U.S. officials downplay alleged subway terror plot

The Iraqi prime minister said on Thursday that captured ISIS militants told Iraqi agents about a plot to attack subway systems in the United States and France. U.S. and French officials claim they have no knowledge of such a plot. A senior Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they weren’t aware of any threat, and that the claim was not mentioned during the meeting between President Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi on Wednesday.

The Associated Press contacted a half-dozen French officials about the claim, all of whom said they didn’t know about any plot either.

American law enforcement is investigating the threat, but officials told CBS News that as of early this morning, they had discovered no evidence of a credible threat.

Al-Abadi said he heard about the plot in Baghdad, and claimed it was orchestrated by foreign nationals working with ISIS in Iraq. He said he was “not sure” if the attack was imminent, but insisted it had not been thwarted, though he declined to pinpoint a specific location in the U.S. that was a target.

“Today, while I’m here, I’m receiving accurate reports from Baghdad that there were arrests of a few elements and there were networks from inside Iraq to have attacks ... on metros of Paris and [the United States],” al-Abadi told reporters near the United Nations in New York. “They are not Iraqis. Some of them are French, some of them are Americans. But they are in Iraq.”

A Iraqi official qualified al-Abadi’s remarks on condition of anonymity.

“There were serious threats that were uncovered by Iraqi intelligence, and they were forwarded to the appropriate security authorities of our partners,” the unnamed official said. “A full assessment of the veracity of the intelligence and how far the plans have gone into implementation is ongoing.”

New York City has understandably been pulled into the center of these discussions, since it contains the largest subway system in the country.

John Miller, the New York Police Department’s top counter-terrorism official, said the department knew about Al-Abadi’s claims, and that “we are in close contact with the FBI and other federal partners as we assess this particular threat stream.”

New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio told CBS News that he wanted residents of New York to know that there was no threat to the subway system. Gov. Andrew Cuomo was more reserved, telling CBS that he and his administration were “treating it with the utmost precaution.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.