US refuses to ease travel alerts change heading in here

THE continuing threat of a terrorist plot in Europe has forced the United States to retain its current travel advisory policy.

Earlier this month, the State Department issued warnings to American citizens living or travelling in Europe, following reports that terrorists may be plotting attacks.

In the UK, security intelligence currently assesses the terror threat level as unchanged at "severe," meaning an attack is highly likely.

The US travel advisory is one step below a formal travel warning advising Americans not to visit Europe.

"We don't view the current circumstances warrant rescinding the alert," said Daniel Benjamin, the US counter-terrorism coordinator. "We think the situation is pretty much the same."

Some European and Pakistani officials had questioned whether the United States was overreacting in issuing the travel advisory, but Mr Benjamin said the intelligence had been gathered from various sources over several months and presented a credible threat.

Some of the plot details came from Ahmed Siddiqui, a German citizen of Afghan descent captured by US troops in Afghanistan in July.

"The credibility of the information was what was most striking about this - and the fact that it was so internally consistent," Mr Benjamin said.

"That said, some of the specifics were absent and we would have liked to have been more able to say what we were seeing. Because that wasn't there, we went out with the alert that we did.

"We tried to couch it as carefully as we could. But we felt we had an obligation - both an ethical one but also a legal one - to warn American tourists that this was a concern."

Mr Benjamin said another factor that had led to the advisory was fear among European intelligence officials.