an al qaeda captive in afghanistan. the spectrum of information suggests that we needed to put something out to warn people about the potential for attacks. reporter: what might be the target? tourist attractions like the vatican, big train stations in europe are well guarded. another 9/11 would be tougher to pull off than london 05, a bus and subways hit. if they want to cook up a bomb in their kitchen or pick up a gun and shoot someone, that s far more difficult to stop than a sophisticated airline plot. officials most fear something like the jihad attack in india. 480 people killed or wounded by ten gunmen in a three-day nightmare. i m steve handelsman, nbc news, washington. meanwhile, in germany, a u.s. drone strike has reportedly killed five nationals. last night on the rachel madow show, rachel asked michael
i d say there are three types of operatives we look at. one is the hard core, well trained operative that would be used in a major attack, the kind of thing which happened on 9/11 or which they tried to pull off with the airline plot in 2006. the next level is the person who s brought in, they re not necessarily given access to the core al qaeda, but they are given some basic training and trade craft and launched back to use their western passport. that is perhaps this case, the zazi case. the third category is the person who gets on the internet and gets radicalized, they go off and do what they can accomplish on their own. that was the ft. hood shooting. we re going to have to build a capability to anticipate each of these different kinds of operations in putting together our intelligence program. that was of course former homeland security secretary
sophisticated like a 9/11 or an august 2006 airline plot. but they re more than happy to give him some basic training, send him out and hope he succeeds. i think we re going to see more of this. because they re going to use an all of the above approach to carrying out terror attacks. they ll still try to get the big attack. but they re perfectly happy to use opportunistic possibilities in order to carry out an attack with a one or two-person team. michael chernoff, former homeland chief, thank you very much. coming up next, new york lawmakers asking congress for more money to fight terror. kelly o donnell live from capitol hill. and later, new york senator kristen gillibrand joins us live here. plus the pakistan connection with nbc news terror analyst roger cressey. [ female announcer ] new purefitness.