troe trove of documents found in the compound when osama bin laden was killed. does this have anything to do with that? well, it could tenuously, but we know that documents were taken from bin laden was killed and he, himself, thought it would be good to attack u.s. around the 9/11 anniversary or other big dates on the calendar. and secondly, the u.s. was concerned about the fact that somebody might retaliate osama bin laden s death. so that is true, but this information on top of it and it is in addition and independent to those two things, but in addition to the background, it is getting extra attention. thank you, pete in washington. you bet. and with me is evan coleman, and good day to you, a terrorist analyst, and a lot of this unconfirmed and not a lot of specifics here. why do we take this seriously? because of the timing here? because of the timing and the
if they re near tourist areas or taking public transportation. it doesn t go into specifics. britain also told its citizens to be on alert when traveling in france and germany, france ask ge and germany especially. for a better understanding of the plot and how it s being dealt with, we have terrorist analyst and investigate or paul cruickshank. he joins us from hamburg. where do you think the attackers are now? we really don t know where they are right now. it s very difficult to tell whether this attack was imminent or whether it was just in the planning stages. the german authorities we re talking to over the last couple days are saying they consider this plot was not imminent, but it is not entirely clear whether western security services have complete control over this plot at this stage, don. what are they doing specifically? if you can talk about tracking these people down.
and most of all, they say, register your presence. just in case something terrible did happen. register with the local u.s. embassy so authorities can get quickly in touch with you in case something goes awry. norah? jim maceda, thanks so much. now i want to bring in michael sheehan, he s an nbc news terrorist analyst. we got information the attorney general eric holder has been briefing reporters and talking about this travel alert and saying that this is based on an accumulation of intelligence gathered over the past several month. where is this information coming from? there was a string of the reporting coming from the u.s. authorities as well as european authorities. there seems to be a perfect storm of information gathering. there seems to be what s called chatter, which is often referred to as the amount of talk going
venus was born, to the suburbs of long island, where his family still lives. i ve spent the better part of a year here in the united states and in europe unraveling why and how bryant neil venus went from catholic to muslim, from u.s. army recruit to jihadist, from long island to lahore. this is where he grew up, the son of immigrants from south america. his sister met with me and was happy to talk about her brother, whom she described as a sociable, friendly young boy. but she didn t want to go on camera. our producer, cnn terrorist analyst, has met with her and bryant s parents several more times. bryant s mother used to call him my teddy bear. she said he was an extremely sweet kid. he d even fix her breakfast in bed when she wasn t feeling well. bryant, she says, had a happy childhood.
now, to craig with a special report on the men behind the money used to bank roll the failed bombing. what did you discover? federal agents conducted a series of raids in connection with the attempted car bombing right here in new york city s times square. the spreading investigation is to see if the times square terrorist shahzad was in fact a lone wolf or was he working with a terrorist organization. whalid is a fox news terrorist analyst and has been investigating the case. tell me about the ring. this is what we are looking at here. the agents could have been the ground zero of urban jihaddism in america. on thursday, nearly two dozen gun toting agents busted two pakistani men on immigration charges in suburban massachusetts. a third man arrested in maine and another in pakistan with admitted ties to the may 1st