Washington — As cities and towns across the U.S. prepare for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day celebrations, local, state and national law enforcement agencies are on the lookout for potential threats — concerns that are heightened in the wake of the recent Bondi Beach terror attack in Australia and the deadly attack on last year’s celebrations on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Lone actors and small groups with a range of ideological motives pose the most significant threat to New Year’s Eve celebrations, according to a joint bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security reviewed by CBS News.
The assessment, which is done routinely ahead of large public gatherings, notes there is no specific, credible threat this holiday. But the bulletin describes the persistent risk of small groups of people “seeking to commit acts of violence motivated by a broad range of racial, ethnic, political, religious, anti-government, anti-immigration, societal or ideological beliefs and grievances.”
Colin P. Clarke, executive director of The Soufan Center, who focuses on domestic and transnational terrorism, called New Year’s Eve the “Super Bowl of counterterrorism” — and the “holy grail for a terrorist.”
“It’s a soft target, highly symbolic with large crowds gathered,” Clarke told CBS News. “It’s the holy grail for a group like the Islamic state or a group or individual inspired by the Islamic state.”
“New Year’s is a symbolic day and it’s a symbol of the West, and they’re attacking the decadence of the West,” he added.
In New York City, the NYPD has been working on security for the Times Square area since last year’s festivities, said NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. There are “no known specific credible threats” to the celebration, Tisch said Wednesday, but the public should expect to see “thousands” of NYPD officers in the area.
Intelligence teams will also be monitoring social media for threats, Tisch said. Times Square is expecting more than a million visitors from around the world, she noted, making it “one of the largest and the most complex safety operations anywhere in the world.”
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In an interview with CBS News, Tisch said law enforcement is taking “a layered approach” to security, which includes the use of helicopters and drones for real-time monitoring.
Asked about the heightened threat environment, Tisch said that’s been the case for the last few years.
“The NYPD through our intelligence teams really keeps the pulse on what’s going on throughout the world,” she said. “We have about a dozen detectives stationed in other countries, so any time anything happens we get real-time information and we update our security planning, for example, for events just like this one, based on what we’re seeing and learning around the world and trends that we are seeing in counterterrorism.”
In Las Vegas, Andrew Walsh, undersheriff for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department told reporters at a news conference this week that the National Guard will be present in Vegas, as they have been in years past.
Clarke worries that the U.S. has shifted significant resources to immigration and the border, to the potential detriment of counterterrorism operations. He said the “bench is incredibly thin when it comes to counterterrorism.”
“As an American citizen it makes me nervous,” Clarke said. “We are vulnerable to a large-scale terror attack.”
Recent memory serves as a sobering reminder of how critical it is for law enforcement to be vigilant.
Earlier this month, the FBI announced it had foiled an alleged New Year’s Eve bombing plot in Southern California. The four people who face charges in the alleged plot are members of a group known as the Turtle Island Liberation Front. Attorney General Pam Bondi described the organization as a “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group.”
Hundreds of National Guard troops have deployed to New Orleans one year after the devastating New Year’s Day attack there, at the request of Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. On Jan. 1, 2025, investigators say Shamsud-Din Jabba rammed a pickup truck into the crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people and leaving many more injured in an act of terror. The FBI said the attacker, a U.S. Army veteran, was radicalized by ISIS.
