US wary about election terror threat: Townsend

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Election-period bombings in Madrid and Glasgow have raised US wariness of the possibility of a terror attack during the 2008 presidential campaign, the White House's top anti-terror official said Tuesday.

Fran Townsend, President George W. Bush's domestic security and anti-terror advisor, told CNN that the government has not detected any specific threat, but that Al-Qaeda sees elections as an opportunity to make attacks.

"It's about not that we know there's a specific threat," she said.

"What we do know is, we saw the Madrid train bombings just before the elections in Spain. After (British Prime Minister) Gordon Brown took office, we saw the bombings at Glasgow.

"We know Al Qaeda views these periods as being a particularly...