FBI warns of possible IS threat to bridge over Mississippi

Authorities say they received anonymous tip about threat to Memphis & Arkansas Bridge

Memphis & Arkansas Bridge over the Mississippi

Are Islamist extremists looking to attack an historic bridge in the American heartland?

Federal agents have warned local authorities that Islamic State militants may be seeking to would blow up the Memphis & Arkansas Bridge which spans the Mississippi River.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said it had passed the threat on to local police in a bulletin out of an “abundance of caution”, spokesman Chris Allen told the Associated Press.

“This is an unsubstantiated, anonymous threat,” he said, adding that there was no useful intelligence arising from it. The threat to the bridge was first reported by the reported by Fox13 television news channel in Memphis.

The station quoted the FBI warning as saying that according to an anonymous tipster, Islamic State had instructed a person in Memphis “to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States”. “

Police from Memphis have been patrolling the mile-long bridge, which was built in 1949. The bridge crosses over the Mississippi river and is considered part of the Mississippi River Trail. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

Speaking to My Fox Memphis, Supervisory Special Agent Joel Siskovic said: “Although we received an anonymous threat, there is no actionable intelligence regarding an attack on the bridge. We take every threat seriously and whenever we receive a threat like this we take steps to inform all of our law enforcement partners.”