The information from an Iraqi tipster that prompted New York City to go on high alert for a possible terrorist bombing of its subway system was not true–and probably was a hoax, federal officials said Tuesday.
Several law-enforcement sources said the informant came to U.S. officials with a detailed story about a plot involving men who would travel from Iraq to New York, where they would detonate bombs in the subway, using strollers and other devices to hide them.
His information, which triggered a near-lockdown of the subways last week, also prompted a U.S. military operation in Iraq that led to the arrests of three suspected co-conspirators in Musayyib, south of Baghdad.
But after interrogating the three men and the tipster himself, federal authorities have concluded that they were not involved in a plot to launch terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
“It all appears to be falling apart,” one federal law-enforcement official said in reference to the informant, whom U.S. authorities have not identified publicly. “The guy . . . made something up that he thought we wanted to hear.”
The FBI and other U.S. officials now are trying to determine whether the informant intentionally misled them or if he was acting in good faith but on bad information.
Two federal law-enforcement officials said that since being questioned, the man has been released by authorities in Iraq. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying they were not authorized to speak about the controversy.
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Last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg went public about the threat and increased security in the subway system. On Monday he said he was ordering security to be lowered gradually back to normal.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg defended his decision to alert the public and mount an aggressive police response, saying at a news conference that he has not seen any evidence to date that the subway threat was a hoax.
Even if the information was faulty, he said, the city acted properly in alerting the public and increasing security.
“In intelligence there will always be conflicting analyses and conflicting data points,” he said. “What we can’t have in this city is a conflict over how we respond.”
Asked about reports of the apparent hoax, Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said that “the intelligence community has not found any information to substantiate the threat.” Assistant FBI Director John Miller, the bureau’s chief spokesman, had no comment on whether the FBI has concluded that the informant’s information was false.