HOUSTON -- An alert issued over the weekend urging Americans to use caution when traveling in Europe is not stopping many Houstonians from heading abroad.
Sunday, the State Department said terrorists may be plotting attacks in Europe in public places. They would be similar to what happened during the deadly shooting spree in Mumbai, India in 2008. More than 150 were killed.
Officials have not provided specific information or targets.
Sue Marshall and her husband are traveling to Russia on Wednesday. They’re going on a mission trip with First Baptist Church to work at seven orphanages.
“Did it scare me? No,” said Marshall. “We’ll just be a little more cautious, a little more alert.”
This will be Marshalls' 10th trip there.
“Every year it’s something, either within a month or two of us going, there’s either planes crashing somewhere or there’s a terrorist attack in Moscow,” she said. “We’ll probably see more men carrying guns, but I have gotten used to that. So, that doesn’t scare me. I try to prepare my team members so they know what to expect.”
Attorney General Eric Holder said the advisory is not intended to stop people from traveling to Europe, but rather to urge people to be cautious when using mass transit and visiting marketplaces.
“You need to look at your personal situation, and where you are going, and assess who you are going with, and who is sponsoring you, and what the community is like where you are going,” said Joan Neuhaus Schaan, who is the homeland security and terrorism fellow at the Baker Institute at Rice University.
Neuhaus Schaan believes there are several things that have occurred in the last 10 days that triggered the attack. They include what could have been an armed rampage through London as part of an attack aimed at European capitals.
“You don’t know exactly what is going to occur, but there is such a volume, a building volume, that you then feel the need to send out an alert,” she said. “I think it’s just the way of raising the vigilance of everyone who is traveling and making sure that if you see something that is suspicious or frightening that you report it.
According to Neuhaus Schaan, the number of extremists is growing. In the last 12 to 15 months she says the number of plots and arrests in Europe and the U.S. is up substantially.
“I would say probably 25 to 30 events involving terrorism in the United States in the last 12 to 15 months and it was probably the previous three years or four years that that same volume of arrests or plots was being pursued,” she said.
Meanwhile, Neuhaus Schaan says the government is doing a better job of detecting and protecting.
