Al Qaeda Arrest Yields Attack Intel

Aug. 2, 2004 -- The government says it has received detailed information about al Qaeda plans to target financial institutions in New York, northern New Jersey and Washington, D.C. The big break in the case, ABC News has learned, came thousands of miles away in Pakistan.

On July 13, Pakistani authorities arrested a computer engineer named Mohammed Khan. Today, Pakistani officials say they have evidence he is a member of al Qaeda.

"What I can say is: Yes, we have arrested a computer master, and we got some information from his computer, and his e-mails," said Pakistani Information Minister Rashid Ahmed.

Khan's computer discs, obtained by the CIA, reveal that al Qaeda had conducted extensive surveillance of the Citigroup Center in Manhattan, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, and Prudential Financial Inc.'s headquarters in Newark, N.J., officials told ABC News.

The computer files contain more than 500 images and diagrams, including blueprints of the buildings, escape routes, traffic patterns, and minute-by-minute pedestrian movements in and out of buildings, officials said.

The files note the type of weapons used by security guards and even containcalculations on the amount of explosives needed to melt the structures.

"The level of sophistication in their analysis of these buildings, the level of professionalism, their level of detail, tells me that they have anetwork that was in the U.S. and may still be in the U.S.," said Richard Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism official who is now an ABC News consultant.

On the strength of the specific information, the FBI issued a bulletin Sunday night, warning local police not only about the possibility of bombs in trucks, vans and oil tankers, but also explosive devices in limousines and subways.

Timing of Surveillance

There is nothing in the files to indicate exactly when the surveillance was done or when an attack might be carried out.

But another al Qaeda suspect, who is being held in Europe, has told investigators attacks are planned sometime between now and Election Day.