The owner of Massapequa’s Sunrise Mall was threatened in a new terrorist video by a Somalia-based terror group.
The threat came in the form of a video, specifying attacks on Mall of America in Minnesota, West Edmonton Mall in Canada and two shopping centers in the London area, all of which are owned by Australian-based Westfield, according to The Independent.
The Westfield Group owns Westfield Sunrise Mall in Massapequa and Westfield South Shore in Bay Shore. Neither Long Island location was mentioned in the threat, which has not yet been verified by authorities.
In the video, the masked man supposedly from Al-Shabaab, a Somalia-based extremist group that is linked to Al-Qaeda, encourages attacks on all Westfield malls.
“Can you imagine what a dedicated mujahedeen in the West could do to the American and Jewish-owned shopping centres across the world?” he said in the video.
The threat encourages an attack similar to one in Kenya in 2013 that lasted several days and left 67 people dead, according to the report.
“There is no evidence of an imminent threat to our shopping centres but as always Westfield Corporation will take every available step to keep our shopping centres safe for staff, retailers and customers,” company officials said in a statement Monday.
While their “policy is to not publicly discuss security procedures,” Westfield said their “heads of security in the US and UK continue to coordinate their activities with police and government agencies. As usual significant resources continue to be devoted to security arrangements in our shopping centres and they continue to operate as normal.
Politicians reacted to the news saying residents should be cautious but have faith in law enforcement.
Rep. Peter King, R-Massapequa posted to Facebook that “Americans should take this threat seriously.” He went on to say that “We should not, however, go into hiding or stay away from malls. Police, the FBI, Homeland Security and all our counterterrorism forces are doing all they can to prevent an attack.”
