Posted on 11/01/2001 2:12:41 AM PST by JohnHuang2
Ashcroft: Report on 6 men is dubious
BY LENNY SAVINO
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday he did not have knowledge of a Herald report Tuesday that police and INS officials had questioned and released six Middle Eastern men in the Midwest who had been carrying information about strategic U.S. energy sources -- including nuclear plants and the Trans-Alaska pipeline.
``That's a story and nothing more,'' Ashcroft said. ``I don't have any reason to believe it to be true. It was noted [in the story] that I had responded emotionally to this situation, when, as a matter of fact, I hadn't even known about the situation.''
A senior law enforcement official told The Herald Washington Bureau on Wednesday that the information on the six men was in the classified Daily Threat Report earlier this week, which is compiled from different sources by the Counter-Terrorism Center at the CIA and distributed to selected officials at the FBI and other agencies.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the men were carrying photos and descriptions of a Florida nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska pipeline. He said police released the men after the INS determined they were in the United States legally and had valid Israeli passports.
Russ Bergeron, INS spokesman in Washington, issued a statement that said ``the INS and the FBI have thoroughly researched the story published [Wednesday] in The Miami Herald and other Knight Ridder newspapers. Both INS and the FBI believe this report is totally false. Neither INS nor the FBI has any record of any kind of such encounter or any incident that even remotely resembles such an encounter this past weekend.''
Bergeron said the ``FBI has stated unequivocally that they have issued no bulletin or alert out looking for these six men who were allegedly involved in this incident.''
An FBI spokesman, who asked not to be named, said: ``We are completely unaware of the information.''
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