Three indicted on charges they targeted U.S. financial institutions

WASHINGTON -- While the Sept. 11 hijackers were putting the final touches on their deadly plans for the World Trade Center and Pentagon, federal authorities say another group of terrorists was plotting attacks on other landmarks in New York and Washington.

Three British citizens with suspected al-Qaida ties were scouting the New York Stock Exchange, just blocks from the Twin Towers, five months before the 2001 attacks, a federal indictment unsealed Tuesday alleges. Other financial institutions in New York and nearby Newark, N.J., also were under surveillance, as were two Washington buildings just across the Potomac River from the Pentagon.

It is unclear how advanced the years-long plot was, but its discovery last summer prompted the Homeland Security Department to raise the terror alert for the targeted buildings. Security in those cities also was tightened.

Four-count indictment

A four-count indictment returned by a New York City grand jury alleges the men, already in British custody, visited and conducted surveillance of the buildings and surrounding neighborhoods between August 2000 and April 2001.

The plot was foiled when Pakistani investigators seized a computer with information from the surveillance. British authorities were alerted and arrested eight men, including the three suspects, on terrorism-related charges last August, deputy attorney general James B. Comey said.

The indictment "sends a message about our resolve to terrorists," Comey said at a Justice Department news conference.

The grand jury returned the indictment on March 23 but it was unsealed only Tuesday. Named in it are Dhiran Barot, 33, Nadeem Tarmohammed, 26, and Qaisar Shaffi, 26. They could receive life sentences if convicted of the most serious charge, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction in the United States. The indictment lists those weapons as improvised explosive devices and bombs.

U.S. officials claim Barot is a senior al-Qaida figure, known variously as Abu Eisa al-Hindi, Abu Musa al-Hindi and Issa al-Britani.

Prosecutors say the men conducted surveillance on the stock exchange and Citicorp building in New York, the Prudential building in Newark and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington, including video surveillance in Manhattan around April 2001.

U.S. officials have previously described detailed surveillance photos and documents, which they believe came from Barot, that were found on the computer in Pakistan. Comey declined to provide any specifics.

Although they allegedly were doing their surveillance at the same time the Sept. 11 hijackers were making their final preparations, nothing in the indictment links this group to the hijackers.

The indictment does not allege any specific actions by the men in the United States or elsewhere after April 2001, though Comey said their plotting continued. "This conspiracy was alive and kicking until August 2004," he said.

Bush administration authorities said the decision to raise the risk of a terrorist attack to "high" for those specific financial institutions was based on an abundance of caution and because of al-Qaida's history of lengthy planning and plotting.

The move, coming in the midst of a tight presidential election, drew criticism from Democrats, who claimed it was aimed at boosting President Bush's re-election effort.

"Politics had nothing to do with it. You have my word on it," Comey said Tuesday.

The threat level was lowered to yellow for the buildings after the November election.

Barot is charged in England with possessing reconnaissance plans for the U.S. financial institutions and notebooks containing information on explosives, poisons, chemicals and related matters "of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism."

Tarmohammed was charged there, along with Barot, with possessing plans of the Prudential building. Shaffi also was charged in Britain with possessing an extract from the "Terrorist's Handbook" on the preparation of chemicals, explosive recipes and other information.

British proceedings and any sentences would have to be completed before U.S. agents could question the men or seek their extradition, the Crown Prosecution Service said. The trial in Britain is scheduled to begin in January, it said.

"They are indicted here and whether or not they actually ever are extradited here I guess is a matter of discussion," said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "But I think it's important, both substantively and symbolically important, that you come here, you do this type of surveillance, we're not going to forget."

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