In response, federal authorities have advised police and other law enforcement officials that Mehsud's threat is an aspiration rather than evidence of an imminent or specific threat to the United States.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko says Mehsud has made similar threats in the past.
Mehsud has no record of actually striking targets abroad although he is suspected of being behind a 10-man cell arrested in Barcelona in January 2008 for plotting suicide attacks in Spain.
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