The information that terrorists are targeting the U.S. and Paris subway systems is questionable, but transportation is always a top target for terrorists, says Nick Casale, former director of counterterrorism for New York City's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
"The timing of it and the root that the information took was quite questionable," Casale told J.D. Hayworth and Francesca Page on "America's Forum" on
Newsmax TV Friday.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Thursday that he had "credible" evidence that the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist group was planning attacks on
U.S. and Paris subway systems.
However, U.S. intelligence officials said that they could not confirm the threat.
The former head of New York City's MTA counterterrorism office said that ISIS prisoners, who allegedly disclosed the information to Iraqi officials, were not "debriefed by U.S. agents and then after that, the threat was not analyzed by U.S. agents and just passed directly onto the media without going through the normal chain of command and that is somewhat questionable."
However, Casale explained that "the number one target of terrorists is transportation."
"Two-hundred-fifty attacks have occurred in the last 10 years — they all were against some form of transportation," he said.
"All we have to do is look back at Madrid, the London underground and Moscow subways," he added. "We know that terrorists want to attack anything to do with transportation first and foremost before they move onto strategic infrastructure."
In order to prevent terrorist attacks on transportation, Casale told Newsmax that "there's no quick fix type of approach."
"It has to be numerous layers of security that make the overall armor to protect the system," he explained.
The reason why transportation is the top target for terrorists is "because it's the most porous system there is."
"There's no way that we could check or screen people getting on the New York City subways — there's over 350 stations," he said. "It's not a controlled atmosphere like getting on an aircraft or getting on a rail line that goes from Chicago to New York without stops."
"We have to have a presence of police where if somebody does attack they know that we will immediately respond to such an attack," he added.
But, the former counterterrorism official said "that we have to look to our fellow comrades in counterterrorism, and that's the Joint Terrorist Task Force, who's responsible for investigating the alleged potential terrorists and feed us the information."
In addition, "we also need technology," and this is one area that is lacking.
"Despite all the money being spent, we're not where we should be," Casale explained.
He says that we need "technologies for cameras and for censors and blast resistance liners for underwater tunnels and flood gates."
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