Bin Laden threats prompt U.S travel advisory for Pakistan

WASHINGTON -- The United States has issued a travel warning to Pakistan as officials report that Saudi billionaire fugitive Osama Bin Laden is again threatening to attack American citizens and targets.

U.S. officials said Washington has received information that allies or agents of Bin Laden are planning to soon attack American interests in Pakistan, Middle East Newsline reports.

"The U.S. government continues to receive a growing body of information that suggests strongly that extremists based in Afghanistan are preparing to attack U.S. interests in Pakistan in the near future," the State Department said on Friday. "Given the presence of international terrorist Osama Bin Laden in neighboring Afghanistan and the public sympathy and support for him in Pakistan, the department urges all American citizens resident in, or traveling through, Pakistan to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness."

An earlier travel advisory warned Americans against traveling in rural areas of Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad decided to defer all official travel to the tribal areas of Pakistan's northwest frontier province, where the government has virtually no authority.

But the advisory was expanded last week amid reports that Bin Laden and his Islamic allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan were targeting U.S. citizens and facilities throughout Pakistan.

U.S. officials said the terrorist plans appear connected to the prosecution in New York of a Pakistani Islamic leader extradited by Islamabad. Another source of tension relates to U.S. threats to impose additional sanctions on the Afghan Taliban ruling faction, which is harboring Bin Laden.

The officials cited the Harakat-Ul-Mujahideen as warning against the travel of U.S. diplomats and other nationals to Kashmir in India. The group has been active on both sides of the line of control between India and Pakistan.