More marshals for overseas flights

WASHINGTON — The U.S. is adding air marshals to overseas flights because of concerns about potential terrorism threats originating in Britain and Europe, the homeland-security chief said Sunday.

The Bush administration said it was satisfied with its current terrorism-alert level after an attack at a Scottish airport and two foiled car bombs in London.

"I think given what we know now, we're comfortable that we're at the right posture," Michael Chertoff said during a round of talk-show appearances.

U.S. airports and mass-transit systems are tightening security before the Fourth of July holiday, and more air marshals will travel on overseas flights.

"We will be doing operations at various rail locations and other mass-transit locations in cooperation with local authorities. Again, not because of a specific piece of credible threat information, but because we are going into a holiday season. There will be a larger number of people traveling," Chertoff said.

Airports are at the second-highest of five security-threat levels — orange — indicating a high risk of terrorist attacks. The current national threat level is yellow, or the third highest, indicating an elevated threat.

Chertoff said he does not plan to change those levels. "At this moment we don't have a specific credible threat against the United States," he said.

Britain has raised its security-alert level to the highest possible level, indicating terrorist attacks may be imminent.

Chertoff said he has spoken out for some time about U.S. worries involving potential terrorist threats originating in Britain and Europe.

"I think one of the issues we're increasingly concerned about is the movement of Europeans, including people with European citizenship, into areas of South Asia to get trained and get experience and then the prospect of these people coming back to carry out operations in Europe or in the United States using Europe as a departure point," Chertoff said.

"It's one of the reasons we've been very focused on increasing our security for people incoming from Europe. And that's something we're going to be looking at for the rest of the summer," he said.

The U.S. increased the number of air marshals on flights between the U.S. and Europe in August and stepped up the pace over the past few months, Chertoff said. In August, British police foiled an alleged plot by Muslim extremists to use liquid explosives to blow up as many as 10 flights between the U.S. and Britain.