US deploys missiles around Washington amid heightened terror alert

The United States has deployed anti-aircraft missiles around its capital of Washington and stepped up air patrols over the city as part of an increased security measure, defense officials said Wednesday.

Army Avenger Systems were placed in undisclosed locations around Washington, as they have been on at least two previous occasions since Sept. 11, 2001, local television reports said. The Avenger system consists of heat-seeking Stinger missiles mounted on mobile missile launching vehicles HUMVEEs that are alerted by ground radar.

The air patrols were on an "irregular" basis and have been increased in conjunction with a previously scheduled training exercise announced by North American Aerospace Defense Command earlier this week, officials said. The exercise involves US Air Force F-16s flying low over the Washington area.

The measure was taken as the US government raised its terrorist threat level to orange, the second highest level in the five-color assessment system, from yellow, the middle level, Tuesday. The government concluded that cells of the al Qaeda network around the world have been activated and could attack the United States.

The increased alert status called for stepped-up security measure around public buildings, airports, railways and subways.

Pentagon officials say they have no specific threat against Washington, but the increased security measures are a prudent precaution, given the intelligence warning of an imminent terrorist attack somewhere in the world.

No injures reported in explosion in Yale law school

No injuries were reported after a bomb went off in an empty classroom at the Yale University law school Wednesday, one day after the US government raised the nation's terror threat status to the second highest level.

Yale spokeswoman Dorie Baker said investigation was under way. "We don't know what kind of a device," she said. "It was in an empty classroom, not in the mailroom. All sources are agreed there were no injuries."

Karen Peart, another spokeswoman, said there was "limited damage." Students fleeing from the scene said a wall collapsed after the blast.

The explosion occurred shortly before 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) at the school in New Haven, Connecticut. Smoke could be seen rising from the building.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation dispatched its joint terrorism task force to the scene to investigate. But local television reports quoted US officials as saying that the explosion did not indicate or bear the marks of an international terrorist incident.

The US government raised the country's alert level to orange of the five-color assessment system from yellow, the middle level, Tuesday, citing increased "chatter" suggesting terrorists may be planning a major attack inside the United States.

US has no real plans for Iraq: British newspaper

The United States' visible failure to take control of the looting in Baghdad after the coalition forces entered the Iraqi capital showed that Washington does not have any real plans for Iraq, said an article in The Independent newspaper on Tuesday.

"It is making up its policy as it goes along," Patrick Cockburn, a British commentator said in his article "So why did the US fight the war in Iraq?"

The article said it was probably too late for Paul Bremer, the new US civilian administrator in Iraq, to take actions against lawlessness, such as detaining all the looters.

With at least 60 percent of the Iraqi population destitute, according to the United Nations' statistics before the war, brief detention by US troops was not going to end the looting, the article said.

It said the US seemed to have fought the war against Iraq because it wanted a war.

"It did so because the political fuel on which the present US administration runs is to emphasize the external threat," the article said. "Through this means it has won control of the (US) Senate and may well win the next presidential election (in 2004)."

The civilian leadership of the Pentagon, notably US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, are "uniquely reckless, arrogant and ill-informed" about Iraq, the article said.

It also pointed out that some US oil companies, which may have wanted to get a share of Iraq's oil wealth, need a measure of security to exploit Iraq oilfields.

"They are also nervous that it is becoming more and more dangerous to be an American, or indeed any other type of westerner, anywhere in the Middle East," the article said.

Supposed links between Saddam Hussein and the al-Qaeda network, heavily publicized by the White House before the US-led war, were largely journalistic concoctions, the article said.

Nevertheless, it argued, in the present anarchy in Iraq, "where people are suffering all the disadvantage of occupation but without civil order," Iraq would become a fertile recruiting ground for the al-Qaeda network.