Terror threat

Intel official: Terror plots often raise concerns early

In a majority of homegrown terrorism cases investigated in the United States in recent years, someone had information that something was amiss, a top U.S. counterterrorism official said Thursday.

Nick Rasmussen, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, said countering Islamic extremism globally is a nearly impossible task — like trying to “boil the ocean.” Instead, the U.S. needs to be more hands-on at home and do a better job sharing threat information with local officials, he said.

Rasmussen and top intelligence officials from Britain, Canada and Germany gave their assessments of the threat from global terrorism at a national security conference in Washington hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a group of national security professionals in the public and private sectors.