No credible threats seen against pope
Secret Service not ‘overly concerned’
Less than a week before Pope Francis begins his highly anticipated trip to the USA, Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy said Wednesday there are no credible threats against the pontiff.
“There is nothing that we’re overly concerned about,” Clancy said in an interview with USA TODAY as authorities prepared to set in motion a massive, rolling security operation that will shadow Francis’ journey from the capital to New York before his departure Sept. 27 following an open air Mass in Philadelphia.
Clancy described the security effort as “unprecedented” in scale, largely because of the enormous swath of the East Coast that must be secured. It is a task made more complex because Francis’ travels coincide with the 70th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and the arrival of 160 heads of state.
“This is definitely challenging,” said Clancy, whose agency is designated as the lead security planner for all National Special Security Events in the USA.
“You break it down city by city, venue by venue,” he said.
Though Clancy said there were no specific threats against the visit, Francis’ U.S. journey begins amid heightened concern about domestic terror attacks inspired by radical groups such as the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS.
Dozens of alleged Islamic State recruits in the USA have been swept up by federal authorities in recent months, many of them fueled by the terror group’s aggressive social media campaigns targeting disaffected youth.
Last month, a 15-year-old Philadelphia-area boy was arrested for allegedly pursuing a plot against Francis, two federal law enforcement officials said.
The arrest, which was not announced at the time, was outlined in an internal bulletin prepared by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. It was first disclosed Tuesday by ABC News.
The boy’s alleged activities, the officials said, appeared to represent more of an aspiration to such a plot than a fully formed and imminent threat.