By GREG B. SMITH DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Government officials revealed yesterday they may have captured a top Al Qaeda fugitive, but they also warned that terrorists may launch small-scale attacks with truck bombs or other crude tactics.

A senior Al Qaeda official was in U.S. custody yesterday at an unspecified location, said two government sources.

One source said the official may be Saif al Adel, an Egyptian indicted in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in east Africa.

Adel has been identified as a member of Al Qaeda's ruling council, and his arrest would make him one of the highest-ranking terrorists captured.

He would be outranked only by Abu Zubaydah, one-time leader of Al Qaeda's military council.

The source warned that officials were still trying to determine whether the man they have collared is Adel.

It is not clear when or where the suspect believed to be Adel was taken into custody, but his capture was revealed the day after leading Democrats questioned whether the Bush administration was winning the war on terrorism and criticized it for failing to arrest Osama Bin Laden.

The news of Adel's possible capture came as the FBI's latest alarm caused concern and confusion with its alarming and, at times, contradictory warning.

While the bulletin said it feared Al Qaeda would attempt "spectacular attacks ... to inflict mass casualties," it also said Al Qaeda might choose "small-scale terrorist operations against soft targets."

Small-scale attacks would allow sleeper cells believed to be in the U.S. to minimize their contact with central leadership overseas and avoid detection, the bulletin warned.

The FBI said it feared a scaled-down tactic using "truck bombs, commercial or private aircraft, small watercraft or explosives easily concealed and planted."

The government sought to play down the significance of the FBI bulletin yesterday, noting the information was not new.

"This is a summary of intelligence as we know it," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said. "It is important that Americans know when this sort of thing comes to the attention of the administration."

One official who spoke on the condition of anonymity questioned the wisdom of releasing every new, high-anxiety alert, worrying that it could inspire a "boy who cried wolf" problem.

Former President Jimmy Carter echoed that thought on CNN's Larry King show last night.

"The nationwide statements that this or that's going to happen ... and then when it doesn't happen, you know, there's kind of a lull and the people say, 'Well, to heck with them. I'm not going to listen next time.'"

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2002

Answers

It's a no win situation.

Warn, and nothing happens, and the sheep ignore the warnings in the future.

Don't warn, and then if something happens, "We should have been warned!"

"This is a summary of intelligence as we know it," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said. "It is important that Americans know when this sort of thing comes to the attention of the administration."

that's the point. But, when we hear it, so does the terrorist.

-- Anonymous, November 16, 2002