Law enforcement in the Memphis area have been warned by the FBI that Islamic State militants are allegedly planning to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge spanning the Mississippi River, an agency spokesman said on Tuesday.
A warning about the terrorist organization's bomb threat was issued by the FBI to the Memphis Police Department and the Shelby County Sheriff's Office, among other local authorities, according to MyFoxMemphis. The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, a major route connecting Tennessee and Arkansas, is the intended target.
"This is an unsubstantiated, anonymous threat," FBI spokesman Chris Allen said, adding that there was no useful intelligence arising from it.
In a bulletin, local police were informed about the threat by the Federal Bureau of Investigation out of an "abundance of caution," Allen said, claiming he had no details on when the threat was received or how.
"According to an anonymous complainant, as of December 2014, ISIS instructed an ISIS member, a presumed USPER [US person] in Memphis, with a direct order to blow up the Memphis-Arkansas bridge on an unknown date, activating ISIS terror cells in the United States," the FBI's warning stated, according to an affiliate television station, which obtained a copy of the warning.
The Islamic State group has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria and declared a sovereign state, Reuters reported.
"Although we received an anonymous threat, there is no actionable intelligence regarding an attack on the bridge," FBI spokesperson Joel Siskovic told the affiliate station.
"We take every threat seriously and whenever we receive a threat like this we take steps to inform all of our law enforcement partners."
While the threat is being investigated by federal agents on a Joint Terrorism Task Force, Memphis police officers are also keeping guard in the vicinity of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, which is in close vicinity to both the Frisco Bridge and Harahan Bridge, a Memphis Police spokesperson told MyFoxMemphis.
Each day, around 56,000 vehicles drive on the bridge between Tennessee and Arkansas, with around-the-clock surveillance cameras monitoring movement on the bridge, according to UK MailOnline.
