Thursday, September 8, 2011

Jihadist chatter ramping up the closer we get to 9-11


Washington (CNN) -- Intelligence officials have picked up "lots of chatter" on jihadi websites and elsewhere about the impending 10th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, but nothing yet that warrants issuing a threat advisory, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday.

Nonetheless, the department will be at a heightened level of readiness as the nation commemorates the anniversary, "staffing up" Federal Air Marshals and other agencies.
"We don't have something that would reach that standard (of a credible threat), but we still have lots of chatter out there. And we take every bit of that seriously and are tracking it down," Napolitano said.

"In the intel world, there's lots of chatter, and we're taking it all seriously. And should there be something that rises to the level where I have to issue a threat advisory, we will issue a threat advisory."

Napolitano said it is not uncommon to see increased chatter before major events. "We know it's an iconic day to al Qaeda, in part because of what was found at the (Osama bin Laden) compound. So we are preparing accordingly," she said.

"I don't want to give those (details) out because I don't want to tell the bad guys exactly what we're doing," Napolitano said. "But I think it's fair to say that in addition to asking citizens to be vigilant and so forth, that we have ourselves leaned forward and have made sure that we are doing all that we can from the DHS perspective."

The Homeland Security chief's comments came in response to questions at a briefing with reporters in Washington

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