Terrorists affiliated with the Islamic State may be planning to explode a bomb in New York this coming Fourth of July.
The warning was issued by Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, who cited information he gathered.
"I've been aware of this now for about the last two or three weeks ... the real possibility of something being attempted on the Fourth of July," King said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
King revealed that five ISIS operatives were arrested in New York City recently.
"There's a number of things — intelligence that's been picked up. That's not coincidental. It's one thing you say someone's a lone wolf. You don't find five lone wolves operating together at the same time," he said.
King said a bomb could be used by terrorists.
"One of the places that was raided last week, they did find explosives ... There's been other ISIS operatives arrested with explosives in their homes or apartments," he said.
He said there were growing numbers of attacks by ISIS around the world including the ones in Lyon, Tunisia and Kuwait last Friday.
"ISIS is playing an active role here in the United States and when you just combine the intelligence that's been picked up — I can't go into how we got it — and then you find the five people in New York," he said.
The FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, he said, are "very involved' in finding more ISIS operatives.
"This is real and by the way this comes barely two years after President Obama announced that al-Qaeda was on the ropes," he warned.
King said the terror threat is nationwide and not only involves New York.
"My understanding is the FBI is going to be opening up different bases around the country over the next several days. It's countrywide. It's more specific toward New York in that we have a significant number [of arrests], but there was an ISIS operative arrested in Columbus, Ohio, just about three or four weeks ago," he said.
King said according to FBI Director James Corney, active investigations of possible ISIS operatives are going on in 50 states.
"This could happen almost anywhere. New York is always the number one target," he said.
