"DIRTY BOMB" THREAT A LIE
"A claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a 'dirty bomb' sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination," ABC News reports.
The "dirty bomb" story was one of the main reasons behind the recent ratcheting up of terror alert levels.
The informant described a detailed plan that an al Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops. The informant reportedly cited specific targets of government buildings and Christian or clerical centers.
"This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true," said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABC News consultant.
