Terrorist Threat Talk Confounds Analysts

U.S. officials are telling holiday travelers to be vigilant about the threat of terrorist attacks, a warning prompted in part by a raised level of ominous intercepted communications that hasn’t quieted for months. The significance of the sustained level of intelligence “chatter” is unclear, the officials said. Homeland Security officials said they did not expect the national threat warning to be raised from yellow — the midpoint on its five-color scale — to orange unless more specific intelligence was received. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, analysts have observed a pattern of spikes in the chatter and other threat intelligence suggesting possible new assaults. Those spikes were always followed by periods of relative calm. But since late summer, that pattern has been broken. The threat intelligence has poured in at a sustained rate, officials said, but it has been frustratingly short of specifics — no credible information to suggest a time, target or method of attack. Full Story