WASHINGTON - As the United States prepares for the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a date al-Qaida has cited as a potential opportunity to strike again, security is intensifying at airports, train stations, nuclear plants and major sporting arenas around the country.
"At this point there is no specific credible threat, but that doesn't mean we are relaxing at all in terms of our vigilance," said John Brennan, President Obama's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser.
"We are concerned about the lone actors that are out there; we are concerned that al-Qaida or others may try to take advantage of the 9/11 anniversary events," Brennan told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
"We're looking at all different angles: what might have been planned for a while, we're still looking for indications that there might be something out there, but we are very interested in seeing whether or not there's any indication whatsoever of a lone actor, and that's much more difficult to pick up."
The security ramp-up around the country underscores a shift in policing focus since the attacks a decade ago. Officers and emergency responders have been trained to detect suspicious activity that could uncover a terror plot, aware that the threat has changed in part from an organized large-scale attack using airliners as missiles to the potential for smaller, less sophisticated operations carried out by affiliated groups or individuals.
Metropolitan areas are on alert.
"Throughout the city, whether it's the ports or the airports or venues or whatever, you will see an increase in awareness, an increase in resources at strategic places," said Mark Eisenman, assistant chief over the homeland security command for the Police Department in Houston, home to the country's largest port. "We are certainly aware of the threats and the concerns, and we're much more willing to share information than probably ever in the past."
Some of the first information gleaned from Osama bin Laden's compound after he was killed in May indicated that as recently as February 2010, al-Qaida considered plans to attack the U.S. on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 airliner strikes. But counterterror officials say they believe that planning never got beyond the initial phase, and they have no recent intelligence pointing to an active plot.
In Phoenix, police will be doing more patrols around the region's nuclear power plant, airports and other critical sites that, if attacked, could affect the city, said Bill Wickers, sergeant at the homeland defense bureau of the Phoenix Police Department.
Messages on the department's internal television station include reminders of what constitutes suspicious activity, such as someone drawing a diagram of a piece of important infrastructure or someone wearing a heavy coat while it's 115 degrees outside.
