TERROR UPDATE – AT 9:06 A.M. ET:  Although the terror plots that have made the news in the last three of four days aren't, to the best of our knowledge, aimed at the American homeland, serious precautions are being taken.  From ABC News:

U.S. authorities plan a law enforcement surge this week along Amtrak routes, an exercise called RailSafe, and the heads of the country's biggest mass transit systems were briefed today on the possible terror threat, all part of what is being called an abundance of caution.

Amtrak is holding a high-security exercise Friday in which uniformed officers will be a visible presence on national transit routes. RailSafe will include all the local police agencies along the Amtrak routes involved in the exercise.

"If al Qaeda is planning simultaneous attacks in Europe," said Richard Clarke, former White House national security official and now an ABC News consultant, "there's nothing to say they could not also include the US on that list of simultaneous attacks."

COMMENT:  US. authorities have been playing down the threat to the United States, but the fact is that neither we nor the Europeans know where a strike is planned...because we don't know where the terrorist squads are located.

What strikes me is the sheer level of seriousness about this latest Al Qaeda threat.  Of course, the president has yet to address it publicly.  Look, maybe he can says some things about not being judgmental if terrorists try to blow up the Golden Gate.  It's legitimate grievance, that's all.

October 5, 2010