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Nation's Threat Level Rising to Orange

By JENNIFER C. KERR
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is raising the national threat warning from yellow, the midpoint on its five-color scale, to orange, a federal official said Sunday.

Tom Ridge, the homeland security secretary, planned to discuss the chance at a midafternoon news conference at the agency's headquarters. A department official confirmed the elevated threat level but declined to provide details before Ridge's appearance.

U.S. officials by the end of last week were telling holiday travelers to be vigilant about the threat of terrorist attacks. The warning was prompted in part by a raised level of ominous intercepted communications that has not quieted for months.

The significance of the sustained level of intelligence "chatter" is unclear, the officials said.

Homeland Security officials said they did not expect a change in the threat level unless more specific intelligence was received.

On Friday, the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera aired a new statement from Ayman al-Zawahri, the chief deputy of Osama bin Laden. The CIA said Saturday it believes the tape is authentic.

"We are still chasing the Americans and their allies everywhere, even in their homeland," according to the voice on the tape.

Some statements from al-Qaida leaders are later regarded as preludes to attacks; others simply propaganda.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunday morning that officials were trying to determine whether increased terrorist chatter being detected in recent weeks was an aberration or something more serious.

"There is no doubt, from all the intelligence we pick up from al-Qaida, that they want to do away with our way of life," he told "Fox News Sunday."

"And if they could use another catastrophic event, a tragedy like 9-11; if they could do that again, if they could get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and make it 10,000 (deaths), not 3,000, they would do that."

Myers said he and Ridge were to discuss the threat level "in the next 24, 48 hours" and raising the level was under active consideration.

"It's Secretary Ridge's business, but the Department of Defense does play a role in supporting federal agencies in this regard, and so we're discussing this right now," said Myers, who just returned from a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan.