US Agencies Chase Down Potential Inauguration Day Terror Threat

US intelligence services chased reports of a potential terrorist threat Tuesday as President Barack Obama was sworn in before massive crowds amid an unprecedented security lockdown.

Officials were tightlipped about the seriousness of the terrorist threat, with the Department of Homeland Security saying the information was “of limited specificity and uncertain credibility.”

But a Homeland Security official, who asked not to be identified, said it was linked to a militant Somali group called al-Shabab.

“The FBI has acknowledged publicly that there has been a lot of incoming information, all of which we are running to ground. This is the only specific bulletin that has gone out,” the official said.

With an estimated two million or more people jammed into the heart of Washington to celebrate the inauguration of the first African American president, security officials braced for a potential security nightmare.

But the most vulnerable moment of the day passed without incident when Obama and his wife Michelle stepped down from a slow moving motorcade and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue to the deafening cheers of the multitudes.

Secret Service agents in black coats walked the route, at the ready as Obama’s motorcade crept from the Capitol to the White House.

The Obamas moved through a city blanketed by more than 12,500 active troops and military reservists, thousands of metropolitan police with reinforcements from 99 law enforcement agencies around the nation.

via S ource – Yahoo News.

The Doomsday Memo – Administration Prepares For Worst-Case Terror Scenarios

“In the post-9/11 world, this isn’t just good manners, good government; it’s a national security responsibility,” said outgoing White House chief of staff Josh Bolton.

So this past week, outgoing Bolton and his Obama counterpart Rahm Emanuel took part in something that has never happened before: a mock homeland security exercise for top incoming and outgoing officials.

The premise: In the wake of train and bus bombings in London and Madrid, how would the U.S. government deal with bomb attacks simultaneously targeting transportation and other major systems in numerous American cities?

“We need to train, exercise, and execute as a team,” said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. “And we built the process based on a lot of some of the tough lessons learned over the last few years that now works.”

But mock domestic attacks, such as one staged in Seattle last year to simulate how rescue workers would respond to a dirty nuclear bomb set off in an American city, are just part of the planning.

Memories of the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa have led the National Security Counsel to create a memo suggesting options for dealing with future attacks on U.S. facilities abroad – just one of about a dozen scenarios dealing with possible overseas crises that could impact the United States.

“As far as I know, this is the first time that policy contingency papers have been created,” NSC spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, adding that his boss, National Security Adviser Steven Hadley, came up with the idea.

via Source – CBS News.

Inauguration – Tips To FBI About Suspicious Activity On The Rise

The FBI said Saturday it is receiving more and more tips about suspicious activities and items as the inauguration approaches, though there have been no specific or credible threats.

“The closer you get to the event, the more threat streams come in. People become a little bit more aware and want to do the right thing and pick up the phone and call us and tell us,” said John Perren, the special agent in charge for counterterrorism at the FBI’s Washington field office.

“Agencies want to forward us everything they have, just to ensure that this inauguration will be the safest inauguration there has ever been,” Perren said.

The FBI is one of 58 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that are part of the largest inaugural security operation in history.

There is no credible intelligence, at this point, that indicates terrorists plan to disrupt the events. But intelligence officials are concerned about potential attack scenarios, such as a car bomb or other explosive devices.

Should such an incident occur over the next three days, the bureau is ready with emergency response equipment that stretches down a city block on 5th Street.

There is a 40-foot bomb truck to handle suspicious items with a bomb-detecting robot that performs jobs considered too dangerous for a person. The FBI has a separate truck with a 12,000-pound blue steel ball that is strong enough to contain blasts of explosives.

There is also a mobile command center with seven laptops, 15 televisions, six cell phones, a microwave, mini fridge and 12-cup coffee maker; an armored assault vehicle; and evidence response team trucks to process a crime scene.

The FBI will have as many as 1,000 employees helping to secure the inauguration, with 155 two-person intelligence teams dressed in plain clothes and strategically placed to look for specific threats.

“We’re very, very confident that if anything happens, we know how to respond to it,” Perren said.

via Source

Feds Cite Racist Chatter for ‘Higher State of Alert’ in Inauguration

Federal agents are on “a higher state of alert” because of hate talk by white supremacists about Barack Obama’s Inauguration, officials told the New York Daily News on Tuesday.

“That chatter is out there, no doubt about it,” one senior FBI agent in Washington told me this afternoon, adding that no credible plots against the 56th Presidential Inauguration have been detected.

The Bureau has ordered agents in all 56 field offices to “shake the trees” in advance of the Jan. 20 swearing-in of the 44th President, who will become the first African-American to occupy the Oval Office. “They’re talking to sources to determine if there is any threat information in regard to the Inauguration,” the FBI source said.

“Everybody in law enforcement dealing with that particular white supremacist ‘clientele’ is on a higher state of alert,” a senior agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The News.

The ATF has expertise infiltrating white supremacist groups. A classified threat assessment for the Inauguration by the FBI and Homeland Security Department citing agitated hate groups was sent to police agencies this week.

Counterterrorism officials have also picked up chatter from Islamic militants, but the agitated domestic hate groups are “the big concern,” said another FBI official.

But Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told reporters at a briefing with local officials: “We have no credible intelligence to suggest a credible threat to Obama’s Inauguration.”

During Obama’s campaign, white racists in Colorado and Tennessee were charged in separate plots against the candidat

via Counterterrorism Blog