NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York city police increased security throughout Manhattan on Friday and at bridges and tunnels in response to what they called an "unverified radiological threat," but said the city's alert status remained unchanged.

The New York Police Department said in a statement it has increased the deployment of radiological sensors on vehicles, boats and helicopters and had set up vehicle checkpoints in lower Manhattan and at bridges and tunnels.

DEBKAfile Exclusive: New Al Qaeda threat of radioactive truck attacks naming New York, Los Angeles, Miami

The threat was picked up by DEBKAfile’s monitors from a rush of electronic chatter on al Qaeda sites Thursday, Aug. 8.

The al Qaeda communications accuse the Americans of the grave error of failing to take seriously the videotape released by the American al Qaeda spokesman Adam Gaddahn last week. “They will soon realize their mistake when American cities are hit by quality operations,” said one message.

Another said the attacks would be carried out “by means of trucks loaded with radio-active material against America’s biggest city and financial nerve center.”

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Although the attacks of September 11, 2001 stunned the world, they came as no surprise to Giora Shamis and Diane Shalem—two veteran foreign-affairs reporters for the Economist who, like a handful of other journalists at the turn of the millennium, had turned to the Internet to go into business for themselves. In February of 2001, their freshly-launched website devoted to terrorism reported that Osama bin Laden intended to attack the World Trade Center towers in New York. "We'd been following his activities since his days as an organizer of the mujahideen in Afghanistan in the '80s," recalls Shalem. "We knew what he was capable of."

The Port of Miami is an important contributor to the local and state economies. Nearly four million cruise passengers pass through the Port and over 9 million tons of cargo and over 1 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit containers) are transited through the seaport per year. This combination of cruise and cargo activities supports approximately 98,000 jobs, and has an economic impact in Miami-Dade County of over $12 billion.