Pentagon officials declined to comment on the fleet movement, saying that information about threat conditions for US forces was classified.
ABC television, citing unidentified officials, reported on its website that US military installations in the Gulf region that were not already at the highest state of alert, "Threatcon Delta," had been raised to that status.
"Threatcon Delta" means that commanders must take a series of protective actions to ensure the safety their forces.
Sources told AFP the threat was linked to bin Laden, who US authorities say runs a far-flung network of Islamic terrorists that have been tied to the 1998 bombings of two US embassies in east Africa and of a US destroyer in Yemen last year.
US officials did not discount a connection between the latest threat and the indictments in the Khobar Towers complex bombing, noting that Monday is the fifth anniversary of the attack.
The US moves also follow the arrest in Spain earlier Friday of an Algerian man wanted by both French and German police who is believed to be the chief of one of bin Laden's cells, the Meliani commando.
And they come just three days after the appearance of a videotape said to have been prepared by bin Laden as a recruitment tool which praises the Yemen attack as a "victory." Bin Laden himself appears in the tape calling on his followers to attack "Western and Jewish interests worldwide."
The State Department warning was a revision to a similar one issued on May 29, after four alleged bin Laden associates were convicted in a New York court for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
Hunter refused to say exactly why the department had decided to close its missions in Dakar and Manama to the public.
The embassy in Dakar closed early, at midday, on Friday to "review its security posture" and will remain closed through the normal weekend before deciding whether to re-open on Monday, he said.
The embassy in Manama will be closed on Saturday, usually the first day of the work week in Bahrain, for a similar review, he said, adding that a decision on re-opening the mission there would be Sunday.
While Hunter would not say whether they were being closed because of a specific threat, he did note that the May 29 "worldwide caution" explained that that US missions abroad might close for a variety of reasons.
"Overseas posts may close temporarily in response to threat information, security concerns or simply to review their security postures," he said.

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PHOTO CAPTION:

FILE--The U.S. Navy released this view of damage sustained on the port side of the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Cole after a suspected terrorist bomb exploded during a refueling operation in the port of Aden, Yemen, in this Oct. 12, 2000, file photo. Islamic militant Osama bin Laden's Afghanistan-based group boasts in a recruitment videotape that its followers bombed the USS Cole in Yemen's Aden harbor last year. The video, circulating among Muslim militants and viewed here Tuesday,June 19, 2001, would represent the clearest link yet between Osama Bin Laden and the Oct. 12 attack that killed 17 Americans sailors and wounded 39. (AP Photo/U.S. Navy, file)
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