ISIS Targets Major Tourist Attraction on U.S. Soil, Giving Detailed Instructions

  by Sean Brown /

The New York City Police Department is on alert after receiving information leading them to believe that the Islamic State terrorist group could attack Times Square.
Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Tuesday that the Islamic State has mastered the use of social media as a means in which to get extremists around the world to perpetrate acts of terrorism, according to the New York Daily News. The information they discovered was written on a blog post that the Islamic State claims to own.



“This is the evolving world of terrorism,” Bratton said. “We are staying ahead of it. We are focusing on it, and I believe that we are as prepared as any entity could be to deal with the threats. But the reality is that we are living in a new era of potential terrorism.”
The post found on the blog urged “lone wolf” terrorists to detonate a bomb in Times Square, and it gave detailed instructions on making a bomb “in the kitchen.”
The group wrote on the blog, “Times Square is considered one of the most important and famous tourist attractions in the city,” suggesting that an attack there would have a devastating effect. This is something that Bratton’s department is taking seriously.
“We are quite concerned with the capabilities of ISIS, much more so than Al Qaeda was ever able to project,” Bratton said.
On Sept. 11, the anniversary of the tragic attacks on the World Trade Center, Bratton told CBS that the Islamic State would be more likely to carry out smaller attacks rather than a single large-scale attack like what brought down the Twin Towers.
“Al-Qaeda was always looking for the big events … ISIS would be much more into the inspiration of the lone wolf. ISIS would be much more into the solo actor,” he said. “They’re very sophisticated in their capabilities through their videos, through their social media, through their magazines. They’re a very sophisticated operation seeking to recruit, more so even than al-Qaeda was over the years.”
Bratton’s fear is that the militants fighting in the Middle East with the Islamic State will return home and bring their bloody tactics with them.
“That is the terrible new reality,” he said. “There are thousands of potential fighters over there who will exit that conflict. The potential for them to come back and do terrorist acts here is very real and has expanded significantly the terrorist threat.”
NYPD spokesman Stephen Davis said that his department is aware of the blog posts and that they have “taken it into consideration in terms of our overall security posture.” However, he downplayed the possibility that the Islamic State might strike Times Square in the near future.
“We do not consider it to be an overt and direct threat,” he said.
Do you think that this is something that should be taken seriously?