WASHINGTON, May 3: The US Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday that the advisory about a possible aerial suicide attack on the US Consulate in Karachi was not based on any specific threat.
It was based on some information received at the newly formed Terrorist Threat Integration Centre at the CIA, said DHS spokeswoman Rachel Sunbarger.
The centre, which was inaugurated on Thursday, pools data collection and analysis resources of US intelligence agencies.
"We are asking the General Aviation community (which represents pilots and owners of small aircraft) to be especially vigilant," said Sunbarger.
The DHS warned on Thursday that Al Qaeda operatives were planning to pack a small fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter with explosives and crash it into the US Consulate in Karachi.
The advisory is the most recent of what Sunbarger called "a handful" of similar warnings that the department has issued to different commercial sectors to warn them of any perceived hike in the threat they face.
But there was skepticism about the warning, both from the owners and pilots of small planes and from some US officials outside the Department of Homeland Security. Pakistani officials said they knew of no such plot against the US consulate in Karachi.
"We have not heard of any immediate threat to the US Consulate in Karachi," said Mohammed Sadiq, the deputy chief of mission at the Pakistani embassy in Washington. "We have no information whatsoever.
"The Consulate in Karachi is in a residential area and is a rather small building. It would be difficult to land an aircraft on it," he added.
