Morning Security Brief: French Terrorism Fears, TSA Security Clearances, Columbine Attempt, Indonesian Terrorism Fears, & More

♦ France's highest police officer warned Wednesday of a specific threat to French soil from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the terrorist organization's North African affiliate. “We have serious indications coming from reliable intelligence telling us that there’s significant risk of an attack,” said Frédéric Pechenard, director of France’s national police, according to The New York Times. Pechenard added that an attack would “likely to happen in a place where there are lots of people, which could be the public transit system, a department store or a gathering.” Last week, AQIM terrorists kidnapped seven foreign workers in Niger, five of whom were French nationals.

♦ One out of every six TSA employees will have a security clearance if the agency's leader has his way. "TSA Administrator John Pistole, former FBI deputy director, believes that giving frontline workers greater access to intelligence will help stop terrorist attacks and make the public safer. The clearances give TSA employees access to information that has been classified as 'secret' -- information that is not put out for general distribution in the agency," reports CNN.com. Currently fewer than 1,000 of TSA's 60,000 employees have security clearances. The effort to get approximately 10,000 through background checks will take about two years, according to the Web site.

♦ A 14-year-old boy has been arrested after trying to shoot a school resource officer on Tuesday in South Carolina, although the plot was much bigger. "Bomb squads later found two pipe bombs in the student's bookbag and detonated them, Browning said. The student was wearing the bookbag at the time of the incident and the pipe bombs were detonated, said Sgt. Robert Kegler of Horry County Police," reports The Sun News. "Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Solicitor Greg Hembree said the teen 'was attempting Columbine' but does not believe that students are making more threats than they were 10 years ago." The teen will likely face charges of attempted murder; possession, threatened or attempted use of weapon of mass destruction for act of terrorism; and possession of a destructive device.

♦ Terrorists in Indonesia want to use the tactics employed in Afghanistan and Iraq to plunge the country into chaos, the national police chief has warned. "The National Police have learned that terrorists aim to wage a war in cities across Indonesia, which will turn the country into strife-torn Afghanistan and Iraq," The Jakarta Post reports."National Police chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a televised press conference on Friday the terrorists might recruit warriors from overseas."

♦ New Jersey State Police yesterday fanned out across the capital's main commuter rail stations along the critical Northeast Corridor as part of a disaster preparedness exercise. "About a dozen troopers were sent to each station, including uniformed and plainclothes officers, K-9 handlers, hazmat units, and TEAMS, the agency's SWAT-style tactical group. Helicopters from the aviation unit flew overhead," reports The Times of Trenton . "Known as threat details, the drills give troopers advance knowledge of the places they may be seeing if disaster strikes.'It gives us intimate visibility in the areas we'd be responding to in the event something happens,'" Hatfield told the paper.