will deploy armed officers on the underground, the railway system, and for the first time in madrid, they plan on limiting the amount of people allowed into the main square. cnn s brynn gingras is live with more on the security prep there. reporter: oh, yeah, good morning. yeah, security prep here in times square started when the ball dropped earlier this year, 2016, and they just keep evolving because you said it, there is just an evolving world out there, things that police are seeing happening in other cities, they have to change the security preparations here. two big things i want to point out to you. nypd says they are adding 65 sand trucks and 100 barrier trucks which are basically nypd department vehicles and they will form a perimeter around times square. now, that is new, that much is new, especially, because of these truck attacks that happened both in berlin and police said that s a new thing and that s what they have to
right now new york is getting ready for nearly 2 million people to flood times square for new year s eve. police officers at every corner. sand-filled trucks. the nypd is pulling out all the stop bes to keep the city and everyone safe there for the celebration after two truck attacks in germany and france this year on crowds of people. new york city s police commissioner said there is no credible threat against the festivities but nypd will make sure times square is, in his words, one of the safest venues in the entire world. bringing in jeff bidi, former cia counterterrorism officer and fbi special agent. jeff, thank you for the time. we know they re stepping up security measures, they ve been candid about that. what are the lessons learned from these terror attacks in the past year they re applying to this holiday? hello. good to be with you. i think a couple of important
been aware that this individual was dangerous, was a risk and they knew that because they had a police informant inside the terrorism network he belonged to, the jihadi recruitment network he belonged to in germany, feeding them back all kinds of details. we have been reporting some of that detail, clearly the fact he wanted to launch an attack and other members of his circle wanted to launch truck attacks in germany. but i think this is quite stunning because it shows it was really very many months indeed that he was on the radar screen of german security services. a list of the most dangerous islamist threats. people asking this week how he slipped through the cracks. it sounds like more an issue of being dropped through the cracks in this case. that appears to be what happened here. bear in mind the germans did go
waiting for that to happen for another attack or for him to be killed before putting out this video pledge of allegiance to isis. and he s doing this because he wants isis to be able to take ownership of this attack. in his advice for one of the jihadis in the west in launching truck attacks, isis in a recent communique said that it was absolutely vital for them in it some way to say that they were doing this on behalf of isis. and he s done exactly this. now, this poses all sorts of questions about his link back to isis. because to be able to upload a video to the group you need a few contacts at the least in syria, and iraq. and of course we know that he was part of an isis recruitment network in germany whose senior
to say he s one of ours, send him back because they ve got plenty already there. talk about the concerns that americans watching right now might feel, or canadians. there is an increase risk or security alert going on right now in the united states with hanukah and christmas approaching? there is no specific or credible information that there is a plot, say, in new york or los angeles against a particular target at a particular time. nonetheless. we re always worried about copycats when something like this happens. will there be truck attacks or attacks around the holidays here? law enforcement is paying attention and taking additional steps. but there is no specific and credible information. what i encourage people to do, as hard as this is, is to put the threat in context. the most dangerous thing i face every day is to get on the l.a. freeway. nothing else comes close. people ought to go about their ordinary business, be mindful but not let it intrude on their appreciation of th