Hungary to ask CIA about report of terror threat to Budapest

The Polish paper said that Americaʼs CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) named Budapest among possible terrorist targets, along with Berlin and Warsaw, the online version of weekly HVG reported. Bakondi said yesterday that Hungary had not received any official information from the CIA regarding any threats, but after reading the report in the Polish paper, Hungaryʼs government will seek more information and take the potential threat seriously.

According to the Polish daily, the CIA had warned the Polish national security services about the possible threats to Warsaw, citing unofficial press reports as the source of its information. It said that in a warning sent in mid-March, the CIA spoke about the possibility of parallel terror threats “during mass events” in those three cities, among others. The paper said the World Catholic Youth Meeting planned in Krakow in July was on the CIA’s list of potentially targeted events and it advised that “extraordinary security measures should be introduced”, HVG said. A NATO summit planned in Warsaw in July was also on the list.

In response to a question on whether the country’s terror threat level would be raised from the current “level 3” or medium, Bakondi said this would be premature. He said that this case was similar to the incident last month, when Hungary’s name appeared along with Portugal as a possible target on an ISIS website, MTI said.