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Aviation security is much tighter than it was a decade ago, but al-Qaida remains keenly interested in launching attacks on airplanes, believing large attacks with high body counts are more likely to grab headlines. Threats to small airplanes are nothing new. After the 2001 attacks, the government grounded thousands of crop dusters amid fears the planes could be used in an attack. In 2002, U.S. officials said they uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a small plane into a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. And in 2003, U.S. officials uncovered an al-Qaida plot to crash an explosives-laden small aircraft into the American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

One senior administration official said "This travel alert is a cumulative result of information we have received over an extended period, we are constantly monitoring a range of threat streams and have monitored this and others for some time." It won't address a specific country or specific landmarks, another official said. As European as well as U.S. officials have not identified any specific targets that terrorists might be considering, officials have called the threat credible but not specific. Officials have been concerned that terrorists may be plotting attacks in Europe with assault weapons on public places, similar to the deadly 2008 shooting spree in Mumbai, India.

Eight Germans and two British brothers are at the heart of an al-Qaida-linked terror plot against European cities, but the plan is still in its early stages, with the suspects calling acquaintances in Europe to plan logistics, a Pakistani intelligence official said Thursday. One of the Britons died in a recent CIA missile strike, he said. The Pakistani official said the suspects are hiding in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region where militancy is rife and where the U.S. has focused many of its drone-fired missile strikes.

Terrorism is hampering the normal flow of Global affairs. As soon as it is possible to wipe out, it will be beneficial to us.