Don Borelli, a former member of the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, said the terrorist threat in Sochi, Russia, is unique because officials already know terrorists are planning an attack in Sochi sometime during the Olympics.
“We rarely get a specific event, a specific time,” he said Tuesday on CNN. “This type of threat, they’ve thrown the gauntlet down.”
The best way to prevent an attack, he said, is to get many different entities from Russia, the U.S. and European countries working together to collect intelligence, especially on soft targets like fan zones or corporate parties.
“If the events are going to go off successfully and safely, it’s going to be up to everyone working all hands on deck collecting that intelligence and sharing it,” he said.
Russian officials are searching for a terrorist they believe may already be in Sochi. The woman is being called the “Black Widow” and doesn’t fit the typical profile of a young male terrorist that many people may be on the lookout for.
“If somebody is already on the inside, if she already has a job at a particular event or special access, she’s already bypassed one of those layers of security,” Mr. Borelli said. “I would imagine it’s not just her. There are probably lots of people on the radar that the Russians are looking for.”
• Jacqueline Klimas can be reached at jklimas@washingtontimes.com.
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