FAS

DHS Views Terrorist Threat to Aviation

02.05.07 | 1 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) “continues to receive information on terrorist threats to the U.S. aviation industry and to the Western aviation industry worldwide,” according to a May 2006 DHS threat assessment (pdf) that was partially released last week.

Yet “an independent assault at the Los Angeles International Airport in July 2002 that left two dead and four wounded near the El Al ticket counter remains the sole successful aviation-related terrorist attack within the United States since 11 September 2001,” the document noted.

Approximately two-thirds of the unclassified DHS aviation threat assessment was withheld from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. But all of the endnotes were disclosed, including open source references to remotely piloted vehicles, lasers, parachutes and shoulder-fired missiles.

See “Strategic Sector Assessment: U.S. Aviation,” DHS Homeland Infrastructure Threat & Risk Analysis Center (HITRAC), 18 May 2006 (redacted for public release).