The five sticks of dynamite found in a busy Paris department store Tuesday highlighted shopping centers’ vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks, particularly during the busy holiday season.
While there are no specific threats known to security officials in the U.S., potential attacks are always a concern, particularly at this time of year.
“We continue to closely monitor the French investigation into the matter,” said Laura Keehner, press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “At this time, there is no specific or credible information about an imminent threat to the homeland.”
The dynamite in Paris apparently was left by a previously unknown group that is calling itself the Afghan Revolutionary Front. The group warned a French news agency that it had left explosives at Printemps, a popular store typically packed with holiday shoppers. The explosives had no detonators and no one was injured, but French authorities vowed to increase security before Christmas.
“In recent years, the Justice Department and FBI have disrupted plots in this country designed to target shopping malls during the holiday season. We are keenly aware of this potential threat and remain extremely vigilant,” said Dean Boyd, spokesman for the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
“As a routine matter, we remind the public to be both thoughtful and vigilant of their surroundings, and to report anything suspicious to authorities.”
To date, a successful attack targeting shopping malls or centers has not been carried out in the U.S.
The FBI received information last year that al Qaeda had planned to bomb shopping malls in Chicago and Los Angeles during the Christmas season. There was no information that it was a credible threat, and no attacks were attempted.
But in December 2006, federal authorities charged a 22-year-old Illinois man who planned to set off grenades in a shopping mall during the holiday season. Derrick Shareef was arrested after he met with an undercover FBI agent to obtain four grenades and a handgun, according to the Justice Department.
Authorities say Shareef was an associate of Hassan Abujihaad, a former member of the U.S. Navy who later was convicted of terrorism and espionage charges. Shareef also made a videotape in which he said he was prepared to die for Allah.
He was sentenced in September to 35 years in prison.
In 2003, authorities say, a Somali man living in Columbus, Ohio, conspired with an admitted al Qaeda operative to blow up a shopping mall on the day after Thanksgiving, typically the biggest retail day of the year. Nuradin Adbi was arrested before he could carry out the plot and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Supervisory Special Agent Richard Kolko, an FBI spokesman, said “soft targets,” those with little security, such as malls, certainly have been identified by terrorists. “The FBI works with our partners to help provide everybody with information and intelligence to prevent any type of terrorist attack in the future,” he said.
Michael A. Cohen, a foreign policy senior research fellow at the centrist New America Foundation, said shopping malls are quite vulnerable to such attacks.
“There’s no way to protect against it,” he said. “There’s no way to protect every shopping mall in the country.”
He suggested that factors other than law enforcement have prevented al Qaeda from frequently targeting malls and shopping centers.
“I think one of the reasons why it hasn’t happened here is al Qaeda seems to prefer larger operations - 9/11 is a good example,” he said. “I don’t think [a mall] has enough symbolism for them.”
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