The threat of a terrorist attack on the US still exists, but counterterrorism officials say there is a conspicuous lack of intelligence "chatter" being picked up.
It's a stark contrast to last year's holiday season, when there was chatter indicating a plot could be in the works. The nation was under heightened alert and a number of foreign flights to America were canceled because of specific threats.
US and foreign intelligence and law enforcement services report a continuing stream of vague, lower-level threats from al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups against American interests at home and abroad. But officials say nothing specific and credible has emerged in recent months that would require the government to raise the risk level above yellow, or "elevated," the midpoint on the five-level threat scale.
"It's a little bit like a duck on a pond. You've got a lot going on under the surface but you don't have any big waves," FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence chief Gary Bald said in an interview Thursday.
Just before Christmas last year, the threat level was raised to orange, or "high," and flights to the US from Paris, London, Scotland and elsewhere were canceled over several days. The FBI, Homeland Security Department and other agencies scrambled to check names booked on those flights for possible al-Qaeda operatives either trying to get into the US or to target the flights themselves.
In those cases, US and European officials were acting on difficult-to-obtain intelligence singling out specific flights of concern. But even then, no arrests were announced and it was unclear if any plots were thwarted.
Nothing like that has surfaced this year, despite a general concern that terrorists might try to disrupt the holidays or take advantage of hectic travel times to mount an attack.
"We have no information about specific plots as we enter the holiday season," Homeland Security Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said.
Still, officials and outside experts say the relative calm and lack of an al-Qaeda attack on the US homeland since Sept. 11, 2001, should not be viewed as evidence of decisive victory over terrorists. Al-Qaeda is known to plan attacks patiently and could have operatives already in the US primed for a long-awaited signal.
"When we're in a state of high alert, that's when things are not going to happen," said Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security.
"It's when we're not looking, when we're overconfident, that something will happen," he said.
The FBI, CIA and other agencies have carefully analyzed audio and video communications from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for clues about plots or timing. Although bin Laden's most recent statement focused on attacking foreign targets in Saudi Arabia, American officials aren't letting down their guard.
"I think it would be incredibly naive for us to think that someone won't try another attack," Bald said.
With a week left in the year, the war on terrorism domestically in 2004 was most remarkable for what did not happen. After the threat involving foreign flights abated in January, officials grew increasingly concerned about a possible plot to disrupt the US elections, but nothing occurred. The terror threat level was raised for specific financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington after discovery overseas of detailed -- albeit mainly old -- surveillance of key buildings. That threat level was lowered last month after no incidents occurred.
Looking ahead, officials are planning exceptionally heavy security for the Jan. 20 inauguration of President George W. Bush. Security also will be tight for the Feb. 6 Super Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida.
There are currently no specific, credible threats of terror plots against any of those events. Despite the post-Sept. 11 advances in intelligence gathering and information sharing, officials acknowledge the silence could simply mean that the government isn't looking in the right places.
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
‘DISAPPEARED COMPLETELY’: The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a water shortage Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of gray rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago. At an altitude of 4,000m, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change. A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future. She hiked six hours to get to
The number of people in Japan aged 100 or older has hit a record high of more than 95,000, almost 90 percent of whom are women, government data showed yesterday. The figures further highlight the slow-burning demographic crisis gripping the world’s fourth-biggest economy as its population ages and shrinks. As of Sept. 1, Japan had 95,119 centenarians, up 2,980 year-on-year, with 83,958 of them women and 11,161 men, the Japanese Ministry of Health said in a statement. On Sunday, separate government data showed that the number of over-65s has hit a record high of 36.25 million, accounting for 29.3 percent of