Terror alert issued based on cache from bin Laden compound

An advisory has been sent to law enforcement officials advising them to be vigilant about train security based on information uncovered after the death of Osama bin Laden, officials said.

Officials stressed the advisory is general in nature and the information apparently uncovered from the bin Laden compound dates back more than a year.

According to NBC News, U.S. officials say they have not found reference to specific plots. Instead, they say they’ve found what they call “aspirational” items — events al-Qaida operatives were interested in trying to make happen.

A government advisory sent Thursday says that as far back as February 2010, al-Qaida was contemplating “an operation against trains at an unspecified location in the United States on the 10th anniversary” of the 9/11 attacks.

One option, the advisory says, was trying to tip a train by tampering with the rails so that the train would fall off the track at either a valley or on a bridge. Such an attempt would probably only work once, the material in bin Laden’s house said, because tilting or tampering with the rails would be spotted, the advisory says.

Other material mentions a desire to target major mass-transit hubs, an interest long understood because of the history of al-Qaida attacks on rail targets in Spain, the U.K. and India.

The FBI and Homeland Security are encouraging local governments to be vigilant. But there are no plans to issue a terror alert, because there’s still no specific or credible intelligence of any actual attack plan in the works.

Rep. Peter King said “there was information found in the last several days — I don’t know where it’s come from — but that al-Qaida was considering having an attack on mass transit or trains before the 10th anniversary of September 11th.”

Another law enforcement official said there was nothing specific to New York. NBC