New York City is the world's No. 1 terrorist target, but that doesn't mean the city isn't safe, says John Miller, New York City Deputy Police Commissioner for its Counter Terrorism Unit.
With the 9/11 anniversary coming up on Thursday, the U.S. Open continuing through Monday and U.N. representatives arriving in a week, "This is our busy season," Miller admitted Sunday on "The Cats Roundtable" on
New York's 970 AM The Answer.
Al-Qaida threatened to attack the tennis tournament, but Miller said law enforcement is a "very capable entity" taking care of it.
"There is a threat, we understand that," he said.
Despite the threat, Miller noted that New York remains the world's largest tourist destination because people understand "we are the safest city."
Asked by host John Catsimatidis which is the bigger threat, the Islamic State (ISIS) or al-Qaida, Miller said that al-Qaida and the lone wolves it hopes to inspire are the bigger threats on U.S. soil. ISIS is focused on capturing and holding land in Iraq and Syria to establish a nation-state, he said.
A former journalist, Miller interviewed former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in 1998 before he was well-known to the public. Miller's purpose was to ask if al-Qaida had been responsible for the first World Trade Center attack earlier in the decade. Bin Laden, however, wanted to use the interview to declare war on America.
Bin Laden predicted a "black day" for America that would change things in the country forever, marking a bigger fight for the country than it had ever engaged in with the Soviet Union. Miller said bin Laden's word's seemed preposterous at the time, but came to prove prophetic on Sept. 11, 2001.
"We mis-estimated the capabilities of the non-nation-state," Miller said.
Al-Qaida is less powerful under Ayman al-Zawahiri's leadership, Miller said, and it was important that the United States killed bin Laden.
"The killing [of] Osama bin Laden was significant," he said, noting that there is a certain stock in telling the world you can't lead a group that would pull off 9/11 and live for a significant amount of time.
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