U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft dismissed a newspaper report that federal agents were searching for six men with Israeli passports who had been carrying material about a nuclear power plant in Florida and an Alaskan pipeline. "To the best of my knowledge that's a story and nothing more," Ashcroft told reporters. "I don't have any reason to believe it to be true."

He was referring to a report in The Miami Herald, which said agents were searching for the men, who reportedly had been detained in the Midwest but later released. "We have absolutely no information at this point in time to substantiate that story," said Russ Bergeron, spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Ashcroft also refuted claims in the story that he and FBI Director Robert Mueller were "furious" that the INS had allowed the men to be released. "As a matter of fact, I hadn't even known about the situation until I read about my response in the newspaper,'' Ashcroft said.

According to the report, police stopped the six men traveling in two cars in an unidentified Midwestern state over the weekend. In addition to the photographs, they were carrying box-cutters and other "suspicious equipment," it said. The Miami Herald said the men appeared to be from the Middle East and carried Israeli passports. After determining that the passports were valid, the INS released the suspects without consulting the FBI, the Herald said.

Ha'aretz reports that an Israeli embassy spokesman in Washington said he was aware of the affair from press reports, but had not been contacted by American authorities on the subject.

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