US intelligence services chased reports of a potential terrorist threat Tuesday as President Barack Obama was sworn in before massive crowds amid an unprecedented security lockdown.
Officials were tightlipped about the seriousness of the terrorist threat, with the Department of Homeland Security saying the information was “of limited specificity and uncertain credibility.”
But a Homeland Security official, who asked not to be identified, said it was linked to a militant Somali group called al-Shabab.
“The FBI has acknowledged publicly that there has been a lot of incoming information, all of which we are running to ground. This is the only specific bulletin that has gone out,” the official said.
With an estimated two million or more people jammed into the heart of Washington to celebrate the inauguration of the first African American president, security officials braced for a potential security nightmare.
But the most vulnerable moment of the day passed without incident when Obama and his wife Michelle stepped down from a slow moving motorcade and walked along Pennsylvania Avenue to the deafening cheers of the multitudes.
Secret Service agents in black coats walked the route, at the ready as Obama’s motorcade crept from the Capitol to the White House.
The Obamas moved through a city blanketed by more than 12,500 active troops and military reservists, thousands of metropolitan police with reinforcements from 99 law enforcement agencies around the nation.
Large parts of the center of the city were cordoned off to civilian vehicular traffic.
Humvees were used to block streets, and national guardsmen were posted on street corners while police and Secret Service agents watched for trouble from behind security barriers.
Major highways and bridges from Virginia into downtown Washington were closed to all but buses — the first time in inauguration history.
But masses of people made their way into the downtown area on foot in a boyant outpouring that overcame human bottlenecks, confusion and mixed signals from authorities.
Not a single person had been arrested by mid-afternoon, said Mary Margaret Walker, a spokeswoman at the Secret Service Joint Information Center.
The District of Columbia Department of Health reported there had been 349 hospital visits, six of them people suffering from hypothermia from the cold.
First aid tents on the National Mall had visits from another 217 people, Walker said.
The Department of Homeland Security has designated the inauguration a national special security event.
The US military flew air patrols, manned surface-to-air weapons systems, and patrolled the Potomac River with gunboats.
Specialized military units were also mobilized to assess chemical and biological threats, and organize large-scale medical support in the event of an attack.
Authorities reported five violations of restricted airspace in the days leading up to the innauguration, mainly when Obama rode to Washington in a train from Philadelphia.
But no unauthorized aircraft strayed over Washington on inauguration day, said Mike Kucharek, a spokesman for the US Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Command.
“We’ve got absolutely nothing for today. No diverts, no scrambles, no nothing,” he said.
Officials would say little about the potential terrorist threat attributed to al-Shabah, an Islamist group that emerged in a two-year-old struggle for power in Somalia and is classified as a foreign terrorist group by the US State Department.
Some Somalis living in the United States were recently reported to have returned home for training by the group, officials said.
“The FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (including the USSS) and the intelligence community are coordinating with other law enforcement authorities to investigate and analyze recently received information about a potential threat on inauguration day,” Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said.
“Authorities at all levels are vigorously pursuing any lead relating to this threat information,” Knocke said, adding Obama’s transition team had been briefed.
AFP
