Feds Warned of Second Christmas Day Attack

Was there almost a second Christmas Day attack? Early last December, overseas intelligence alerted the US of a plot to blow up a bomb in New York City on Christmas, according to an FBI report acquired by Fox News. “The final target of the attack was not known, but extremist members had allegedly discussed restaurants and night clubs located in New York City,” an FBI assistant legal attaché in London wrote.

The extremists had planned to smuggle bomb materials from Kenya to London in a shipment of khat leaf. From there a “Caucasian British Muslim” would get the materials onto a New York-bound flight, where a Somali man would carry out the attack. An FBI spokesman says the plot probably went nowhere. “Out of an abundance of caution, they pass the information on,” he says. “Most of it turns out to be just chatter.” But one anonymous counterterror official was outraged. We “were aware of something for Christmas, and didn’t ring the bell," he says, complaining that stepped up security might have stopped the would-be airplane bomber earlier.
(More Christmas Day stories.)