Terrorism expert: Every city is at risk, including Seattle

Like many other acts of terrorism before it, the New York City subway explosion begs the question: are other cities in the country also at risk for these kinds of attacks?

It’s understandable why terrorists might select as their target a highly-populated area, like New York City, or the seat of the federal government in Washington D.C., but Stratfor Chief Security Officer Fred Burton says other regions shouldn’t let their guard down.

He told 770 KTTH’s Jason Rantz Seattle is at risk just like everywhere else.

“If I was a big city police chief there, I would not feel that the threat is any less,” Burton said. “Look, these kinds of attacks, like we saw today, can unfold in any city in America.”

Investigators identified 27-year-old Akayed Ullah as the suspect in the Monday morning Port Authority bombing. The injuries reported so far have been minor and investigators are still working to determine whether the pipe bomb used was set off accidentally.

Burton said attacks in New York City regularly get the most media attention, but there are still plenty of examples of smaller cities getting hit too.

“New York will always be in the gun sites, much like Washington D.C.,” Burton said. “That doesn’t diminish the threat to other cities around our nation. We’ve seen that historically from San Bernadino, to Nashville, to Garland Texas, to Norman, Oklahoma of all places; these events can happen anywhere.”

Burton explained that the U.S. mass casualty incident response operation is working better than at any point in history, but there are still only a few options at our disposal if we want to prevent these attacks before they happen.

“You need a snitch, you need someone close to him that would’ve reported on his activities,” Burton said, “or we capture that in some sort of electronic format.”

Follow @https://twitter.com/jasonrantz