MSNBC is specifying cargo aircraft:
Terror Threat for Cargo Airlines
MSNBC
Nov. 7 — Al-Qaida terrorists could soon use cargo planes to attack targets in the United States, U.S. officials told NBC News on Friday, citing new intelligence indicating a threat similar to the one that preceded the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes in New York and Washington. At the same time, “credible” information that terrorists in Saudi Arabia were closer to carrying out attacks there led the U.S. Embassy to close all U.S. missions in the kingdom beginning Saturday. FEW DETAILS were immediately available about the new intelligence, which did not include specific times or locations, U.S. officials told NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski on condition of anonymity, but they stressed that they were taking the threat seriously.
The officials said the most imminent threats were aimed at U.S. targets overseas, but they said they could not rule out the possibility of an attack on U.S. soil. They said the threat was strikingly similar to the plot in which 19 al-Qaida operatives hijacked four U.S. jetliners and flew three of them into the World Trade Center in New York and into the Pentagon a little more than two years ago.
Officials at the Homeland Security Department said they had no immediate plans to raise the national threat level, which is currently at “yellow,” or “elevated,” but the department planned to issue an advisory to local law enforcement agencies, state homeland security officers and private industry, including airlines.
U.S. officials told NBC News’ Carl Rochelle on condition of anonymity that al-Qaida was also believed to be behind the threat to U.S. installations in Saudi Arabia, as well as U.S. “commercial and maritime” installations in the region.
The U.S. Embassy in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, said in a warden message on its Web site Friday that the missions in Riyadh, Jiddah and Dhahran would close to assess their “security posture.” They will then advise the U.S. community when the review is completed and when the missions plan to resume normal operations.
Americans in the kingdom should be “vigilant when in any area that is perceived to be American or Western,” the message said, warning: “The Embassy continues to receive credible information that terrorists in Saudi Arabia have moved from the planning to operational phase of planned attacks in the kingdom.”
Saudi police uncovered a cell Monday believed linked to al-Qaida in the holy city of Mecca. Police believe the cell had planned to carry out attacks during Ramadan.