WABC-TV(NEW YORK) — Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City was one of the nation’s churches that saw an increase in security this Christmas after ISIS-affiliated groups called for attacks on them during the holiday season.
At Manhattan’s most famous church on Sunday, there were extra officers, including undercover officers, and the entire block became a “frozen zone” where traffic was blocked off and pedestrian crossings were controlled.
Federal authorities warned officials around the U.S. “to remain vigilant for indications of nefarious operational planning” after members of a pro-ISIS group posted a link online to a list of U.S. churches that “aspirationally called on its supporters to attack them during the holiday season,” according to a bulletin obtained by ABC News on Friday.
The joint bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and National Counterterrorism Center followed a week of violence overseas. A man plowed a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12, and in Cairo, Egypt, earlier this week, a man launched a suicide attack on a Coptic Orthodox Church.
According to the federal authorities’ bulletin, officials in Australia foiled a “multi-tactic plot in Melbourne, Australia, planned for Christmas Day against St. Paul’s Cathedral and other prominent locations.”
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