US President target of 30 threats a day

As an “over-stretched and under-resourced” US Secret Service tries to protect Barack Obama, the president is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day, a new book has said.

As an “over-stretched and under-resourced” US Secret Service tries to protect Barack Obama, the president is the target of more than 30 potential death threats a day, a new book has said.

HT Image

Since Obama was inaugurated on January 20, several individuals and groups have made threats against his life. The rate of threats against Obama has surged by 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under former President George W Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President’s Secret Service.

Most of the threats are kept under wraps amid fears that revealing such details would only lead to more copycat attempts, the Daily Telegraph said in a report.

In Dubai, Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri took aim at Obama in a new video, accusing him of continuing to spill the blood of Muslims and saying Israel was a “crime” that must be wiped out, according to a US monitoring group SITE.