The risk of a terrorist attack against the U.S. hasn’t diminished as groups affiliated with al- Qaeda have proliferated and are developing explosive devices designed to elude detection, Senator Dianne Feinstein said.

Feinstein and Representative Mike Rogers, who head the intelligence panels in their respective chambers, said in an interview broadcast today on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. and other Western countries aren’t safer than they were before the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.

“There are more groups than ever,” Feinstein, a California Democrat, said.

There have been four attempts to get new kinds of bombs through metal detectors into the U.S., she said. Brian Weiss, a spokesman for Feinstein, said in an e-mail that the attempts the senator mentioned are all previously known.

Rogers, a Michigan Republican, said he was concerned that the Syrian conflict was attracting fighters from the West who are becoming radicalized and combat-hardened before returning to their home countries.

“The threat level has never been more diverse than it is today,” Rogers said. “The pressures on our intelligence services to get it right are enormous.”

–Editor: Anthony Gnoffo