Obama seeks to reassure Americans anxious about terror threat

US president Barack Obama sought to deliver reassurance to Americans anxious about the threat of another terrorist attack as they travel and celebrate through the holidays.

After meeting with his top security advisers Thursday at the National Counterterrorism Center in northern Virginia, Mr Obama said intelligence and law enforcement officials “do not have any specific and credible information on an attack on the homeland”.

That was tempered by acknowledgement that a strike by lone-wolf terrorists, such as the one carried out in San Bernardino, California, remains a threat that can slip by the safeguards and security systems put in place after 9/11.

“They’re harder to detect and that makes it harder to protect,” Mr Obama said. “But just as the threat evolves, so do we.”

Concern over terrorism has spiked after the mass shooting earlier this month in San Bernardino, which left 14 people dead and 21 injured.

Law enforcement authorities say the attackers, Syed Rizwan Farook (28) and his wife, Tashfeen Malik (29), had become radicalised before the attack on Farook’s co-workers during a holiday party.

The shooting came weeks after terrorists affiliated with Islamic State attacked a theatre, restaurants and soccer stadium in Paris, leaving 130 dead.

According to an NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday, 40 per cent of Americans say national security and terrorism should be the top priority of the federal government.

That’s up 19 points from April, when a plurality of Americans said job creation and economic growth were the most important issue.

A majority – 52 per cent – named either the Paris attack or the San Bernardino shooting as the top news story of the year.

Addressing concerns

Mr Obama’s trip to the centre of US counter-terrorism efforts is the latest attempt by the administration to address those concerns.

The president addressed the nation from the oval office earlier this month and travelled to the Pentagon on Monday for an update on the fight against Islamic State.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said it was tightening screenings of visa and refugee applications, increasing airport security, and adding a third level to terrorism warnings.

Today, the president plans a stopover in San Bernardino to visit privately with the families of the victims of the terror attack, on his way to Hawaii for his annual family Christmas vacation.

Neighbour investigated

Meanwhile, a former neighbour suspected of supplying guns to Farook and Malik has been arrested, the

Los Angeles Times

reported yesterday, citing federal authorities.

Federal officials plan to charge Enrique Marquez, a friend and former neighbour of Farook’s, with gun law violations, two government sources said.

A spokesman for the US Attorney's Office in Los Angeles said following the Los Angeles Times report that no formal charges had been filed against Mr Marquez "at this time".

Mr Marquez (24), who had checked himself into a Los Angeles-area psychiatric facility shortly after the shootings, had several connections to Farook and Malik and quickly became a key figure in the investigation of the shootings.

The FBI, which is treating the attack as terrorism, raided his home and questioned him for several days.

Sources said Mr Marquez co-operated during their interviews. During the investigation, a law enforcement source said that Mr Marquez, who converted to Islam, and Farook apparently plotted an attack around 2012 but abandoned the idea.

Mr Marquez, who had known Farook since they were teenage neighbours in the city of Riverside, California, legally purchased the two AR-15 assault-style rifles that the couple used in their attack on a holiday party of Farook’s co-workers. – (Bloomberg/Reuters)