US to ease banks terror warning

The buildings under threat

The US is to lower the terror alert status for financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington, administration officials say.

They said the alert would be lowered to yellow - the mid-point on the five-level scale - which represents an "elevated" risk of attack.

It was raised to orange, or "high" level, in August amid fears of a possible al-Qaeda attack.

The World Bank and New York Stock Exchange were named as terror targets.

The Department of Homeland Security also raised the alert at the Citigroup CN building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York, the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington and the Prudential Financial Inc's building in Newark, New Jersey.

The August move came after officials said they had intelligence indicating al-Qaeda had conducted surveillance of the buildings.

However, later officials admitted that much of the intelligence was at least several years old.