New York City is preparing for an “elevated threat environment” on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks Saturday because of the recent Kabul airport bombing and increased al Qaeda propaganda, though there are currently no specific threats, officials said.
“We have developed a robust security overlay for the upcoming ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks,” Martine Materasso, chief of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau, said Wednesday during the mayor’s daily press briefing.
“We will be using all of our counterterrorism resources to ensure a safe event,” she added.
Those tools include explosive detection canines, uniformed police presence by the former site of the Twin Towers, heavy weapons teams, explosives detection instruments, a bomb squad at the site, license plate readers, radiological and chemical sensors and surveillance cameras.
“It’s 20 years later but we still feel it so intensely,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “We have a major anniversary coming up and the eyes of the world will be on New York City, which means we have to take extraordinary precautions to protect all New Yorkers.”
De Blasio noted, “As of this moment there is no specific and credible threat,” but vowed to “have deployments all over New York City” in the days leading up to Saturday’s anniversary.
“We are watching, because we know the ways of the terrorist,” he added. “We understand this anniversary is going to be on their minds as well.”
John Miller, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism, said the mayor received a security briefing Tuesday.
Miller explained why police officials are preparing for “an elevated threat environment.”
“We’ve seen the call to action this year be louder and better organized from terrorist groups that we’ve seen in prior years,” Miller said noting the major Sept. 11, 2001, anniversary, American troops pulling out of Afghanistan, and the return of the Taliban in that country as well as the recent suicide bombing at the Kabul airport.
Miller also listed “significant propaganda” from al Qaeda including a new issue of the terror group’s magazine Wolves of Manhattan that glorifies the members who hijacked two airplanes and flew them into the Twin Towers.
“We are paying attention to that drumbeat,” Miller said.