Terror expert throws ‘cold water’ on concerns of a July Fourth attack

O’Hanlon: Be alert, but security officials are being overly cautious

As the Fourth of July draws near, local law enforcement agencies around the country are bracing for potential terrorist activity in response to a somewhat ominous federal intelligence bulletin. But while some government officials have expressed serious concerns about the threat of attack this holiday weekend, terror expert Michael O’Hanlon told Yahoo News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga he’s “dubious” about whether there’s actually any reason to worry.

“I would just remind people of the tendency of officials that, if there is any doubt or reason for concern, they tend to prefer to sound a little more worried,” said O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, referring to statements like the one made by former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell on Monday that he “wouldn’t be surprised if we’re sitting here a week from today talking about an attack over the weekend in the United States.”

“It just makes you seem more prudent. It makes you seem smarter. You don’t have to worry that you forgot to tell people to keep up their guard,” O’Hanlon said. “But it has the effect of sometimes overstating the threat.”

The intelligence bulletin in question, issued by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, did not refer to any specific threats or causes for concern. Instead, according to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, it was simply meant to heighten local law enforcement’s awareness of ongoing terrorist plots — by extremists both at home and abroad — and to encourage officers to be “vigilant and prepared” ahead of the weekend’s festivities.

But after three separate attacks in France, Kuwait, and Tunisia on Friday alone, not to mention a shooting that killed nine at a South Carolina church the week before, the bulletin seemed to suggest more than the average level of pre-holiday precaution. The suggestion was bolstered by officials such as Morrell and Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

“I would say there’s probably more concern now than any time since Sept. 11,” the Republican from New York said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “Generally, they don’t put those statements out so far in advance unless there’s reason for concern.”

Though the Islamic State has yet to be implicated in all three of Friday’s attacks, King said in the same interview that “ISIS is incomparable as far as terrorist organizations as far as being able to reach... They can reach the disaffected, they can reach the deranged, they can also reach the ideological community.”

O’Hanlon, however, said that while Islamic State’s “military momentum” and “attractiveness to many of the world’s disaffected angry young men, especially of the Islamic persuasion,” is certainly a problem, they tend to currently be operating in “lone-wolf style” and that U.S. intelligence makes larger plots practically unfeasible.

“The bigger plots we tend to see coming, because we still have some elements of the Patriot Act, despite the protests of civil libertarians,” O’Hanlon said. “We still have a lot of very good U.S. intelligence capabilities, and when there are multiple communications that are necessary for a larger group to prepare an attack, we tend to have a good chance of learning about it.”

As far as this weekend goes, O’Hanlon told Golodryga that he’s going to “throw a little cold water” on mounting July Fourth fears.

“Sometimes intelligence and law enforcement personnel prefer to warn us,” he said. “On the one hand, that’s never a bad idea if it means that we’re just a little bit more vigilant. On the other hand, you hate to see people’s anxiety levels go up unnecessarily.”

“I haven’t seen the classified intelligence,” he added. “But I’m dubious that there will be anything big and frankly somewhat skeptical that there will be anything at all.”

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