A Department of Homeland Security bulletin is warning that there is “continued al-Qaeda interest in conducting attacks against the homeland.” However, federal officials are not raising the nation’s alert status, which is now at elevated, or yellow.
“Recent multiple reports indicate terrorists may be poised to conduct simultaneous attacks in the near term against U.S. interests in a number of venues overseas and possibly in the United States,” the special edition bulletin states. “The exact timing, targets and locations of the possible attacks are unknown. Some reports indicate that a large attack could follow a series of smaller operations in the Middle East and South Asia.”
The bulletin also states that al-Qaeda continues to develop plans for using aircraft against targets in the U.S.
According to The Associated Press, a top intelligence official suggested that al-Qaeda was planning another big attack.
“We have received a lot of good information from these detainees over the past several weeks and corroborated the fact there were active plans, ongoing, to conduct another attack in the United States,” William H. Parrish, a top intelligence official with the Homeland Security Department told the AP. “This attack as they indicated was probably going to be multiple attacks, simultaneous,” he said.
The Al Qaeda members include some lieutenants operating in Saudi Arabia. Their leader, Abu Bakr al-Azdi, turned himself in June; his deputy was killed in a recent shootout with Saudi forces. “We also know there were also other members involved with this planning that are still loose,” Parrish said.
Parrish, the acting assistant secretary for information analysis at the DHS, said the threat posed by this group remains one of the top domestic terrorism concerns.
On Sept. 4, the department issued a warning to security personnel suggesting an al-Qaeda attack was in the works. It offered a number of potential threats; atop the list were concerns terrorists would again hijack airplanes and use them as weapons. But the precise nature of the threat remains unclear.
Because of the vague nature of these threats, law enforcement personnel are encouraged to remain particularly vigilant, and to continue to be on the lookout for anything that seems out of the ordinary.
-- The Department of Homeland Security; The Associated Press