Are Terrorists Planning to Use Copters To Blow Up Targets in NYC?

Days after the Department of Homeland Security warned citizens in New York, Washington DC and Newark, New Jersey that terrorists had targeted buildings in their cities for terrorist attack, new information has come to light which points to helicopters as a possible means of attack.

Pakistani officials allegedly have told intelligence agents in the US that al Qaeda may be planning on hijacking tourist helicopters, possibly to use as a weapon as the jets had been on September 11.

New security measures are being considered, including screenings like the ones for passenger flights, but for now no helicopter flights have been cancelled.

Another means by which terrorists may try to cause havoc is to load a passenger limosine with explosives and drive them into building garages and detonate them.  This may have been the idea being considered by the al Qaeda members who were doing surveillance on the financial buildings around the US.  One name being linked to this plot is Adnan el-Shukrijumah, a Saudi born associate of Abu Issa al-Hindi, who is in custody in Britain and may be the coordinator of the surveillance.  Authorities believe that Shukrijumah may have provided information about the New York Stock Exchange, one of the buildings mentioned in the intelligence reports.

Intelligence officials have discovered videotape which appears to be surveillance of landmarks in several US cities.

It was recently revealed that two years ago, videotape was found in the possession of a suspected al Qaeda mamber which contained images of several Las Vegas casinos.  This was not revealed to the public in 2002, when the tape was found, because officials could not determine any specific threat.  The tape, however, is mostly exterior shots of the casinos MGM Grand, Excalibur and New York, New York.

More recently, a man with possible ties to terrorists has been arrested and discovered to be in possession of videotape of lanmarks in many southern US cities, including Austin, Dallas, Charlotte, Atlanta, Houston and New Orleans.  Kamran Akhtar was arrested on immigrations violations, and there is no evidence of a concrete plot against any of the landmarks, but it does suggest that smaller US cities may not be immune to terrorist threat.