‘Assassination to kick off Qaeda plot’

Planning for the attacks to follow involves ‘‘multiple targets in multiple venues’’ across the US, one official was quoted as saying. ‘‘The goal of the next attack is two-fold: to damage the US economy and to undermine the US election,’’ the official said.

The officials said there are intelligence reports, some of them sketchy, that a new tape from bin Laden would surface soon, the newspaper reported.

‘‘The message likely will be the signal for the attack to be launched,’’ one official said.

A second US official was cited as saying that one intelligence agency was aware of unconfirmed reports of a new bin Laden tape. ‘‘There may be such a tape, but it hasn’t surfaced and we haven’t seen it,’’ the newspaper quoted the official as saying.

The Washington Times reported that the plot was among detailed Al Qaeda plans found on a laptop computer belonging to captured Al Qaeda suspect Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan. Information from Khan, a computer expert, prompted the US to issue a new security alert for financial institutions in Washington, New York and New Jersey and led to the arrest of a dozen Qaeda suspects in UK.

Khan’s capture was part of a Pakistani crackdown, which began a month ago and has dealt Al Qaeda a major blow.