U.S. intelligence officials have uncovered “credible” information about more Yemen-based terror plots to strike inside the United States, Fox News reported Thursday, citing three officials.
Federal authorities have been “picking things up from sources” related to new efforts by al Qaeda in Yemen to attack Americans, according to one official.
Newly gathered intelligence suggests al Qaeda in Yemen is “adapting” to security measures put in place at U.S. airports and elsewhere since the failed terror attempt on Christmas Day, another official said.
All three officials emphasized that while there is credible information, authorities have not discovered any specific intelligence about plots to attack the United States.
In fact, one official said, there’s a debate within the intelligence community about what the new information actually means.
“There’s a constant threat from Al Qaeda in Yemen,” the official said.
Al Qaeda in Yemen and the al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, known as al-Shabaab (translated as Mujahadeen Youth), are described as having “shared interests and shared goals.” US counterterrorism officials believe there are now clear connections between the two terrorist groups and are not ruling out the possibility that they are working together to attack US interests, Fox News reported.
All this comes three weeks after a 23-year-old Nigerian man boarded a U.S.-bound commercial airliner in Amsterdam and allegedly tried to blow up the aircraft while landing in Detroit. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is said to have boasted to investigators after his arrest that there were up to 20 more young men like him being prepared in Yemen to use the same technique to blow up airliners.
US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced additional security measures for airports Thursday.
“In view of the event of Christmas Day we must remain vigilant about the continued threat we face from al Qaeda,” Napolitano said in a statement.
“We are taking an additional set of aviation security precautions to protect the American people,” she said.
Those new security measures include enhanced random screening, additional federal air marshals on certain flight routes and adding new individuals to the terrorist watch list system.