By Charles
Aldinger
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Less than two weeks after an apparent terrorist attack
on the USS Cole in Yemen, some U.S. forces in the Gulf and Turkey
have been put on the highest state of alert in response to specific
threats of possible additional attacks, U.S. officials said on
Monday.
``Some of
our forces in the Gulf have been put on a very high state of alert
in response to specific threats,'' one of the officials, who asked
not be identified, said.
Another U.S.
official said that American troops in Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey
had been put on alert level delta, the highest state of military
alert, to be prepared for possible attacks. The official refused
to be more specific, except to suggest that there was more than
one threat involved.
Asked if Saudi
exile Osama bin Laden, one of several suspects under investigation
for the Oct. 12 attack on the USS Cole, might be involved in the
latest threats, several U.S. officials said he was certainly one
suspect.
The military
alert came after a suspected suicide bombing on Oct. 12 tore a
hole in the side of the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in the
southern Yemeni harbor of Aden, killing 17 sailors and injuring
more than 30.
It also followed
the collapse of the Middle East peace process and nearly four
weeks of Palestinian-Israeli violence that has killed at least
127 people, almost all of them Palestinians.
``Appropriate
Precautions''
``It is a
period of heightened tensions, and the military is taking appropriate
precautions,'' one U.S. official said. ``There is threat information
that we are receiving in the Gulf region, and we are taking appropriate
precautions.''
The official
refused to give any details. ``I'm not going to talk about specifics,''
the official said.
President
Clinton and Defense Secretary William Cohen have warned that the
United States will vigorously pursue those responsible for the
bombing and bring them to justice.
Cohen told
reporters hours after the blast that U.S. forces around the world
had been put on alert for possible terrorist attacks, and the
State Department issued a ``worldwide caution'' warning Americans
about the possibility of violent actions against U.S. citizens
and interests all over the world.
A State Department
official said on Monday that the U.S. embassy in Qatar had been
closed to the public since Saturday but noted it was scheduled
to reopen on Tuesday despite news that U.S. forces there were
on the highest alert.
The official
gave no details of what had prompted the closure, saying that
the ``worldwide caution'' issued after the Cole bombing had indicated
that the U.S. government could close some of its offices in the
region on a case-by-case basis.
U.S. officials
insisted there had been no determination that bin Laden was responsible
for the attack on the USS Cole but said they could not rule out
a pre-emptive strike if firm evidence of his culpability was discovered
and verified.
One U.S. official
said a pre-emptive strike against a group threatening U.S. interests
would never be ruled out.
The top U.S.
counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, described the attack
on the Cole as very sophisticated and said it resembled the Aug.
7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya,
which Washington blames on bin Laden.
The United
States responded to those bombings within two weeks with cruise
missile attacks on targets it linked with bin Laden in Afghanistan
and Sudan.
Attacks
On U.S. Facilities
U.S. forces
have been targeted in the Gulf in the past, with militants killing
24 Americans in two attacks on U.S. military targets in Saudi
Arabia in 1995 and 1996.
In Saudi Arabia,
the latest embassy advisory to the more than 35,000 U.S. citizens
there had an extra word of caution that some families found alarming,
telling parents they had the option of keeping their children
home from school.
In the past
10 days, U.S. embassies in Gulf Arab capitals have closed down
for short periods and beefed up security.
In the tiny
Gulf emirate of Bahrain, a U.S. Navy spokesman said, ``We are
always on a high state of readiness, but obviously we can't talk
about specifics of the things we do to take care of our security.''
The U.S. Embassy
in Bahrain updated the advisory for U.S. citizens there on Monday,
urging that they ``regularly monitor the news for events that
have the potential to trigger social unrest.''
Bahrain is
home to the U.S. 5th Fleet, with a number of warships based there
and other ships calling regularly.
A small number
of U.S. troops are also based in Qatar, where American armor has
been pre-positioned in the event of another major conflict in
the region after the 1991 Gulf War.
Thousands
of U.S. troops are stationed on the soil of NATO ally Turkey,
including at a large air base used by British and American warplanes
policing a Western no-fly zone over northern Iraq.
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