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NY subway terror threat emerges on busy travel day
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-27 09:19 A Pakistani immigrant was arrested and convicted for a scheme to blow up the subway station at Herald Square in Midtown in 2004. There was also a planned cyanide attack on the subways by al-Qaida operatives that authorities say was called off in 2002; another aborted al-Qaida plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge in 2003; and a plot to bomb underwater train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan, which was broken up in 2006 by several arrests overseas.
Three years ago, authorities weighed reports that bombers might try to use baby strollers to bring explosives into city trains. Many security officials later concluded that was a false alarm. NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said they have received an unsubstantiated report and as a result have "deployed additional resources in the mass transit system." While federal agencies regularly issue all sorts of advisory warnings, the language of this one is particularly blunt. Intelligence and homeland security officials are working with local authorities to try to corroborate the information "and will continue to investigate every possible lead," the memo says. Rep. Peter King said authorities "have very real specifics as to who it is and where the conversation took place and who conducted it." "It certainly involves suicide bombing attacks on the mass transit system in and around New York and it's plausible, but there's no evidence yet that it's in the process of being carried out," King said. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the warning was issued "out of an abundance of caution going into this holiday season." No changes are being made to the nation's threat level, or for transit systems at this time, he said. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko confirmed only that his agency and the Homeland Security Department issued a bulletin Tuesday night to state and local authorities, and the information is being reviewed. |
