New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton warned that there is an increased threat of a terrorist attack against the city, writing in a special New York Daily News column that the the presence of social media threats made by the terrorist group "heightens this concern."
Bratton writes:
Images emerging from the Middle East of beheadings and mass executions by the radical Islamic extremist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are profoundly troubling. With the United States and its allies now committed to the fight against this rising threat, we have to take into account the result, which is the potential for an increased threat of an ISIS-inspired attack in New York.
The recent call by ISIS on social media urging its followers to attack popular locations overseas such as Times Square only heightens this concern.
Some say not to worry about ISIS as a threat to American citizens on U.S. soil. The group, they insist, is interested in establishing a caliphate in the Middle East – not in hitting targets in faraway lands.
That may have been true a week ago, but with the announcement of a U.S.-led military coalition that may strike ISIS targets not only in Iraq but in Syria, whatever hesitancy ISIS had to attack the West at home will surely be diminished.