While US officials say publicly there is no specific threat of a terror attack, behind the scenes law enforcement officials tell ABC News there are plans for a major security surge at airports and transportation hubs in advance of next week’s anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death.
The precautions are based on intelligence reports that al Qaeda is determined to avenge the death of bin Laden, killed by Navy SEALs last May, with a focus on aviation targets.
Of greatest concern to US officials is al Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and its master bombmaker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, who has survived repeated US efforts to kill him.
It was al-Asiri, according to US officials, who designed the so-called “underwear bomb” worn by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to bring down Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. Abdulmutallab got the bomb past airport security but failed to detonate it successfully aboard the plane.
Officials say al-Asiri also designed the bombs hidden in printers that were shipped from Yemen to Chicago. The bombs were intercepted in Dubai and the UK after they’d been placed aboard cargo planes.
In a joint intelligence bulletin issued overnight, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security said the Yemen group “intends to advance plots along multiple fronts, including renewed efforts to target Western aviation.”
“It doesn’t take a great number of people to do the kind of attack that we had on September 11,” said Richard Clarke, an ABC News consultant and former White House counterterrorism official. “That was less than two dozen people and it’s clear that they have that number available in places like Yemen today.”
Threats of a revenge attack have been monitored by the US ever since last year’s raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Among the papers found in his home were repeated references to the importance of attacks timed to coincide with anniversaries.
Said Clarke, “I think the major issue for al Qaeda is to do something, to prove that they’re still alive, to do some fairly major event or series of attacks that prove that they’re not down, they’re not out.”
As a result, American law enforcement and White House officials say travelers at airports in the US and Europe should expect to see enhanced security over the next several days.
In a related development, the details of how President Barack Obama approved the attack by the Navy SEAL on bin Laden’s apartment in Pakistan have emerged.
So also has Pakistani officials confirmed that bin Laden’s wives and children have been deported to Saudi Arabia from Pakistan.
Bin Laden didn’t know it, but when then-CIA Director Leon Panetta jotted down this “memo for the record” on his official stationery, the world’s most wanted fugitive had just days left to live.
The document is part of Time magazine’s package of stories on the one-year anniversary of the Navy SEAL raid that killed the al-Qaida chief in his hideout in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad.
The magazine helpfully transcribed Panetta’s scrawled message to historians:
Received phone call from (National Security Adviser) Tom Donilon who stated that the President made a decision with regard to AC1 (Abbottabad Compound 1). The decision is to proceed with the assault. The timing, operational decision making and control are in Admiral McRaven’s hands. The approval is provided on the risk profile presented to the President. Any additional risks are to be brought back to the President for his consideration. The direction is to go in and get bin Laden and if he is not there, to get out. Those instructions were conveyed to Admiral McRaven at approximately 10:45 a.m.
The Pakistani government has said that bin Laden’s three widows and his children have been deported to Saudi Arabia.
A statement said the family left early on Friday to the “country of their choice, Saudi Arabia.”
The family was detained by Pakistani authorities immediately after the pre-dawn American raid on May 2, 2011, that killed the al-Qaida leader.
The US commandos took bin Laden’s body, which they later buried at sea, but left his family behind.