Chertoff: Hezbollah Makes Al Qaeda Look Minor League - Greatest Risk To National Security
Posted: 30 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the radical Islamic group Hezbollah “makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team,” and poses the greatest threat to national security.
“Someone described Hezbollah like the A-team of terrorists in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline,” Chertoff told FOX News. “To be honest, they make Al Qaeda look like a minor league team.
“They have been more disciplined, and they’ve been in some senses more restrained in the kinds of attacks they carry out … in recent years, but that’s not something we can take for granted,” he warned.
Chertoff, speaking before the opening of a two-day terrorism forum in Jerusalem, also warned of the threat of a terrorist smuggling a bomb aboard a passenger airplane.
“I don’t think we’re really worried about hijacking because we’ve put a lot of measures in place like a locked cockpit door, flight deck officers who have weapons and the air marshals,” Chertoff told FOX News. “So the next threat becomes the bomb. Something that either a person takes on board themselves or smuggles into the cargo.”
“One way we’ve addressed smuggling a bomb is by reducing the size of liquids you can bring on board,” Chertoff said. “That was a direct result of learning terrorists had developed a way to disguise liquid explosives.
“The second thing we’re in the process of doing is intensifying the degree of screening we use for baggage that goes into the cargo. Whether it comes from the passenger or is shipped from company. All of this is raising the level of defense,” he said.
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Did Chinese Officials Copy U.S. Government Laptop Data To Hack Into Computers
Posted: 30 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The U.S. government is looking into allegations that Chinese officials snagged a laptop left unattended by a top U.S. official there, copied the data and then used it to try to hack into U.S. government computers.
The incident is alleged to have happened during Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez’s trip to Beijing in December. Gutierrez told the AP wire service he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation.
Since then, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, known as US-CERT, responded to computer network break-ins at least three times, the report says.
“The Pentagon, State Department and Commerce Department all have been victimized by widespread computer intrusions blamed on China since July 2006,” with the Commerce Department even having to unplug itself from the Internet, as a result, the article says.
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Truck Rigged To Steal Large Quantity of Diesel Fuel - Ohio
Posted: 30 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
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Police have linked the large-scale theft of diesel fuel from a western Pennsylvania convenience store to a specially equipped pickup truck trailer with a trap door and a vacuum hose.
No one has been charged, but the truck and trailer were found on the property of a man who owns a small asphalt and trucking company in Ohio, police said.
“It’s a very ingenious way of doing things and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Hermitage Deputy Police Chief Edward Holiga.
Holiga said his department is investigating whether the truck is linked to at least three thefts since 2005. In the latest, about $4,500 worth of diesel fuel was reported stolen April 28 from the underground tanks of the Tic Toc Food Mart in Hermitage.
Police issued a surveillance photo of the pickup and trailer believed to be involved in the thefts and received a tip that led them to a property in North Bloomfield, Ohio, about 30 miles northwest of Hermitage.
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Search Is Urged for Additional Syrian Nuclear Sites
Posted: 30 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The Bush administration is pressing U.N. inspectors to broaden their search for possible secret nuclear facilities in Syria, hinting that Damascus’s nuclear program might be bigger than the single alleged reactor destroyed by Israeli warplanes last year.
At least three sites have been identified by U.S. officials and passed along to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is negotiating with Syria for permission to conduct inspections in the country, according to U.S. government officials and Western diplomats. U.S. officials want to know if the suspect sites may have been support facilities for the alleged Al Kibar reactor destroyed in an Israeli air raid Sept. 6, the sources said.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog, which has been seeking access to the Al Kibar site since shortly after the bombing, has acknowledged receiving requests to expand the scope of its inspections, but provided no details.
U.S. government officials declined to describe the specific sites that have drawn interest, or to discuss how they were identified. However, the United States and other Western governments have long been interested in identifying possible locations for a facility in Syria that might have supplied nuclear fuel rods for a Syrian reactor. Although the Al Kibar site was described as nearly operational at the time of the Sept. 6 bombing, it had no clear source of the uranium fuel necessary for operation, according to U.S. intelligence officials and diplomats familiar with the site.
Syria, which has denied having a nuclear weapons program, has not yet responded to IAEA requests for a firm date for inspections.
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Report: Iran, al Qaeda in Secret Talks
Posted: 30 May 2008 12:18 AM CDT
ABC News reports that senior U.S. officials are stating that in recent months there have been secret contacts between the Iranian government and the leadership of al Qaeda. It’s a development that has caught the attention of top officials in the White House, the Pentagon and the intelligence community.
There are several theories floating about as to why Iran would engage al Qaeda. Most of the theories point to Iran using several high-level operatives loosely detained in Iran, as pawns or bargaining chips. Those al Qaeda operatives include two of bin Ladens sons.
According to U.S. officials familiar with highly sensitive intelligence, the contacts are on the status of the al Qaeda operatives who have been under house arrest in Iran since 2003. The officials don’t believe Iran will allow these operatives to go free, but said they don’t know Iran’s motivation for initiating the talks.
“The Iranians know there would be hell to pay if these guys were set free,” a U.S. official told ABC News.
“Iran likely sees these individuals, as major bargaining chips,” says another official. “How and when they’re going to use those chips or whether they are going to keep them in the bank is part of an ongoing strategic discussion they are having internally.”
[…]
The fate of these al Qaeda operatives has been one of the most intriguing mysteries in the war on terror. Shortly after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, al Qaeda’s central leadership broke into two groups. U.S. intelligence believes that one group, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, fled to the east to find safe haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The second group, headed by an Egyptian named Saif al Adel, went west to Iran. This second group, which intelligence analysts say includes al Qaeda’s management council, or “shura,” includes about two dozen militants, including Adel, al Qaeda spokesman Suliman abu Ghaith and some of bin Laden’s relatives, including two of his sons, Saad and
Although U.S. officials rarely talk publicly about them, these militants are considered to be among the most dangerous terrorists in the world.
[…]
So, why would Iran now be reaching out to al Qaeda? U.S. intelligence analysts have several theories. Under one theory, the talks are a reaction to al Qaeda’s recent anti-Iranian rhetoric. The Iranians are using the al Qaeda detainees as, the theory goes, leverage “hostages” in the words of one official to get al Qaeda to cut its recent anti-Iranian rhetoric and to deter any potential al Qaeda operations against Iran. By detaining them, Iran makes an unspoken threat to al Qaeda’s leadership: If al Qaeda attempts to attack Iran, these people will suffer.
Others believe Iran may have initiated the talks as a threat to the United States, that if the U.S. takes hostile action against Iran, these captives could be released, set free to plot attacks against the West.
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Copter Crash Kills 8 Returning From UN Terrorism Conference - Chile Chief of Police Among Dead
Posted: 29 May 2008 11:52 PM CDT
At least eight people including Chile’s chief of police were killed Thursday when a helicopter crashed into a building in a busy neighborhood of Panama City, officials said.
Mayor Juan Carlos Navarro said that visiting Chilean officials were aboard the helicopter when it crashed, causing “a considerable number of mortal victims.”
In Santiago, Chile’s Interior Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma confirmed that the the fatalities included the head of Chile’s national police, Jose Alejandro Bernales, and his wife, as well as four other Chileans.
Panamanian police confirmed the death of two Panama nationals.
But officials had not yet released an official death toll amid an investigation into the cause of the crash.
Civil aviation sources said that at least 12 people including three crew members were aboard the aircraft, belonging to Panama’s National Air Service.
Bodies covered in blue blankets were visible at the scene of the accident, and several people were rushed to hospital, authorities said.
Eyewitnesses told local media that the helicopter pitched wildly before plunging and starting a fire in the building it hit.
Police cordoned off the area and the mayor urged people to stay away from the area to “avoid more deaths.”
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Radioactive Cargo Rejected By Greece Returned To Macedonia
Posted: 29 May 2008 11:45 PM CDT
A radioactive waste shipment, rejected by Greece, has returned back to Macedonia.
Greek Ethnos daily said the cargo entered Greece at Evzoni crossing point. The cargo was uncovered in Thessaloniki, shortly before melting.
Greek Atomic Energy Commission has not yet confirmed the initial news reports indicated that the shipment contained radioactive waste from Kosovo. The Commission hinted at old iron - parts of kitchen appliances and industrial equipment.
Macedonian truck that carried the cargo crossed the Macedonian-Greek border on 22 May. The vehicle was subjected to security checkup and later it was allowed to cross the border despite the high radiation levels.
Five customs officers have been dismissed. The head of Greek customs office assumed the responsibility for the event and demanded replacement.
Ethnos daily says Greek authorities remained tightlipped over the incident.
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No Bomb Found After Threat at Kansas City Airport
Posted: 29 May 2008 11:41 PM CDT
A spokesman for Kansas City International Airport said operations were back to normal after a bomb threat Thursday night.
Spokesman Joe McBride said all 134 passengers and crews members were safely removed from a plane after a bomb threat had been called in.
The Kansas City Fire Department inspected the plane with bomb-sniffing dogs and found nothing dangerous, McBride said.
According to Southwest Airlines spokeswoman Ashley Rogers, the threat was specific to Flight 46, headed to Chicago, set to depart at 9:40 p.m.
The phone call was received about 9:35 p.m McBride said.
The plane had come from Dallas after making several other stops during the day. It was unclear if any passengers had gotten off or boarded since the plane arrived in Kansas City.
The plane was isolated from the terminal before passengers began exiting the plane, McBride said.
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Venezuela Says Suspect Under Arrest is U.S. Drug Agent
Posted: 29 May 2008 11:29 PM CDT
There has been no confirmation of this story from U.S. sources.
Venezuela said on Thursday it arrested a man who identified himself as a U.S. anti-drugs agent, which if confirmed could inflame tensions between the United States and one of its biggest oil suppliers.
President Hugo Chavez in 2005 ended cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), saying the agency was spying on him. The United States denied the charge and says Chavez does too little to stop trafficking from neighboring Colombia, the world’s largest cocaine exporter.
Gen. Gabriel Oviedo said the man was acting suspicious when he was detained close to the border with Colombia while bearing Canadian and French passports and a Venezuelan identity card.
“The official at the scene proceeded to interrogate him and he said he was a DEA agent,” Oviedo told state television.
The U.S. Embassy in Caracas said it had no knowledge of the arrest.
Relations have deteriorated since a failed 2002 coup against Chavez that Washington initially welcomed.
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Bible Coins
Iraqis furious after Marine hands out Bible coins
Friday, May 30, 2008 2:58 AM
By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Stephen Farrell
The New York Times
BAGHDAD -- A U.S. Marine guarding a checkpoint on the western outskirts of Fallujah handed out coins with an Arabic translation of a biblical verse to Iraqis entering the city, angering residents and city leaders who denounced it as an affront to Islam and an attempt to convert them to Christianity.
As the Marines quickly apologized yesterday for the episode, Sunni guerrillas struck in northern Iraq , killing at least 19 people in two suicide bombings.
Gunmen near Tikrit also used a water tanker as a Trojan horse to attack an Iraqi checkpoint, but Iraqi security forces repelled the assault and killed 14 attackers.
In Fallujah, the Marines pledged to discipline the Marine who handed out the coins, inscribed with one of the Bible's most widely known verses, John 3:16.
U.S. military officials emphasized yesterday that military regulations barred service members in Iraq from "proselytizing any religion, faith or practices."
The controversy cropped up only a week after the military and President Bush apologized for a U.S. soldier who used a Quran for target practice near Baghdad .
Marine spokesman Mike Isho confirmed the incident and said the Marine had been removed from his duties.
In a day of renewed violence in Iraq , insurgents converted a water tanker into a latter-day Trojan horse to mount a surprise attack on a checkpoint near Saddam Hussein's birthplace, Awja, Iraqi police said yesterday.
They said the police responded with heavy fire, killing 14 of the attackers, while two officers were seriously wounded. The U.S. military estimated the number of dead insurgents at eight and the truck driver, who detonated a suicide vest but killed only himself.
In Sinjar, an ethnically mixed Yazidi and Sunni town in northern Iraq , the police said a bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up outside the town's police station, killing 16 would-be recruits.
Among the people killed in the attack yesterday were two policemen. Fifteen others were wounded, including five police officers.
In a separate attack in Mosul , a police battalion commander said a suicide bomber, driving a car packed with explosives, attacked his convoy, killing three people.
Iraqi prime minister: National reconciliation nearly complete
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Iraq 's prime minister says economic and security progress shows that reconciliation between the nation's feuding factions is close to being completed.
Nouri al-Maliki says that does not mean that "everyone gets an equal piece of the pie but it means that one must show a commitment for a unified, democratic Iraq ."
Al-Maliki spoke to reporters in Stockholm on Friday.
His Shiite-dominated government is under pressure to show progress in reconciliation among the country's Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds. Iraq 's Sunni Arab minority has long felt it is being sidelined by the majority Shiites and the Kurds, who dominate the Iraqi parliament and al-Maliki's government.
Al-Maliki also met with Sweden 's prime minister on Friday, a day after a U.N. conference.
U.S. troop deaths in May near lowest level of war
By Charles Levinson, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — This May has been one of the least violent months of the Iraq war. The relative calm follows a cease-fire agreement by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia in the face of steady pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Eighteen U.S. servicemembers have been identified as having died in Iraq so far in May, according to the Pentagon. To date, the least deadly month of the five-year war was February 2004, when 21 U.S. troops were killed in a 29-day period. The number of wounded also has fallen.
DEATHS IN IRAQ : A personal, statistical view
MAY'S TOLL: Casualties by name, date
Overall, militant attacks in Iraq have dropped to levels not seen since spring 2004, U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said this week. Attacks are down 70% since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or "surge," early last year.
Al-Sadr agreed to a truce earlier this month after two months of clashes with U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces. The fighting followed a decision by the Iraqi government to rein in al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shiite militant groups. Iraqi forces have also intensified their offensive against Sunni militants, including al-Qaeda, in the northern city of Mosul .
"We're seeing progress because we're getting more capability out of the Iraqi security forces," said Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the number two U.S. commander in Iraq .
The deal with al-Sadr could unravel at any time. His followers have issued statements on an almost daily basis threatening to resume fighting as they accuse the government of breaking promises.
Al-Qaeda militants have proven difficult to drive out of Mosul , their biggest remaining urban stronghold. A suicide bomber in Sinjar, 75 miles west of Mosul , killed 16 Iraqis crowded around a police recruiting station Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq , Ryan Crocker, who has been guarded in making proclamations of success, said last week that al-Qaeda in Iraq has "never been closer to defeat than they are now."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani also has sounded a surprisingly upbeat tone. Talabani criticized Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Babakir Zebari for saying his forces would not be ready to handle security on their own for four years. Instead, Talabani predicted last week that Iraqi forces would be able to maintain control of the country by year's end.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a United Nations conference in Sweden on Thursday that " Iraq has achieved major success in the battle against terrorism."
The U.S. death toll so far in May marks a dramatic decline from 126 deaths in May 2007, when U.S. forces were battling for control of Baghdad in one of the deadliest months of the war.
Injuries among U.S. troops also are at their lowest level this year. Just 31 Americans were hurt in combat last week, with half returning to duty within three days, the Pentagon said. That's down from a recent peak of 130 in a single week in March, at the height of the fighting with Shiite militants.
Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians are benefiting from the lull in violence. Seventy-eight people died in bombings across Iraq in April, the lowest level since November 2004, when 75 died, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank that tracks the data.
After five grim years, however, Iraqis are cautiously optimistic.
"The situation is better now, but we still have fears," Ayad Chathem Hanid, 33, a bank teller, said while shopping with his wife Thursday on Baghdad 's Palestine Street . "We don't know if the situation is going to blow up again or not."
Contributing: Paul Overberg in McLean , Va.
Friday, May 30, 2008 2:58 AM
By Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Stephen Farrell
The New York Times
BAGHDAD -- A U.S. Marine guarding a checkpoint on the western outskirts of Fallujah handed out coins with an Arabic translation of a biblical verse to Iraqis entering the city, angering residents and city leaders who denounced it as an affront to Islam and an attempt to convert them to Christianity.
As the Marines quickly apologized yesterday for the episode, Sunni guerrillas struck in northern Iraq , killing at least 19 people in two suicide bombings.
Gunmen near Tikrit also used a water tanker as a Trojan horse to attack an Iraqi checkpoint, but Iraqi security forces repelled the assault and killed 14 attackers.
In Fallujah, the Marines pledged to discipline the Marine who handed out the coins, inscribed with one of the Bible's most widely known verses, John 3:16.
U.S. military officials emphasized yesterday that military regulations barred service members in Iraq from "proselytizing any religion, faith or practices."
The controversy cropped up only a week after the military and President Bush apologized for a U.S. soldier who used a Quran for target practice near Baghdad .
Marine spokesman Mike Isho confirmed the incident and said the Marine had been removed from his duties.
In a day of renewed violence in Iraq , insurgents converted a water tanker into a latter-day Trojan horse to mount a surprise attack on a checkpoint near Saddam Hussein's birthplace, Awja, Iraqi police said yesterday.
They said the police responded with heavy fire, killing 14 of the attackers, while two officers were seriously wounded. The U.S. military estimated the number of dead insurgents at eight and the truck driver, who detonated a suicide vest but killed only himself.
In Sinjar, an ethnically mixed Yazidi and Sunni town in northern Iraq , the police said a bomber wearing an explosive belt blew himself up outside the town's police station, killing 16 would-be recruits.
Among the people killed in the attack yesterday were two policemen. Fifteen others were wounded, including five police officers.
In a separate attack in Mosul , a police battalion commander said a suicide bomber, driving a car packed with explosives, attacked his convoy, killing three people.
Iraqi prime minister: National reconciliation nearly complete
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Iraq 's prime minister says economic and security progress shows that reconciliation between the nation's feuding factions is close to being completed.
Nouri al-Maliki says that does not mean that "everyone gets an equal piece of the pie but it means that one must show a commitment for a unified, democratic Iraq ."
Al-Maliki spoke to reporters in Stockholm on Friday.
His Shiite-dominated government is under pressure to show progress in reconciliation among the country's Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds. Iraq 's Sunni Arab minority has long felt it is being sidelined by the majority Shiites and the Kurds, who dominate the Iraqi parliament and al-Maliki's government.
Al-Maliki also met with Sweden 's prime minister on Friday, a day after a U.N. conference.
U.S. troop deaths in May near lowest level of war
By Charles Levinson, USA TODAY
BAGHDAD — This May has been one of the least violent months of the Iraq war. The relative calm follows a cease-fire agreement by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his militia in the face of steady pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces.
Eighteen U.S. servicemembers have been identified as having died in Iraq so far in May, according to the Pentagon. To date, the least deadly month of the five-year war was February 2004, when 21 U.S. troops were killed in a 29-day period. The number of wounded also has fallen.
DEATHS IN IRAQ : A personal, statistical view
MAY'S TOLL: Casualties by name, date
Overall, militant attacks in Iraq have dropped to levels not seen since spring 2004, U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll said this week. Attacks are down 70% since President Bush ordered a U.S. troop increase, or "surge," early last year.
Al-Sadr agreed to a truce earlier this month after two months of clashes with U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces. The fighting followed a decision by the Iraqi government to rein in al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and other Shiite militant groups. Iraqi forces have also intensified their offensive against Sunni militants, including al-Qaeda, in the northern city of Mosul .
"We're seeing progress because we're getting more capability out of the Iraqi security forces," said Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin III, the number two U.S. commander in Iraq .
The deal with al-Sadr could unravel at any time. His followers have issued statements on an almost daily basis threatening to resume fighting as they accuse the government of breaking promises.
Al-Qaeda militants have proven difficult to drive out of Mosul , their biggest remaining urban stronghold. A suicide bomber in Sinjar, 75 miles west of Mosul , killed 16 Iraqis crowded around a police recruiting station Thursday, the Associated Press reported.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq , Ryan Crocker, who has been guarded in making proclamations of success, said last week that al-Qaeda in Iraq has "never been closer to defeat than they are now."
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani also has sounded a surprisingly upbeat tone. Talabani criticized Iraqi Army Chief of Staff Babakir Zebari for saying his forces would not be ready to handle security on their own for four years. Instead, Talabani predicted last week that Iraqi forces would be able to maintain control of the country by year's end.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told a United Nations conference in Sweden on Thursday that " Iraq has achieved major success in the battle against terrorism."
The U.S. death toll so far in May marks a dramatic decline from 126 deaths in May 2007, when U.S. forces were battling for control of Baghdad in one of the deadliest months of the war.
Injuries among U.S. troops also are at their lowest level this year. Just 31 Americans were hurt in combat last week, with half returning to duty within three days, the Pentagon said. That's down from a recent peak of 130 in a single week in March, at the height of the fighting with Shiite militants.
Iraqi police, soldiers and civilians are benefiting from the lull in violence. Seventy-eight people died in bombings across Iraq in April, the lowest level since November 2004, when 75 died, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank that tracks the data.
After five grim years, however, Iraqis are cautiously optimistic.
"The situation is better now, but we still have fears," Ayad Chathem Hanid, 33, a bank teller, said while shopping with his wife Thursday on Baghdad 's Palestine Street . "We don't know if the situation is going to blow up again or not."
Contributing: Paul Overberg in McLean , Va.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Did you know what else we are now paying for?
270 Illegal Immigrants Sent to Prison in Federal Push
By JULIA PRESTON
WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.
The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.
The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.
Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa , who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”
Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”
The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.
The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.
The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.
The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo , in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.
Mr. Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was “the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors.”
The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Until now, relatively few immigrants caught in raids have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.
“To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented,” said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland , Ore. , who was formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. “It’s the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law.”
Defense lawyers, who were appointed by the court, said most of the immigrants were ready to accept the plea deals because of the hard bargain driven by the prosecutors.
If the immigrants did not plead guilty, Mr. Dummermuth said he would try them on felony identity theft charges that carry a mandatory two-year minimum jail sentence. In many cases, court documents show, the immigrants were working under real Social Security numbers or immigration visas, known as green cards, that belonged to other people.
All but a handful of the workers here had no criminal record, court documents showed.
“My family is worried in Guatemala ,” one defendant, Erick Tajtaj, entreated the federal district judge who sentenced him, Mark W. Bennett. “I ask that you deport us as soon as possible, that you do us that kindness so we can be together again with our families.”
No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.
Chaim Abrahams, a representative of Agriprocessors, said in a statement that he could not comment about specific accusations but that the company was cooperating with the government.
Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors, announced Friday that he had begun a search to replace his son Sholom as the chief executive of the company. Agriprocessors is the country’s largest producer of kosher meat, sold under brands like Aaron’s Best. The plant is in Postville, a farmland town about 70 miles northeast of Waterloo . Normally it employs about 800 workers, and in recent years the majority of them have come from rural Guatemala .
Since 2004, the plant has faced repeated sanctions for environmental and worker safety violations. It was the focus of a 2006 expos� in The Jewish Daily Forward and a commission of inquiry that year by Conservative Jewish leaders.
In Postville, workers from the plant, still feeling aftershocks from the raid, said conditions there were often harsh. In interviews, they said they were often required to work overtime and night shifts, sometimes up to 14 hours a day, but were not consistently paid for the overtime.
“We knew what time we would start work but we did not know what time we would finish,” said �lida, 29, a Guatemalan who was arrested in the raid and then released to care for her two children. She asked that her last name not be published because she is in this country illegally.
A 16-year-old Guatemalan girl, who asked to be identified only as G.O. because she is illegal and a minor and was not involved in the raid, said she had been working the night shift plucking chickens. “When you start, you can’t stay awake,” she said. “But after a while you get used to it.”
The workers said that supervisors and managers were well aware that the immigrants were working under false documents.
Defense lawyers, who each agreed to represent as many as 30 immigrants, said they were satisfied that they had sufficient time to question them and prepare their cases. But some lawyers said they were troubled by the severity of the charges.
At one sentencing hearing, David Nadler, a defense lawyer, said he was “honored to represent such good and brave people,” saying the immigrants’ only purpose had been to provide for their families in Guatemala .
“I want the court to know that these people are the kings of family values,” Mr. Nadler said.
Judge Bennett appeared moved by Mr. Nadler’s remarks. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people who have done what you did to help your families,” Judge Bennett told the immigrants. “Unfortunately for you, you committed a violation of federal law.”
After the hearing, Mr. Nadler said the plea agreements were the best deal available for his clients. But he was dismayed that prosecutors had denied them probation and insisted the immigrants serve prison time and agree to a rarely used judicial order for immediate deportation upon their release, signing away their rights to go to immigration court.
“That’s not the defense of justice,” Mr. Nadler said. “That’s just politics.”
Christopher Clausen, a lawyer who represented 21 Guatemalans, said he was certain they all understood their options and rights. Mainly they wanted to get home to Guatemala as quickly as possible, he said.
“The government is not bashful about the fact that they are trying to send a message,” Mr. Clausen said, “that if you get caught working illegally here you will pay a criminal penalty.”
Robert Rigg, a Drake University law professor who is president of the Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said his group was not consulted when prosecutors and court officials began to make plans, starting in December, for the mass proceedings.
“You really are force feeding the system just to churn these people out,” Mr. Rigg said.
Kathleen Campbell Walker, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that intricate issues could arise in some cases, for example where immigrants had children and spouses who were legal residents or United States citizens. Those issues “could not be even cursorily addressed in the time frame being forced upon these individuals and their overburdened counsel.”
Linda R. Reade, the chief judge who approved the emergency court setup, said she was confident there had been no rush to justice. In an interview, Judge Reade said prosecutors had organized the immigrants’ detention to make it easy for their lawyers to meet with them. The prosecutors, she said, “have tried to be fair in their charging.”
The immigration lawyers, Judge Reade said, “do not understand the federal criminal process as it relates to immigration charges.”
By JULIA PRESTON
WATERLOO, Iowa — In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents.
The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a sharp escalation in the Bush administration’s crackdown on illegal workers, with prosecutors bringing tough federal criminal charges against most of the immigrants arrested in a May 12 raid. Until now, unauthorized workers have generally been detained by immigration officials for civil violations and rapidly deported.
The convicted immigrants were among 389 workers detained at the Agriprocessors Inc. plant in nearby Postville in a raid that federal officials called the largest criminal enforcement operation ever carried out by immigration authorities at a workplace.
Matt M. Dummermuth, the United States attorney for northern Iowa , who oversaw the prosecutions, called the operation an “astonishing success.”
Claude Arnold, a special agent in charge of investigations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said it showed that federal officials were “committed to enforcing the nation’s immigration laws in the workplace to maintain the integrity of the immigration system.”
The unusually swift proceedings, in which 297 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced in four days, were criticized by criminal defense lawyers, who warned of violations of due process. Twenty-seven immigrants received probation. The American Immigration Lawyers Association protested that the workers had been denied meetings with immigration lawyers and that their claims under immigration law had been swept aside in unusual and speedy plea agreements.
The illegal immigrants, most from Guatemala, filed into the courtrooms in groups of 10, their hands and feet shackled. One by one, they entered guilty pleas through a Spanish interpreter, admitting they had taken jobs using fraudulent Social Security cards or immigration documents. Moments later, they moved to another courtroom for sentencing.
The pleas were part of a deal worked out with prosecutors to avoid even more serious charges. Most immigrants agreed to immediate deportation after they serve five months in prison.
The hearings took place on the grounds of the National Cattle Congress in Waterloo , in mobile trailers and in a dance hall modified with black curtains, beginning at 8 a.m. and continuing several nights until 10. On Wednesday alone, 94 immigrants pleaded guilty and were sentenced, the most sentences in a single day in this northern Iowa district, according to Robert L. Phelps, the clerk of court.
Mr. Arnold, the immigration agent, said the criticism of the proceedings was “the usual spate of false allegations and baseless rumors.”
The large number of criminal cases was remarkable because immigration violations generally fall under civil statutes. Until now, relatively few immigrants caught in raids have been charged with federal crimes like identity theft or document fraud.
“To my knowledge, the magnitude of these indictments is completely unprecedented,” said Juliet Stumpf, an immigration law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland , Ore. , who was formerly a senior civil rights lawyer at the Justice Department. “It’s the reliance on criminal process here as part of an immigration enforcement action that takes this out of the ordinary, a startling intensification of the criminalization of immigration law.”
Defense lawyers, who were appointed by the court, said most of the immigrants were ready to accept the plea deals because of the hard bargain driven by the prosecutors.
If the immigrants did not plead guilty, Mr. Dummermuth said he would try them on felony identity theft charges that carry a mandatory two-year minimum jail sentence. In many cases, court documents show, the immigrants were working under real Social Security numbers or immigration visas, known as green cards, that belonged to other people.
All but a handful of the workers here had no criminal record, court documents showed.
“My family is worried in Guatemala ,” one defendant, Erick Tajtaj, entreated the federal district judge who sentenced him, Mark W. Bennett. “I ask that you deport us as soon as possible, that you do us that kindness so we can be together again with our families.”
No charges have been brought against managers or owners at Agriprocessors, but there were indications that prosecutors were also preparing a case against the company. In pleading guilty, immigrants had to agree to cooperate with any investigation.
Chaim Abrahams, a representative of Agriprocessors, said in a statement that he could not comment about specific accusations but that the company was cooperating with the government.
Aaron Rubashkin, the owner of Agriprocessors, announced Friday that he had begun a search to replace his son Sholom as the chief executive of the company. Agriprocessors is the country’s largest producer of kosher meat, sold under brands like Aaron’s Best. The plant is in Postville, a farmland town about 70 miles northeast of Waterloo . Normally it employs about 800 workers, and in recent years the majority of them have come from rural Guatemala .
Since 2004, the plant has faced repeated sanctions for environmental and worker safety violations. It was the focus of a 2006 expos� in The Jewish Daily Forward and a commission of inquiry that year by Conservative Jewish leaders.
In Postville, workers from the plant, still feeling aftershocks from the raid, said conditions there were often harsh. In interviews, they said they were often required to work overtime and night shifts, sometimes up to 14 hours a day, but were not consistently paid for the overtime.
“We knew what time we would start work but we did not know what time we would finish,” said �lida, 29, a Guatemalan who was arrested in the raid and then released to care for her two children. She asked that her last name not be published because she is in this country illegally.
A 16-year-old Guatemalan girl, who asked to be identified only as G.O. because she is illegal and a minor and was not involved in the raid, said she had been working the night shift plucking chickens. “When you start, you can’t stay awake,” she said. “But after a while you get used to it.”
The workers said that supervisors and managers were well aware that the immigrants were working under false documents.
Defense lawyers, who each agreed to represent as many as 30 immigrants, said they were satisfied that they had sufficient time to question them and prepare their cases. But some lawyers said they were troubled by the severity of the charges.
At one sentencing hearing, David Nadler, a defense lawyer, said he was “honored to represent such good and brave people,” saying the immigrants’ only purpose had been to provide for their families in Guatemala .
“I want the court to know that these people are the kings of family values,” Mr. Nadler said.
Judge Bennett appeared moved by Mr. Nadler’s remarks. “I don’t doubt for a moment that you are good, hard-working people who have done what you did to help your families,” Judge Bennett told the immigrants. “Unfortunately for you, you committed a violation of federal law.”
After the hearing, Mr. Nadler said the plea agreements were the best deal available for his clients. But he was dismayed that prosecutors had denied them probation and insisted the immigrants serve prison time and agree to a rarely used judicial order for immediate deportation upon their release, signing away their rights to go to immigration court.
“That’s not the defense of justice,” Mr. Nadler said. “That’s just politics.”
Christopher Clausen, a lawyer who represented 21 Guatemalans, said he was certain they all understood their options and rights. Mainly they wanted to get home to Guatemala as quickly as possible, he said.
“The government is not bashful about the fact that they are trying to send a message,” Mr. Clausen said, “that if you get caught working illegally here you will pay a criminal penalty.”
Robert Rigg, a Drake University law professor who is president of the Iowa Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said his group was not consulted when prosecutors and court officials began to make plans, starting in December, for the mass proceedings.
“You really are force feeding the system just to churn these people out,” Mr. Rigg said.
Kathleen Campbell Walker, president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said that intricate issues could arise in some cases, for example where immigrants had children and spouses who were legal residents or United States citizens. Those issues “could not be even cursorily addressed in the time frame being forced upon these individuals and their overburdened counsel.”
Linda R. Reade, the chief judge who approved the emergency court setup, said she was confident there had been no rush to justice. In an interview, Judge Reade said prosecutors had organized the immigrants’ detention to make it easy for their lawyers to meet with them. The prosecutors, she said, “have tried to be fair in their charging.”
The immigration lawyers, Judge Reade said, “do not understand the federal criminal process as it relates to immigration charges.”
Jihadi recruiting
Online “Curriculum” of Jihad: Four Broad Themes
Muhammad Haniff Hassan
28 May 2008
There are four broad themes that can be found from the jihadist’s online ideological materials to elicit support and indoctrinate symphathisers and subsequently transform them into recruits or freelance radicals. Some practical ideas for counter-ideological work can however also be extracted from them.
IT HAS been widely accepted by analysts that the Internet today is an important media platform for jihadist propaganda. The open nature of the Internet, which makes it difficult to regulate, allows jihadists to propagate their ideology, disseminate propaganda materials, and offer their own narratives to events and news. This has enabled jihadists to win sympathy from certain segments of Muslims who could be radicalised and subsequently recruited into the struggle. The result is a continuing jihadist threat especially from the elusive and self-radicalised but unaffiliated individuals, such as those who succeeded in launching attacks like the London train bombing on July 2005.
The Jihadi curriculum
Since the understanding of jihadist ideology is an important aspect in counter-ideological work, it is important then to have an understanding of jihadist online materials. This begins with an understanding of what Stephen Ulph calls the “jihadi curriculum”.
There is no single coherent curriculum to train a person as a jihadist. But according to Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation and founder and editor of Terrorism Security Monitor, jihadist ideological materials on the Internet are so vast and comprehensive that they could be regarded as an undergraduate course on jihad.
One needs only to look at the site dedicated to Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdese, a leading Jihadi theorist. Many observers recognize it as the largest repository of jihadist ideological and doctrinal materials. It contains thousands of materials written by past and present ideologues and works of classical ulama on jihad. The only aspects that are profoundly lacking from this site, unlike other jihadist sites, are technical knowledge about weaponry and military combat tactics and videos that show military operations.
Testifying to the importance of this site, it was used as a main research source for The Militant Ideology Atlas, a study published by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point to identify the most influential thinkers in the jihadi movement. The study identifies Al-Maqdese as “the most influential living Jihadi Theorist” because his site provides an easy one-stop centre for jihadist materials -- virtually functioning like an open online university for aspiring jihadists.
The Four Broad Themes
Ulph identifies four broad themes or objectives from the online “curriculum” of jihad. First is the undermining of the present cultural order. This is achieved by targeting democracy, secularism and pluralism. The jihadists argue that these are man-made ideologies that not only fundamentally contradict Islamic teachings, but are constructed by a global conspiracy against Islam to deviate Muslims from their religion. Muslims who adhere to them therefore fall into a trap that will nullify their faith.
Second is the undermining of the current order within Muslim society and the world. This is achieved by removing any kind of legitimacy for Muslim regimes, state systems, political conduct, and pro-establishment Muslim scholars and those who do not strive against those regimes, systems and political conduct. By undermining the two said orders, jihadists have effectively created a vacuum that their alternative worldview is easily positioned to fill.
Rejecting the current order in the world and in Muslim society, however, will not change the reality or guarantee that the jihadist order prevails. It requires some sort of action or struggle. In that respect, the third theme observed by Ulph comes to prominence and that is instilling the duty of jihad in Muslims.
Jihadists construct four main arguments to fuel the spirit of jihad. Firstly, it is “the forgotten obligation” that needs to be revived. Its neglect is the cause of Muslims’ current humiliation. Secondly, it is an individual duty for every single Muslim that is equal to their daily prayers, and does not require the permission of parents, authority or anybody to perform. Thirdly, it means first and foremost an armed struggle, before other meanings. Fourthly, due to the sorry state of Muslim society, jihad as armed struggle has the ultimate priority above all other obligations.
Jihadists do not live in a vacuum. They are constantly challenged by their critics from within the Muslim society and without. This requires them to reiterate their position and refute criticism. Thus the fourth theme in “the online curriculum”: maintaining the authority to speak for Islam and Muslims. In order to maintain doctrinal authority, jihadists will invoke a “holier-than-thou” position towards others in all doctrinal issues. The objective is to maintain morale as well as the moral high ground.
Ulph’s identification of these four themes underlying the “jihadi curriculim” deserves greater study. For instance, he is right that jihadists take the legitimacy of their authority very seriously. No serious criticism against them by important figures is left unanswered, and no ambiguous action is left unclarified. Illustrating this tendency are such works as Imam Samudra’s book Aku Melawan Teroris (I am fighting the Terrorist) and Az-Zawahiri’s recent reply to a leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s ideological revision and criticism of Al-Qaeda.. Al-Maqdese’s site itself is a testimony to this too.
Opportunity for counter-ideological work
While the proliferation of jihadist online “curriculum” through websites, chat rooms and forum boards is a source of concern, it also offers great opportunity for counter-ideology research. The “curriculum” allows deep understanding of the intricacies of the ideology. Ulph calls attention in particular to jihadist polemics and self-analysis. Polemics, self-analysis, and dissension from jihadists themselves provide analysts with points of tension, controversy and weaknesses. These are useful to weaken the appeal of the ideology and to de-legitimise its tenets.
Although jihadist ideology is an aberration to true Islamic teachings, this does not necessarily mean that its proponents are simplistic, na�ve, and unsophisticated ideological adversaries that can be taken less seriously. On the contrary, jihadist materials on the Internet are testimony to their commitment and dedication. Thus, they are a serious foe who can only be defeated by serious efforts and equal dedication from those who are in the mainstream.
Muhammad Haniff Hassan is an Associate Research Fellow and a PhD research student at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University . He holds a degree in Syariah and Civil Law, and an MSc in Strategic Studies. His latest book is Unlicensed to Kill: Countering Imam Samudra’s Justification for the Bali Bombing (2006). He has a blog to counter misinterpretation of jihad by groups like Al-Qaeda at http://counterideology.multiply.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Muhammad Haniff Hassan
28 May 2008
There are four broad themes that can be found from the jihadist’s online ideological materials to elicit support and indoctrinate symphathisers and subsequently transform them into recruits or freelance radicals. Some practical ideas for counter-ideological work can however also be extracted from them.
IT HAS been widely accepted by analysts that the Internet today is an important media platform for jihadist propaganda. The open nature of the Internet, which makes it difficult to regulate, allows jihadists to propagate their ideology, disseminate propaganda materials, and offer their own narratives to events and news. This has enabled jihadists to win sympathy from certain segments of Muslims who could be radicalised and subsequently recruited into the struggle. The result is a continuing jihadist threat especially from the elusive and self-radicalised but unaffiliated individuals, such as those who succeeded in launching attacks like the London train bombing on July 2005.
The Jihadi curriculum
Since the understanding of jihadist ideology is an important aspect in counter-ideological work, it is important then to have an understanding of jihadist online materials. This begins with an understanding of what Stephen Ulph calls the “jihadi curriculum”.
There is no single coherent curriculum to train a person as a jihadist. But according to Stephen Ulph, a senior fellow with the Jamestown Foundation and founder and editor of Terrorism Security Monitor, jihadist ideological materials on the Internet are so vast and comprehensive that they could be regarded as an undergraduate course on jihad.
One needs only to look at the site dedicated to Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdese, a leading Jihadi theorist. Many observers recognize it as the largest repository of jihadist ideological and doctrinal materials. It contains thousands of materials written by past and present ideologues and works of classical ulama on jihad. The only aspects that are profoundly lacking from this site, unlike other jihadist sites, are technical knowledge about weaponry and military combat tactics and videos that show military operations.
Testifying to the importance of this site, it was used as a main research source for The Militant Ideology Atlas, a study published by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point to identify the most influential thinkers in the jihadi movement. The study identifies Al-Maqdese as “the most influential living Jihadi Theorist” because his site provides an easy one-stop centre for jihadist materials -- virtually functioning like an open online university for aspiring jihadists.
The Four Broad Themes
Ulph identifies four broad themes or objectives from the online “curriculum” of jihad. First is the undermining of the present cultural order. This is achieved by targeting democracy, secularism and pluralism. The jihadists argue that these are man-made ideologies that not only fundamentally contradict Islamic teachings, but are constructed by a global conspiracy against Islam to deviate Muslims from their religion. Muslims who adhere to them therefore fall into a trap that will nullify their faith.
Second is the undermining of the current order within Muslim society and the world. This is achieved by removing any kind of legitimacy for Muslim regimes, state systems, political conduct, and pro-establishment Muslim scholars and those who do not strive against those regimes, systems and political conduct. By undermining the two said orders, jihadists have effectively created a vacuum that their alternative worldview is easily positioned to fill.
Rejecting the current order in the world and in Muslim society, however, will not change the reality or guarantee that the jihadist order prevails. It requires some sort of action or struggle. In that respect, the third theme observed by Ulph comes to prominence and that is instilling the duty of jihad in Muslims.
Jihadists construct four main arguments to fuel the spirit of jihad. Firstly, it is “the forgotten obligation” that needs to be revived. Its neglect is the cause of Muslims’ current humiliation. Secondly, it is an individual duty for every single Muslim that is equal to their daily prayers, and does not require the permission of parents, authority or anybody to perform. Thirdly, it means first and foremost an armed struggle, before other meanings. Fourthly, due to the sorry state of Muslim society, jihad as armed struggle has the ultimate priority above all other obligations.
Jihadists do not live in a vacuum. They are constantly challenged by their critics from within the Muslim society and without. This requires them to reiterate their position and refute criticism. Thus the fourth theme in “the online curriculum”: maintaining the authority to speak for Islam and Muslims. In order to maintain doctrinal authority, jihadists will invoke a “holier-than-thou” position towards others in all doctrinal issues. The objective is to maintain morale as well as the moral high ground.
Ulph’s identification of these four themes underlying the “jihadi curriculim” deserves greater study. For instance, he is right that jihadists take the legitimacy of their authority very seriously. No serious criticism against them by important figures is left unanswered, and no ambiguous action is left unclarified. Illustrating this tendency are such works as Imam Samudra’s book Aku Melawan Teroris (I am fighting the Terrorist) and Az-Zawahiri’s recent reply to a leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad’s ideological revision and criticism of Al-Qaeda.. Al-Maqdese’s site itself is a testimony to this too.
Opportunity for counter-ideological work
While the proliferation of jihadist online “curriculum” through websites, chat rooms and forum boards is a source of concern, it also offers great opportunity for counter-ideology research. The “curriculum” allows deep understanding of the intricacies of the ideology. Ulph calls attention in particular to jihadist polemics and self-analysis. Polemics, self-analysis, and dissension from jihadists themselves provide analysts with points of tension, controversy and weaknesses. These are useful to weaken the appeal of the ideology and to de-legitimise its tenets.
Although jihadist ideology is an aberration to true Islamic teachings, this does not necessarily mean that its proponents are simplistic, na�ve, and unsophisticated ideological adversaries that can be taken less seriously. On the contrary, jihadist materials on the Internet are testimony to their commitment and dedication. Thus, they are a serious foe who can only be defeated by serious efforts and equal dedication from those who are in the mainstream.
Muhammad Haniff Hassan is an Associate Research Fellow and a PhD research student at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University . He holds a degree in Syariah and Civil Law, and an MSc in Strategic Studies. His latest book is Unlicensed to Kill: Countering Imam Samudra’s Justification for the Bali Bombing (2006). He has a blog to counter misinterpretation of jihad by groups like Al-Qaeda at http://counterideology.multiply.com
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Review the Week, then watch your hospitals.
Dirty Bomb Warning For Olympics
Posted: 21 May 2008 10:01 AM CDT
The Beijing Olympics in August could be a target for terrorists using radioactive materials, the UN nuclear watchdog has told the BBC.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says a group might try to release radioactivity at an Olympic venue, possibly using a “dirty bomb”.
However, the IAEA says there is no specific information suggesting an imminent attack on the Beijing games.
The IAEA warning comes as it conducts a training exercise in China’s capital.
London Threat
The agency says intelligence shows that terrorists are trying to obtain nuclear materials.
Its concern is that they might try to use a “dirty bomb” with conventional explosives in Beijing.
“There is a threat at some level that these [radioactive] materials could be used,” said Dr Anita Nilsson, the IAEA’s head of nuclear security.
Source - Read More
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Traveler Packed Pepper Spray, 9 TSA Agents at San Jose Airport Doused
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:47 AM CDT
Nine federal employees got doused with a potent shot of pepper spray at San Jose’s airport today when a can of the irritant that a passenger had packed in a bag was inadvertently discharged.
Rich Dressler, spokesman for the Mineta San Jose International Airport, said two Transportation Security Administration employees were taken to Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara for treatment. The remaining seven TSA agents, he said, were evaluated at the scene by San Jose firefighters and paramedics, and deemed to be OK.
It all started about 10:45 a.m. when a passenger was going through a security checkpoint at Terminal C. As the passenger was putting a bag on the X-ray table, the passenger remembered mistakenly packing a can of pepper spray. The passenger alerted the TSA agents. As one of the agents removed the hazardous spray and put it into a bin, it discharged, spraying the agents’ eyes and faces, said TSA spokesman Nico Melendez. Authorities provided conflicting reports about the passenger’s gender. A fire captain at the scene said it was a man, but police reported that it was a woman.
None of the flying public was affected.
Service at the airport wasn’t severely disrupted. Security screening continued. And the unnamed pepper spray-carrying passenger continued on his trip.
Source
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IRA Dissidents Plant Firebombs in McDonald’s Restaurant in Northern Ireland
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Workers at a McDonald’s restaurant in Northern Ireland discovered two firebombs Wednesday in the latest effort by IRA dissidents to undermine peace in the British territory, police said.
Police Inspector Sue Steen said both firebombs were hidden Tuesday night in the diaper-changing room of the restaurant in the central Northern Ireland town of Cookstown.
Staff members were alerted to the location of the firebombs because one partly ignited overnight in a garbage can. The other apparently was a dud.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if the restaurant had been filled with people, or someone was in the room with a baby, when they went off,” Steen said.
The failed firebombing appeared to be the latest effort by Irish Republican Army dissidents to show they reject the IRA’s 2005 decisions to renounce violence and disarm.
Source - Read More
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Gaithersburg Man Arrested for Explosives, Weapons
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Montgomery County Police say they have arrested a Gaithersburg man after recovering weapons and explosives from his home Wednesday.
James L. Boka , 47, was arrested without incident when investigators served a warrant at his home on Turtle Dove Terrace.
Bomb squad investigators recovered over 230 lbs. of 46 different chemicals commonly used to make explosives.
Boka has been charged with 11 counts of possession of destructive devices, 2 counts of Reckless Endangerment, and one count of weapon endangerment to a minor. More weapons-related charges are pending.
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Jordan Militants Sentenced For Plotting Chemical Attack
Posted: 22 May 2008 01:06 AM CDT
Eight al-Qaida-linked militants were handed life sentences on Wednesday three in absentia for plotting a 2004 chemical attack on the U.S. Embassy and other sites in the kingdom.
The men — alleged associates of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — had been sentenced to death in a previous trial in 2006. But an appeals court overturned those sentences because the prosecutor was apparently one of the plot’s targets.
The men were arrested in 2004, weeks ahead of what prosecutors called a sophisticated plot to set off a cloud of toxic chemicals that could have killed tens of thousands of people. At that point the plan was in an “advanced stage,” with chemicals, weapons and vehicles already in place, according to an indictment.
Al-Zarqawi had given the men more than $118,000 to finance the plot, it said. If carried out, it would have been one of the first known chemical attacks by al-Qaida-linked militants.
The targets included the U.S. Embassy in the capital Amman, the prime minister’s office and the intelligence service’s headquarters.
The men all pleaded not guilty.
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Phony Doctor Caught On Tape At Children’s Hospital - Florida
Posted: 22 May 2008 12:54 AM CDT
A man seen walking the halls of a Jacksonville children’s hospital with a medical coat, a badge, a stethoscope and a clipboard is no doctor, according to police. Now, officers are asking for the public’s help identifying and locating the phony physician.
The imposter was caught on surveillance video photo at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, but police said they have no idea who he is or why he was in the hospital.
“It concerns us that someone is doing this,†said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.
Police said they have a lot of questions for the man they said was posing as a doctor. They said the man was seen walking down the halls of Wolfson and was even seen in an operating room.
“It’s not clear as to how he was able to get in, but there’s so many legitimate doctors and nurses coming and going it’s really hard to keep up with that and monitor. I’m sure you can piggyback someone else going in. Who’s going to challenge a doctor?†Jefferson said.
According to the police report, the phony doctor was stopped by hospital staff members because they noticed alcohol coming from his breath. However, as soon as they started asking questions, the man left.
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Swedish Nuclear Plant Sealed Off - Worker Caught With Traces of TATP Explosives - 2 In Custody
Posted: 21 May 2008 06:38 AM CDT
UPDATE: Sweden Police Hold Two on Nuclear Sabotage Suspicion
Swedish police detained two people on suspicion of planning sabotage against the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in the country’s southeast.
Two people are in custody, Kalmar county police spokesman Sven-Erik Karlsson said today in an interview. One of the people, a male contract welder, was caught in a security check at the plant after traces of explosives were found on a carrying bag, according to operator OKG AB. Karlsson declined to comment on the identity of the other person, also a contract employee.
Police are investigating the substance, which may have carried traces of triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, according to OKG, Karlsson said. Part of the E.ON AG-owned plant was sealed off, without disrupting operations.
OKG contacted police shortly before 8 a.m. local time after three tests showed traces of a high-explosive substance, Karlsson said. Bomb specialists from Malmoe in southern Sweden have been called in to aid the investigation.
“OKG has told us they think it is TATP, but until our bomb technicians get there and analyze the substance we don’t know for sure,” Karlsson said.
Source
Original Story
A nuclear power plant in southern Sweden was cordoned off Wednesday following the discovery of explosive materials, local media reported.
A welder was caught with the highly explosive substance TATP Wednesday morning on his way to the Oskarshamn plant, local police spokesperson Sven-Erik Karlsson said. “We understand that it isn’t something he needed for the job,” he said.
According to Karlsson, the incident did not affected the nuclear plant’s operation. The welder was questioned by police, but he couldn’t explain why he had TATP with him on his way to the plant.
An area of 300 meters in circumference around the explosive substance has been cordoned off. Police bomb technicians have been sent to the scene, but it will take a few hours to remove the substance.
Roger Bergman, a spokesperson from the Oskarshamn plant, said a building in the vicinity of the TATP has been evacuated. “At 8am (local time) we received a call from the nuclear plant at Oskarshamn. They told us one worker was stopped in the control. He had explosive material in his bags,” Sven-Erik Karlsson of the Kalmar county police said.
The company that operates the Oskarshamn plant, OKG, meanwhile said the man’s bags contained “no visible illegal substances” but routine tests at the entrance to the plant “detected traces of explosives.”
Mr Karlsson said the man, who was being interrogated by police, was a welder hired for temporary purposes, but could provide no further details on his age nor his background.
“The explosive material has been taken care of by … police and apparently it is highly explosive, probably TATP,” Mr Karlsson said.
TATP is relatively easy to make and has surfaced in a number of recent terrorism investigations, including bombings in the Middle East and the London bombings in July 2005.
More
This is a breaking news story and details could change. We will continue to monitor and update as more information becomes available.
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Posted: 21 May 2008 10:01 AM CDT
The Beijing Olympics in August could be a target for terrorists using radioactive materials, the UN nuclear watchdog has told the BBC.
The International Atomic Energy Agency says a group might try to release radioactivity at an Olympic venue, possibly using a “dirty bomb”.
However, the IAEA says there is no specific information suggesting an imminent attack on the Beijing games.
The IAEA warning comes as it conducts a training exercise in China’s capital.
London Threat
The agency says intelligence shows that terrorists are trying to obtain nuclear materials.
Its concern is that they might try to use a “dirty bomb” with conventional explosives in Beijing.
“There is a threat at some level that these [radioactive] materials could be used,” said Dr Anita Nilsson, the IAEA’s head of nuclear security.
Source - Read More
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Traveler Packed Pepper Spray, 9 TSA Agents at San Jose Airport Doused
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:47 AM CDT
Nine federal employees got doused with a potent shot of pepper spray at San Jose’s airport today when a can of the irritant that a passenger had packed in a bag was inadvertently discharged.
Rich Dressler, spokesman for the Mineta San Jose International Airport, said two Transportation Security Administration employees were taken to Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara for treatment. The remaining seven TSA agents, he said, were evaluated at the scene by San Jose firefighters and paramedics, and deemed to be OK.
It all started about 10:45 a.m. when a passenger was going through a security checkpoint at Terminal C. As the passenger was putting a bag on the X-ray table, the passenger remembered mistakenly packing a can of pepper spray. The passenger alerted the TSA agents. As one of the agents removed the hazardous spray and put it into a bin, it discharged, spraying the agents’ eyes and faces, said TSA spokesman Nico Melendez. Authorities provided conflicting reports about the passenger’s gender. A fire captain at the scene said it was a man, but police reported that it was a woman.
None of the flying public was affected.
Service at the airport wasn’t severely disrupted. Security screening continued. And the unnamed pepper spray-carrying passenger continued on his trip.
Source
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IRA Dissidents Plant Firebombs in McDonald’s Restaurant in Northern Ireland
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Workers at a McDonald’s restaurant in Northern Ireland discovered two firebombs Wednesday in the latest effort by IRA dissidents to undermine peace in the British territory, police said.
Police Inspector Sue Steen said both firebombs were hidden Tuesday night in the diaper-changing room of the restaurant in the central Northern Ireland town of Cookstown.
Staff members were alerted to the location of the firebombs because one partly ignited overnight in a garbage can. The other apparently was a dud.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if the restaurant had been filled with people, or someone was in the room with a baby, when they went off,” Steen said.
The failed firebombing appeared to be the latest effort by Irish Republican Army dissidents to show they reject the IRA’s 2005 decisions to renounce violence and disarm.
Source - Read More
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Gaithersburg Man Arrested for Explosives, Weapons
Posted: 22 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Montgomery County Police say they have arrested a Gaithersburg man after recovering weapons and explosives from his home Wednesday.
James L. Boka , 47, was arrested without incident when investigators served a warrant at his home on Turtle Dove Terrace.
Bomb squad investigators recovered over 230 lbs. of 46 different chemicals commonly used to make explosives.
Boka has been charged with 11 counts of possession of destructive devices, 2 counts of Reckless Endangerment, and one count of weapon endangerment to a minor. More weapons-related charges are pending.
Read More
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Jordan Militants Sentenced For Plotting Chemical Attack
Posted: 22 May 2008 01:06 AM CDT
Eight al-Qaida-linked militants were handed life sentences on Wednesday three in absentia for plotting a 2004 chemical attack on the U.S. Embassy and other sites in the kingdom.
The men — alleged associates of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — had been sentenced to death in a previous trial in 2006. But an appeals court overturned those sentences because the prosecutor was apparently one of the plot’s targets.
The men were arrested in 2004, weeks ahead of what prosecutors called a sophisticated plot to set off a cloud of toxic chemicals that could have killed tens of thousands of people. At that point the plan was in an “advanced stage,” with chemicals, weapons and vehicles already in place, according to an indictment.
Al-Zarqawi had given the men more than $118,000 to finance the plot, it said. If carried out, it would have been one of the first known chemical attacks by al-Qaida-linked militants.
The targets included the U.S. Embassy in the capital Amman, the prime minister’s office and the intelligence service’s headquarters.
The men all pleaded not guilty.
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Phony Doctor Caught On Tape At Children’s Hospital - Florida
Posted: 22 May 2008 12:54 AM CDT
A man seen walking the halls of a Jacksonville children’s hospital with a medical coat, a badge, a stethoscope and a clipboard is no doctor, according to police. Now, officers are asking for the public’s help identifying and locating the phony physician.
The imposter was caught on surveillance video photo at Wolfson Children’s Hospital, but police said they have no idea who he is or why he was in the hospital.
“It concerns us that someone is doing this,†said Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office spokesman Ken Jefferson.
Police said they have a lot of questions for the man they said was posing as a doctor. They said the man was seen walking down the halls of Wolfson and was even seen in an operating room.
“It’s not clear as to how he was able to get in, but there’s so many legitimate doctors and nurses coming and going it’s really hard to keep up with that and monitor. I’m sure you can piggyback someone else going in. Who’s going to challenge a doctor?†Jefferson said.
According to the police report, the phony doctor was stopped by hospital staff members because they noticed alcohol coming from his breath. However, as soon as they started asking questions, the man left.
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Swedish Nuclear Plant Sealed Off - Worker Caught With Traces of TATP Explosives - 2 In Custody
Posted: 21 May 2008 06:38 AM CDT
UPDATE: Sweden Police Hold Two on Nuclear Sabotage Suspicion
Swedish police detained two people on suspicion of planning sabotage against the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in the country’s southeast.
Two people are in custody, Kalmar county police spokesman Sven-Erik Karlsson said today in an interview. One of the people, a male contract welder, was caught in a security check at the plant after traces of explosives were found on a carrying bag, according to operator OKG AB. Karlsson declined to comment on the identity of the other person, also a contract employee.
Police are investigating the substance, which may have carried traces of triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, according to OKG, Karlsson said. Part of the E.ON AG-owned plant was sealed off, without disrupting operations.
OKG contacted police shortly before 8 a.m. local time after three tests showed traces of a high-explosive substance, Karlsson said. Bomb specialists from Malmoe in southern Sweden have been called in to aid the investigation.
“OKG has told us they think it is TATP, but until our bomb technicians get there and analyze the substance we don’t know for sure,” Karlsson said.
Source
Original Story
A nuclear power plant in southern Sweden was cordoned off Wednesday following the discovery of explosive materials, local media reported.
A welder was caught with the highly explosive substance TATP Wednesday morning on his way to the Oskarshamn plant, local police spokesperson Sven-Erik Karlsson said. “We understand that it isn’t something he needed for the job,” he said.
According to Karlsson, the incident did not affected the nuclear plant’s operation. The welder was questioned by police, but he couldn’t explain why he had TATP with him on his way to the plant.
An area of 300 meters in circumference around the explosive substance has been cordoned off. Police bomb technicians have been sent to the scene, but it will take a few hours to remove the substance.
Roger Bergman, a spokesperson from the Oskarshamn plant, said a building in the vicinity of the TATP has been evacuated. “At 8am (local time) we received a call from the nuclear plant at Oskarshamn. They told us one worker was stopped in the control. He had explosive material in his bags,” Sven-Erik Karlsson of the Kalmar county police said.
The company that operates the Oskarshamn plant, OKG, meanwhile said the man’s bags contained “no visible illegal substances” but routine tests at the entrance to the plant “detected traces of explosives.”
Mr Karlsson said the man, who was being interrogated by police, was a welder hired for temporary purposes, but could provide no further details on his age nor his background.
“The explosive material has been taken care of by … police and apparently it is highly explosive, probably TATP,” Mr Karlsson said.
TATP is relatively easy to make and has surfaced in a number of recent terrorism investigations, including bombings in the Middle East and the London bombings in July 2005.
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This is a breaking news story and details could change. We will continue to monitor and update as more information becomes available.
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Jihad...in the virtual world.
Virtual Jihad - Commentary
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:56 AM CDT
The United States has been threatened and attacked by organized, equipped and trained foreign terrorist groups on many occasions. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, bombings of U.S. embassies abroad, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have resulted in a focus on the prevention of the “outsider” or foreign terrorist threat. Terrorist planning, training and operations abroad are widespread and ever-evolving.
The counter-terrorism community is now doubling its efforts to detect and prevent a more recent trend–homegrown terrorists–violent extremist who live legally in Western countries. The threat of homegrown extremists commands pre-emptive action by corporate America.
Michael McConnell, the nation’s Director of National Intelligence, addressed the importance of this threat before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February. “Attacks by ‘homegrown’ extremists inspired by militant Islamic ideology but without operational direction from al-Qaeda will remain a threat to the United States or against U.S. interests abroad,” McConnell testified, adding, that “the spread of [terrorist] Internet sites that provide religious justification for attacks and increasingly aggressive and violent anti-Western rhetoric … all suggest growth of a radical and violent segment among the West’s Muslim populations.”
Source - Read More
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UK Plans To Store Details of Every Phone Call, Email and Web Page Visited by British Citizens
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:36 AM CDT
The Home Office will create a database to store the details of every phone call made, every email sent and every web page visited by British citizens in the previous year under plans currently under discussion, it has emerged.
The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.
Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realized.
The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts.
The plans will raise concern from data protection and civil liberty campaigners and fuel objections to the perceived rise of a “Big Brother” state. There will be worries about the Home Office’s ability to safeguard the data from loss or theft, after recent incidents such as when the child benefit information of every family in Britain with a child under 16 were mislaid.
Source - Read More
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Morocco Arrests 11 Over Planned Terror Attacks
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Moroccan police have broken up a “terrorist network” of 11 people with links to Al-Qaeda that was planning attacks in Morocco and Belgium, the MAP national news agency said Monday.
The 11, who include a Moroccan resident in Belgium, were picked up in the central city of Fes and in Nador, in the north of the country, MAP said.
They had links with “groups sending volunteers to Iraq and camps of Al-Qaeda’s branch in North Africa,” the agency added, giving no names.
A source close to the government told AFP that the 11 were not connected to another group arrested earlier this year allegedly led by Abdelkader Belliraj, who has dual Moroccan and Belgian nationality.
That group faces charges including murder and attempted murder with firearms, robbery, money laundering, criminal association with terrorist intent and forging official and identity documents.
Belliraj is also reported to have been in the pay of Belgium’s domestic intelligence service for years, but Moroccan authorities said he had confessed to several unsolved murders committed in Belgium in 1989.
Belgian radio station VRT in Brussels reported Monday evening that the Moroccan suspects that day had targeted a European Union building and a hotel in the Belgian capital, without citing its sources.
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Man Charged With Impersonating Naval investigator at Palm Beach International Airport
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
A former Navy officer was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport after he tried to get on a plane with a .40-caliber magazine in his carry-on baggage.
Christian Louis, 32, told security officials he is a Naval law enforcement investigator and showed them a badge. However, the Navy has no record of him being an investigator, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
His bail was set this morning at $5,000 on charges of impersonating a law enforcement officer.
Source
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Indianapolis - Police Find Grenades During Traffic Stop
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Metro police found much more than they expected during a traffic stop on the city’s west side.
Monday morning, police stopped a car during a drug investigation. They say the driver had two grenades in a coat pocket.
It happened at around 10:30 a.m. on West Washington Street at Belleview.
Bomb experts came out, got the grenades, and put them in a metal box. They will take them to a safe place and blow them up.
“We evacuated the businesses and made sure the customers and everybody stayed off the street. Those do have a blast area so we made sure that was cleared. But yes, they are very, very dangerous,” said Major Brian Mahone of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department.
Grenades can take many forms: smoke, tear gas, or hard the traditional hard explosives meant to blow up and hurt someone. Police believe the grenades found were very dangerous and not legal to carry around.
Officers won’t say at this point what charges the driver faces, for the grenades or the initial drug case they were working when they pulled him over.
They said they’ll work to figure out why the man had them and whether that means others are out on the streets as we speak.
Source
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Venezuela Denounces U.S. After an Airspace Violation
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The defense minister said Monday that an American fighter plane violated Venezuelan airspace over the weekend, prompting the government here to summon the United States ambassador to explain the incident and other recent statements about Venezuela by senior American officials.
The denunciation, issued on state television Monday morning, suggests that political relations between Venezuela and the United States may be set to deteriorate further after Washington explicitly sided with Colombia in a dispute over a trove of computer files that tie Colombia’s largest guerrilla group to Venezuela’s government.
Gen. Gustavo Rangel, the Venezuelan defense minister, said the authorities on Saturday detected an S-3B Viking aircraft piloted by United States Navy personnel over La Orchila, a Caribbean island with a Venezuelan military base. An exchange of words ensued, General Rangel said, and the plane departed in the direction of Curaçao, in the Dutch Antilles.
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Violence Escalates In South Africa - Foreigners Burned Alive In Street
Posted: 20 May 2008 12:42 AM CDT
Mob violence against foreigners in Johannesburg and elsewhere in South Africa is raging despite police efforts to end killing sprees of which Zimbabweans are a prime target. Sources estimated that some 20 people have died since the latest outburst, most violently as the following articles detail.
News reports and direct sources say mobs continue to roam the city’s poorest neighborhoods, burning shacks, looting stores, and attacking immigrants.
Since beginning this blog some 5 years ago, I’ve had a number of gruesome pictures and articles come across my desk. Jim, over at Gateway Pundit has posted one of the most disturbing articles I’ve seen in some time. It’s shocking to realize what level man can deteriorate to.
Before you click over, I caution you that these photos are extremely disturbing.
WARNING ON CONTENT– VERY DISTURBING PHOTOS
Gateway Pundit
More - Anti-immigrant violence rages on in South Africa
The man certainly looked dead, lying motionless in the dust of the squatter camp. His body seemed almost like a bottle that had been turned on its side, spilling blood. His pants were red with the moisture.
Nearby was evidence of what he had endured. A large rock had been used to gouge his torso. Embers remained from a fire that had been part of some torture. Shards of a burned jacket still clung to the victim’s left forearm.
Then, as people stepped closer, there was the faintest of breath pushing against his chest. “This guy may be alive,” someone surmised. As if to confirm it, the man moved the fingers of his right hand.
The jaded crowd neither rejoiced nor lamented. After all, the horrific attacks against immigrants around Johannesburg had already been going on for a week, and in their eyes the victim was just some Malawian or Zimbabwean, another casualty in the continuing purge.
This nation is undergoing a spasm of xenophobia, with poor South Africans taking out their rage on the poor foreigners living in their midst. At least 22 people had been killed by Monday in the unrelenting mayhem, the police said.
Source - Read More
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Posted: 20 May 2008 02:56 AM CDT
The United States has been threatened and attacked by organized, equipped and trained foreign terrorist groups on many occasions. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, bombings of U.S. embassies abroad, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have resulted in a focus on the prevention of the “outsider” or foreign terrorist threat. Terrorist planning, training and operations abroad are widespread and ever-evolving.
The counter-terrorism community is now doubling its efforts to detect and prevent a more recent trend–homegrown terrorists–violent extremist who live legally in Western countries. The threat of homegrown extremists commands pre-emptive action by corporate America.
Michael McConnell, the nation’s Director of National Intelligence, addressed the importance of this threat before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in February. “Attacks by ‘homegrown’ extremists inspired by militant Islamic ideology but without operational direction from al-Qaeda will remain a threat to the United States or against U.S. interests abroad,” McConnell testified, adding, that “the spread of [terrorist] Internet sites that provide religious justification for attacks and increasingly aggressive and violent anti-Western rhetoric … all suggest growth of a radical and violent segment among the West’s Muslim populations.”
Source - Read More
ShareThis
UK Plans To Store Details of Every Phone Call, Email and Web Page Visited by British Citizens
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:36 AM CDT
The Home Office will create a database to store the details of every phone call made, every email sent and every web page visited by British citizens in the previous year under plans currently under discussion, it has emerged.
The Government wants to create the system to fight terrorism and crime. The police and security services believe it will make it easier to access important data as communications become more complex.
Telecoms firms and internet service providers (ISPs) have already been approached by the Home Office, which would be given customer records if the plans were realized.
The security services and police would then be able to access records for any individual over the previous 12 months by gaining permission through the courts.
The plans will raise concern from data protection and civil liberty campaigners and fuel objections to the perceived rise of a “Big Brother” state. There will be worries about the Home Office’s ability to safeguard the data from loss or theft, after recent incidents such as when the child benefit information of every family in Britain with a child under 16 were mislaid.
Source - Read More
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Morocco Arrests 11 Over Planned Terror Attacks
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Moroccan police have broken up a “terrorist network” of 11 people with links to Al-Qaeda that was planning attacks in Morocco and Belgium, the MAP national news agency said Monday.
The 11, who include a Moroccan resident in Belgium, were picked up in the central city of Fes and in Nador, in the north of the country, MAP said.
They had links with “groups sending volunteers to Iraq and camps of Al-Qaeda’s branch in North Africa,” the agency added, giving no names.
A source close to the government told AFP that the 11 were not connected to another group arrested earlier this year allegedly led by Abdelkader Belliraj, who has dual Moroccan and Belgian nationality.
That group faces charges including murder and attempted murder with firearms, robbery, money laundering, criminal association with terrorist intent and forging official and identity documents.
Belliraj is also reported to have been in the pay of Belgium’s domestic intelligence service for years, but Moroccan authorities said he had confessed to several unsolved murders committed in Belgium in 1989.
Belgian radio station VRT in Brussels reported Monday evening that the Moroccan suspects that day had targeted a European Union building and a hotel in the Belgian capital, without citing its sources.
Read - Source
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Man Charged With Impersonating Naval investigator at Palm Beach International Airport
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
A former Navy officer was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport after he tried to get on a plane with a .40-caliber magazine in his carry-on baggage.
Christian Louis, 32, told security officials he is a Naval law enforcement investigator and showed them a badge. However, the Navy has no record of him being an investigator, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
His bail was set this morning at $5,000 on charges of impersonating a law enforcement officer.
Source
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Indianapolis - Police Find Grenades During Traffic Stop
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Metro police found much more than they expected during a traffic stop on the city’s west side.
Monday morning, police stopped a car during a drug investigation. They say the driver had two grenades in a coat pocket.
It happened at around 10:30 a.m. on West Washington Street at Belleview.
Bomb experts came out, got the grenades, and put them in a metal box. They will take them to a safe place and blow them up.
“We evacuated the businesses and made sure the customers and everybody stayed off the street. Those do have a blast area so we made sure that was cleared. But yes, they are very, very dangerous,” said Major Brian Mahone of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department.
Grenades can take many forms: smoke, tear gas, or hard the traditional hard explosives meant to blow up and hurt someone. Police believe the grenades found were very dangerous and not legal to carry around.
Officers won’t say at this point what charges the driver faces, for the grenades or the initial drug case they were working when they pulled him over.
They said they’ll work to figure out why the man had them and whether that means others are out on the streets as we speak.
Source
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Venezuela Denounces U.S. After an Airspace Violation
Posted: 20 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The defense minister said Monday that an American fighter plane violated Venezuelan airspace over the weekend, prompting the government here to summon the United States ambassador to explain the incident and other recent statements about Venezuela by senior American officials.
The denunciation, issued on state television Monday morning, suggests that political relations between Venezuela and the United States may be set to deteriorate further after Washington explicitly sided with Colombia in a dispute over a trove of computer files that tie Colombia’s largest guerrilla group to Venezuela’s government.
Gen. Gustavo Rangel, the Venezuelan defense minister, said the authorities on Saturday detected an S-3B Viking aircraft piloted by United States Navy personnel over La Orchila, a Caribbean island with a Venezuelan military base. An exchange of words ensued, General Rangel said, and the plane departed in the direction of Curaçao, in the Dutch Antilles.
Source - Read More
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Violence Escalates In South Africa - Foreigners Burned Alive In Street
Posted: 20 May 2008 12:42 AM CDT
Mob violence against foreigners in Johannesburg and elsewhere in South Africa is raging despite police efforts to end killing sprees of which Zimbabweans are a prime target. Sources estimated that some 20 people have died since the latest outburst, most violently as the following articles detail.
News reports and direct sources say mobs continue to roam the city’s poorest neighborhoods, burning shacks, looting stores, and attacking immigrants.
Since beginning this blog some 5 years ago, I’ve had a number of gruesome pictures and articles come across my desk. Jim, over at Gateway Pundit has posted one of the most disturbing articles I’ve seen in some time. It’s shocking to realize what level man can deteriorate to.
Before you click over, I caution you that these photos are extremely disturbing.
WARNING ON CONTENT– VERY DISTURBING PHOTOS
Gateway Pundit
More - Anti-immigrant violence rages on in South Africa
The man certainly looked dead, lying motionless in the dust of the squatter camp. His body seemed almost like a bottle that had been turned on its side, spilling blood. His pants were red with the moisture.
Nearby was evidence of what he had endured. A large rock had been used to gouge his torso. Embers remained from a fire that had been part of some torture. Shards of a burned jacket still clung to the victim’s left forearm.
Then, as people stepped closer, there was the faintest of breath pushing against his chest. “This guy may be alive,” someone surmised. As if to confirm it, the man moved the fingers of his right hand.
The jaded crowd neither rejoiced nor lamented. After all, the horrific attacks against immigrants around Johannesburg had already been going on for a week, and in their eyes the victim was just some Malawian or Zimbabwean, another casualty in the continuing purge.
This nation is undergoing a spasm of xenophobia, with poor South Africans taking out their rage on the poor foreigners living in their midst. At least 22 people had been killed by Monday in the unrelenting mayhem, the police said.
Source - Read More
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what next..read this
Would Be Suicide Bomber Arrested After Explosion - Giraffe Restaurant
Posted: 22 May 2008 10:25 PM CDT
A man arrested after an explosion at an Exeter restaurant has “a history of mental illness” and was a recent convert to Islam, police have said.
Nicky Reilly, 22, from Plymouth, suffered serious facial injuries when a device detonated at the Princesshay shopping centre in the city.
He is now in police custody in hospital and officers have also searched an address linked to him in Plymouth.
Anti-terror police and security services are assisting the inquiry.
Mr Reilly was arrested after the explosion at 1250 BST on Thursday in the Giraffe restaurant in the £230m shopping development, which is one of Exeter’s main attractions.
CCTV footage taken from a nearby camera appears to show him emerging from the cafe with blood pouring down his face before his arrest.
No-one else was hurt in the explosion at the restaurant, which was busy at the time and is popular with families.
Another device, which did not go off, was found outside the premises.
After the incident, officers evacuated the city’s bus station - which is about half a mile away - and extended an exclusion cordon 100 metres around the scene. However, police have now re-opened the city centre though Giraffe remains closed.
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Radioactive Waste Containers Had Filters Removed - Idaho National Laboratory
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:32 AM CDT
A U.S. Department of Energy investigation into the removal and discarding of filters from eight drums containing radioactive waste at an eastern Idaho nuclear facility has determined that the incident was not an act of sabotage.
However, officials offered no explanation as to why an employee removed the filters, creating the potential for contaminating other workers.
The company responsible for processing the nuclear waste, Bechtel BWXT Idaho, said an employee confessed to removing the filters, according to Bechtel spokesman Rick Dale.
Officials have refused to identify the individual, who no longer works at the facility.
No one was contaminated, the company said.
Bechtel immediately increased security after the April 9 incident was discovered.
Those procedures included requiring permission from management before employees could enter the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, an 890-square-mile federal nuclear research area.
Once inside, the company also required employees to maintain visual contact with each other. Those precautions have since been discontinued.
The precautions were put in place according to two internal company memos obtained by the Post Register, one sent to Bechtel employees on April 10 and another on April 14.
“I cannot overstate the seriousness of this incident,” Bechtel President and General Manager Jeff Mousseau wrote in the April 10 memo. “Whether deliberate or an accident, had there been a release of radioactivity from these drums, the people who would have been exposed to potential contamination would have been our fellow workers.”
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White Powder Sends 8 to Hospital in California Post Office Scare
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Los Angeles County fire officials said eight people were taken to hospitals to be examined after being exposed to an unidentified white powder at a post office in Pomona.
Inspector Ron Haralson said authorities were called to the post office around 10:15 a.m. Thursday. He said eight people on the loading dock complained of skin irritation after handling a brown envelope containing the powder.
They were taken to hospitals in good condition.
A hazardous materials squad was sent to the scene but the post office was not evacuated.
Source - Read More
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Major Terror Attack Averted In India - Police Search For Hidden RDX
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
With the arrest of a Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) militant and seizure of explosives, Delhi Police Thursday claimed to have averted a major terrorist strike in the capital, but they still have no clue of seven kg of RDX buried somewhere in the city.
RDX is an explosive widely used in military and industrial applications.
Sleuths of Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Abdur Rehman from the New Delhi Railway station Wednesday night. Following his interrogation, they recovered 3.1 kg of RDX, five detonators and one timer device buried near a mosque in D Block of Janakpuri area in west Delhi.
Rehman told the police that Nata, a commander of the Bangladesh-based HuJI, had handed him 3.1 kg of RDX in January 2007 near a mosque at Dabri in southwest Delhi to carry out explosions in the capital.
He said Nata also gave seven kg of RDX to ‘Rocky’, whom he doesn’t know, for the same task.
Police Special Cell sources said they were trying to trace two HuJI militants who are active in the capital.
“We don’t know anything about Rocky yet. The remaining seven kg of RDX could be anywhere in the capital or outside. We have no clue,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh said.
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Blair Jet Faced Israeli Warplanes After Failing To Identify Themselves
Posted: 22 May 2008 11:55 PM CDT
Israeli fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept a jet carrying former UK prime minister Tony Blair after its crew failed to identify themselves.
Aircrew used the radio to explain who they were after the two warplanes adopted an attack position, prompting them to peel off and return to base.
Mr Blair was en route to Israel from a World Economic Forum meeting at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt on Wednesday.
He is the Middle East envoy for the Quartet of major powers.
Mr Blair has been in the role for the last 11 months.
A spokesman for the former prime minister said: “Mr Blair was one of a number of delegates on a flight back from the World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh.
“We were not aware of any problem at the time, and have not been notified of any issue with the flight.”
Israel’s air defence system is one of the strictest in the world and warplanes are often scrambled for false alarms.
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Supporters In Tears After Terror Suspect Denied Bail - Canada
Posted: 22 May 2008 11:03 PM CDT
Dozens of supporters of Saad Gaya left a Brampton courtroom in tears yesterday after the 20-year-old terrorism suspect was denied bail and sent back to prison to await trial.
Gaya was arrested as part of an alleged “homegrown” terrorism cell that police say was dismantled in June 2006 with the arrest of 14 adults and four youths.
The group plotted to bomb downtown Toronto targets, including the office of Canada’s spy service, as well as a military base north of the city, the allegations state.
Two police moles who infiltrated the group are expected to be key witnesses at the trial. Defence lawyers say the men were encouraged to plan the assault by the agents, while the Crown maintains it was effective undercover work that stopped a terrorist attack.
In the two years since the dramatic arrests, the group has come to be known as the “Toronto 18″ and attracted a following of grassroots protesters, including one group called the “Presumption of Innocence Project.”
Source - Read More
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Posted: 22 May 2008 10:25 PM CDT
A man arrested after an explosion at an Exeter restaurant has “a history of mental illness” and was a recent convert to Islam, police have said.
Nicky Reilly, 22, from Plymouth, suffered serious facial injuries when a device detonated at the Princesshay shopping centre in the city.
He is now in police custody in hospital and officers have also searched an address linked to him in Plymouth.
Anti-terror police and security services are assisting the inquiry.
Mr Reilly was arrested after the explosion at 1250 BST on Thursday in the Giraffe restaurant in the £230m shopping development, which is one of Exeter’s main attractions.
CCTV footage taken from a nearby camera appears to show him emerging from the cafe with blood pouring down his face before his arrest.
No-one else was hurt in the explosion at the restaurant, which was busy at the time and is popular with families.
Another device, which did not go off, was found outside the premises.
After the incident, officers evacuated the city’s bus station - which is about half a mile away - and extended an exclusion cordon 100 metres around the scene. However, police have now re-opened the city centre though Giraffe remains closed.
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Radioactive Waste Containers Had Filters Removed - Idaho National Laboratory
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:32 AM CDT
A U.S. Department of Energy investigation into the removal and discarding of filters from eight drums containing radioactive waste at an eastern Idaho nuclear facility has determined that the incident was not an act of sabotage.
However, officials offered no explanation as to why an employee removed the filters, creating the potential for contaminating other workers.
The company responsible for processing the nuclear waste, Bechtel BWXT Idaho, said an employee confessed to removing the filters, according to Bechtel spokesman Rick Dale.
Officials have refused to identify the individual, who no longer works at the facility.
No one was contaminated, the company said.
Bechtel immediately increased security after the April 9 incident was discovered.
Those procedures included requiring permission from management before employees could enter the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Project facility at the Idaho National Laboratory, an 890-square-mile federal nuclear research area.
Once inside, the company also required employees to maintain visual contact with each other. Those precautions have since been discontinued.
The precautions were put in place according to two internal company memos obtained by the Post Register, one sent to Bechtel employees on April 10 and another on April 14.
“I cannot overstate the seriousness of this incident,” Bechtel President and General Manager Jeff Mousseau wrote in the April 10 memo. “Whether deliberate or an accident, had there been a release of radioactivity from these drums, the people who would have been exposed to potential contamination would have been our fellow workers.”
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White Powder Sends 8 to Hospital in California Post Office Scare
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Los Angeles County fire officials said eight people were taken to hospitals to be examined after being exposed to an unidentified white powder at a post office in Pomona.
Inspector Ron Haralson said authorities were called to the post office around 10:15 a.m. Thursday. He said eight people on the loading dock complained of skin irritation after handling a brown envelope containing the powder.
They were taken to hospitals in good condition.
A hazardous materials squad was sent to the scene but the post office was not evacuated.
Source - Read More
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Major Terror Attack Averted In India - Police Search For Hidden RDX
Posted: 23 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
With the arrest of a Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HuJI) militant and seizure of explosives, Delhi Police Thursday claimed to have averted a major terrorist strike in the capital, but they still have no clue of seven kg of RDX buried somewhere in the city.
RDX is an explosive widely used in military and industrial applications.
Sleuths of Delhi Police Special Cell arrested Abdur Rehman from the New Delhi Railway station Wednesday night. Following his interrogation, they recovered 3.1 kg of RDX, five detonators and one timer device buried near a mosque in D Block of Janakpuri area in west Delhi.
Rehman told the police that Nata, a commander of the Bangladesh-based HuJI, had handed him 3.1 kg of RDX in January 2007 near a mosque at Dabri in southwest Delhi to carry out explosions in the capital.
He said Nata also gave seven kg of RDX to ‘Rocky’, whom he doesn’t know, for the same task.
Police Special Cell sources said they were trying to trace two HuJI militants who are active in the capital.
“We don’t know anything about Rocky yet. The remaining seven kg of RDX could be anywhere in the capital or outside. We have no clue,” Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Karnal Singh said.
Source - Read More
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Blair Jet Faced Israeli Warplanes After Failing To Identify Themselves
Posted: 22 May 2008 11:55 PM CDT
Israeli fighter aircraft were scrambled to intercept a jet carrying former UK prime minister Tony Blair after its crew failed to identify themselves.
Aircrew used the radio to explain who they were after the two warplanes adopted an attack position, prompting them to peel off and return to base.
Mr Blair was en route to Israel from a World Economic Forum meeting at Sharm el Sheikh in Egypt on Wednesday.
He is the Middle East envoy for the Quartet of major powers.
Mr Blair has been in the role for the last 11 months.
A spokesman for the former prime minister said: “Mr Blair was one of a number of delegates on a flight back from the World Economic Forum in Sharm El Sheikh.
“We were not aware of any problem at the time, and have not been notified of any issue with the flight.”
Israel’s air defence system is one of the strictest in the world and warplanes are often scrambled for false alarms.
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Supporters In Tears After Terror Suspect Denied Bail - Canada
Posted: 22 May 2008 11:03 PM CDT
Dozens of supporters of Saad Gaya left a Brampton courtroom in tears yesterday after the 20-year-old terrorism suspect was denied bail and sent back to prison to await trial.
Gaya was arrested as part of an alleged “homegrown” terrorism cell that police say was dismantled in June 2006 with the arrest of 14 adults and four youths.
The group plotted to bomb downtown Toronto targets, including the office of Canada’s spy service, as well as a military base north of the city, the allegations state.
Two police moles who infiltrated the group are expected to be key witnesses at the trial. Defence lawyers say the men were encouraged to plan the assault by the agents, while the Crown maintains it was effective undercover work that stopped a terrorist attack.
In the two years since the dramatic arrests, the group has come to be known as the “Toronto 18″ and attracted a following of grassroots protesters, including one group called the “Presumption of Innocence Project.”
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Emerging Threats
New York City Patrolled By Unmarked Helicopter ‘23′
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:29 AM CDT
On a cloudless spring day, the NYPD helicopter soars over the city, its sights set on the Statue of Liberty.
A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.
“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.
The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates—or scan pedestrians’ faces—from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.
Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.
“It looks like just another helicopter in the sky,” said Assistant Police Chief Charles Kammerdener, who oversees the department’s aviation unit.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency “has anything that comes close” to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.
The chopper is named simply “23″—for the number of police officers killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The $10 million helicopter is just part of the department’s efforts to adopt cutting-edge technology for its counterterrorism operations.
The NYPD also plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points.
Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors—some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters—to detect dirty bombs.
Source -Read More
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Fire Guts 3 Tour Buses And Damages Hilton Hotel - Washington D.C.
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:02 AM CDT
Three tour buses parked under a hotel breezeway near Reagan National Airport caught fire early yesterday, sending heavy smoke into the building and forcing the temporary evacuation of about 150 hotel guests, officials said.
No one was injured.
The blaze, which gutted the three buses, was reported about 2:30 a.m. at the Hilton Crystal City, 2399 Jefferson Davis Hwy., said Battalion Chief Carol Saulnier of the Arlington County Fire Department. Damage was estimated at $1.5 million.
The guests remained outside for about an hour while firefighters inspected portions of the 386-room hotel to make sure the fire had not spread, said Ben Thompson, general manager.
“Our first concern is always just guest safety,” Thompson said. “And all the guests were fine. Everybody was safe. Nobody was hurt.”
Thompson said the buses were for tour groups staying at the hotel.
Source -Read More
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Glasgow Airport Terminal Evacuated After Suspicious Package Is Discovered
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Glasgow Airport was partially evacuated late last night after the discovery of a “suspicious package”.
A handful of passengers and several staff were ordered to leave the east and domestic pier sections of the main terminal building after the package was discovered at 11pm.
Donald Morrison, head of media affairs with BAA Scotland, which owns and operates the airport, said the matter had been referred to Strathclyde Police who were carrying out an investigation of the area.
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A force spokesman said a police search adviser had been sent to the scene in acordance with routine procedure when a suspicious package is found at the airport. He said it was likely that a bomb disposal team would also be sent from either Coulport, Faslane or Edinburgh Castle.
Mr Morrison said: “There has been a partial evacuation of the main terminal building following the discovery of an unattended package Only a handful of passengers were at the airport at the time.”
Mr Morrison said flights were continuing to arrive and depart at the airport.
Last night’s discovery came almost a year after the airport came under attack when a car exploded in flames as it was rammed into the front of the main terminal building.
Source -Read More
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9 Year Old Discovers Gun Stashed At Lambert Field Airport
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The Saturday before Mother’s Day a Lincoln County family was at Lambert to see relatives off when according to her parents, a 9-year-old girl, while smelling flowers saw a purple rag in the bushes.
Beneath the rag the girl found a handgun and an envelope full of bullets. “It was definitely the last thing I would expect a nine year old to find at an airport,” says the girl’s soon-to-be step-father Charles, who didn’t want to be identified.
According to police reports a passenger tried to bring the gun through security and was stopped and was told what most people already know: guns aren’t allowed to be carried on a plane let alone inside the building. “Especially after 911,” says Charles, “why would anyone try and get through airport security with a weapon.”
The man was cited by TSA but allowed to continue his trip but without his gun. The gun’s owner, according to the complaint, was dropped off at the airport so he didn’t have a car to leave it in and instead of checking the gun he allegedly decided to stash it. “I don’t know why he brought it in the first place he should have just left it at home,” says Charles.
When the suspect returned to retrieve his gun on Mother’s Day he found only the rag and ammo in the bushes. Police had the gun with them and had the suspect under surveillance.
Source
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Truck With Nine Tons of Gelatine Explosives Was Stolen - India
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
An unclaimed truck loaded with about nine tonnes of gelatine explosives, which was seized here, was stolen in Chhattisgarh while going from Jharkhand to Maharashtra, the police said yesterday.
The recovery has sent the police into a tizzy. They have started a probe on whether the explosives in the truck, parked on the outskirts of Raipur, were meant for Maoist insurgents who are active in the state.
The truck was found abandoned on Thursday, a few metres from the national highway that connects the Chhattisgarh capital to the industrial cities of Bhilai and Nagpur. “We can’t imagine that an unclaimed truck loaded with gelatine explosives boxes could be found in Raipur. These were kept in wooden boxes,” Lal Umed Singh, city superintendent of police, told IANS.
He said: “A probe is on and we can’t rule out possibility that the explosives were brought here either for terrorism purposes in Raipur or for supplying to Maoists who are very active in the state’s southern Bastar region.”
Source
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Fourth Severed Human Foot Found On B.C. Coast - British Columbia
Posted: 24 May 2008 01:34 AM CDT
For the fourth time in less than a year, a right human foot has been found off one of four different islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia.
Police said Friday that they do not know if there are any links among the feet. Speculation in the region is rife, including that the feet were from slaying victims or they were the remains from a plane crash. Police have not reached any conclusions.
Police said a passer-by found a human foot in a shoe on Kirkland Island in the South Arm of the Fraser River on Thursday.
“It’s certainly a mystery we intend on solving,” Police Constable Annie Linteau said. “It’s certainly very unusual.”
Last August, a foot was found inside a man’s Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island, just a few days after another foot was discovered by beachcombers on Jedidiah Island.
The remains of a fourth right foot were found on the east side of Valdez Island on Feb 8.
There is no evidence to suggest the foot - or any or the previous three- was forcibly removed, Linteau said.
“All four were wearing socks and were in a running shoe,” Linteau said.
Two of the feet are size 12. Police have not released the size of the others.
Read More - Source
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Posted: 24 May 2008 02:29 AM CDT
On a cloudless spring day, the NYPD helicopter soars over the city, its sights set on the Statue of Liberty.
A dramatic close-up of Lady Liberty’s frozen gaze fills one of three flat-screen computer monitors mounted on a console. Hundreds of sightseers below are oblivious to the fact that a helicopter is peering down on them from a mile and a half away.
“They don’t even know we’re here,” said crew chief John Diaz, speaking into a headset over the din of the aircraft’s engine.
The helicopter’s unmarked paint job belies what’s inside: an arsenal of sophisticated surveillance and tracking equipment powerful enough to read license plates—or scan pedestrians’ faces—from high above the nation’s largest metropolis.
Police say the chopper’s sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys.
“It looks like just another helicopter in the sky,” said Assistant Police Chief Charles Kammerdener, who oversees the department’s aviation unit.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency “has anything that comes close” to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.
The chopper is named simply “23″—for the number of police officers killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The $10 million helicopter is just part of the department’s efforts to adopt cutting-edge technology for its counterterrorism operations.
The NYPD also plans to spend tens of millions of dollars strengthening security in the lower Manhattan business district with a network of closed-circuit television cameras and license-plate readers posted at bridges, tunnels and other entry points.
Police have also deployed hundreds of radiation monitors—some worn on belts like pagers, others mounted on cars and in helicopters—to detect dirty bombs.
Source -Read More
ShareThis
Fire Guts 3 Tour Buses And Damages Hilton Hotel - Washington D.C.
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:02 AM CDT
Three tour buses parked under a hotel breezeway near Reagan National Airport caught fire early yesterday, sending heavy smoke into the building and forcing the temporary evacuation of about 150 hotel guests, officials said.
No one was injured.
The blaze, which gutted the three buses, was reported about 2:30 a.m. at the Hilton Crystal City, 2399 Jefferson Davis Hwy., said Battalion Chief Carol Saulnier of the Arlington County Fire Department. Damage was estimated at $1.5 million.
The guests remained outside for about an hour while firefighters inspected portions of the 386-room hotel to make sure the fire had not spread, said Ben Thompson, general manager.
“Our first concern is always just guest safety,” Thompson said. “And all the guests were fine. Everybody was safe. Nobody was hurt.”
Thompson said the buses were for tour groups staying at the hotel.
Source -Read More
ShareThis
Glasgow Airport Terminal Evacuated After Suspicious Package Is Discovered
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Glasgow Airport was partially evacuated late last night after the discovery of a “suspicious package”.
A handful of passengers and several staff were ordered to leave the east and domestic pier sections of the main terminal building after the package was discovered at 11pm.
Donald Morrison, head of media affairs with BAA Scotland, which owns and operates the airport, said the matter had been referred to Strathclyde Police who were carrying out an investigation of the area.
advertisement
A force spokesman said a police search adviser had been sent to the scene in acordance with routine procedure when a suspicious package is found at the airport. He said it was likely that a bomb disposal team would also be sent from either Coulport, Faslane or Edinburgh Castle.
Mr Morrison said: “There has been a partial evacuation of the main terminal building following the discovery of an unattended package Only a handful of passengers were at the airport at the time.”
Mr Morrison said flights were continuing to arrive and depart at the airport.
Last night’s discovery came almost a year after the airport came under attack when a car exploded in flames as it was rammed into the front of the main terminal building.
Source -Read More
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9 Year Old Discovers Gun Stashed At Lambert Field Airport
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
The Saturday before Mother’s Day a Lincoln County family was at Lambert to see relatives off when according to her parents, a 9-year-old girl, while smelling flowers saw a purple rag in the bushes.
Beneath the rag the girl found a handgun and an envelope full of bullets. “It was definitely the last thing I would expect a nine year old to find at an airport,” says the girl’s soon-to-be step-father Charles, who didn’t want to be identified.
According to police reports a passenger tried to bring the gun through security and was stopped and was told what most people already know: guns aren’t allowed to be carried on a plane let alone inside the building. “Especially after 911,” says Charles, “why would anyone try and get through airport security with a weapon.”
The man was cited by TSA but allowed to continue his trip but without his gun. The gun’s owner, according to the complaint, was dropped off at the airport so he didn’t have a car to leave it in and instead of checking the gun he allegedly decided to stash it. “I don’t know why he brought it in the first place he should have just left it at home,” says Charles.
When the suspect returned to retrieve his gun on Mother’s Day he found only the rag and ammo in the bushes. Police had the gun with them and had the suspect under surveillance.
Source
ShareThis
Truck With Nine Tons of Gelatine Explosives Was Stolen - India
Posted: 24 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
An unclaimed truck loaded with about nine tonnes of gelatine explosives, which was seized here, was stolen in Chhattisgarh while going from Jharkhand to Maharashtra, the police said yesterday.
The recovery has sent the police into a tizzy. They have started a probe on whether the explosives in the truck, parked on the outskirts of Raipur, were meant for Maoist insurgents who are active in the state.
The truck was found abandoned on Thursday, a few metres from the national highway that connects the Chhattisgarh capital to the industrial cities of Bhilai and Nagpur. “We can’t imagine that an unclaimed truck loaded with gelatine explosives boxes could be found in Raipur. These were kept in wooden boxes,” Lal Umed Singh, city superintendent of police, told IANS.
He said: “A probe is on and we can’t rule out possibility that the explosives were brought here either for terrorism purposes in Raipur or for supplying to Maoists who are very active in the state’s southern Bastar region.”
Source
ShareThis
Fourth Severed Human Foot Found On B.C. Coast - British Columbia
Posted: 24 May 2008 01:34 AM CDT
For the fourth time in less than a year, a right human foot has been found off one of four different islands in the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia.
Police said Friday that they do not know if there are any links among the feet. Speculation in the region is rife, including that the feet were from slaying victims or they were the remains from a plane crash. Police have not reached any conclusions.
Police said a passer-by found a human foot in a shoe on Kirkland Island in the South Arm of the Fraser River on Thursday.
“It’s certainly a mystery we intend on solving,” Police Constable Annie Linteau said. “It’s certainly very unusual.”
Last August, a foot was found inside a man’s Reebok sneaker on nearby Gabriola Island, just a few days after another foot was discovered by beachcombers on Jedidiah Island.
The remains of a fourth right foot were found on the east side of Valdez Island on Feb 8.
There is no evidence to suggest the foot - or any or the previous three- was forcibly removed, Linteau said.
“All four were wearing socks and were in a running shoe,” Linteau said.
Two of the feet are size 12. Police have not released the size of the others.
Read More - Source
ShareThis
Monday, May 19, 2008
The latest from the wacked OBL...Whats next
itle: The Causes of Conflict on the 60th Anniversary of the State of Israeli Occupation
In the name of Allah, the most merciful and gracious, 00:00:10 To all populations in general, peace be upon those who follow the guidance. My message to you is about one the most important struggles between our civilization and your civilization and I mean the Palestinian issue. This struggle is intensified by your current policies. Here, I assure that the Palestinian issue is the main single issue of my Umma (Islamic nation). And from this point, it was an important factor in providing me since childhood and providing the 19 free men with this great feeling and obligation to support the unjust and punish the oppressive Jews and their agents.
Your injustices on us continued in Lebanon and other places. This is where the events of September 11 came and what preceded it and what followed it, and here I want to bring to your attention and tell you the following:
For those of you who have a just judgment and wish to know the truth about the Palestinian cause, there's now a golden opportunity to get an insight on it. The Jews celebrate with the participation of western leaders the 60th anniversary of the birth of their nation. This celebration has many important factors. I will talk about three of them in brief.
The first, this event is a clear indication that 60 years ago, the state of Israel did not exist and that it was established on the savagely taken Palestinian land by arms force. This is one of the proofs of our true call that Palestine is our land and that the Israelis are invading occupiers that should be fought.
Second of all, this event showed that the majority of your news sources have abandoned their objectivity, and their professionalism, regarding this cause and whatever resembled it. Those who control it (media) prevailed on your injustices for 60 years. They twisted the truths and have presented the Jews, the invading occupiers of our land as the victims, and on the other hand, they presented the Palestinians unjustly and they were the ones who were only asking for their lands back; they presented them as terrorists and oppressors and that was not right. Here, the danger of the big media outlets is shown. They play the roles of the magicians in twisting the facts, and creating a mislead public opinion, that allows them to drag the Western nations in entering an unjust war against us without any right, as that was clearly shown in the invasion of Iraq. After they marketed the lies of the leader of the White House along those who were with him. That also showed the level of influence of the Zionist lobby in your media outlets where they pictured the issues contradicting its reality just for the advantage of the Israelis.
Thirdly, the participation of Western leaders in the festivities of the Jews, assures that the West supports the Jewish savage occupation of our countries, and that they (the politicians) stand with the Israelis in the same trench against us. They confirmed that in practice by sending foreign troops to South Lebanon to support the Jews. The politicians of the West still live with the mentality of the Middle Ages, by oppressing others, through occupying their lands, killing their free men, and stealing their wealth, and this what Bush and Blair have clearly done in invading Iraq , to steal its oil and humiliating its people.
And even if Britain had enabled the Jewish to occupy Palestine through the Balfour promise, and even if the UN had decided to give the Jewish a country on the majority of land in Palestine , these resolutions have no weight, and do not concern us. It is like the one who doesn't own, gave the one who doesn't deserve.
Isn't he United Nations just another tool of your tools, and what about the peace negotiations that have been going on for 60 years and they will not end. They are nothing but mere lies tricking fools.
And Bush's promises of a state is nothing but a meaningless word, just like the promise of Urqoob. Even though Jihad is a duty to free Palestine , we see that there are people who have an unjust judgment and they are always inclined to start an aggression on the rights of others, and taking their wealth unjustly, by stealing it or by obtaining it by armed robbery. If those reach power, disaster will exceed and reproduce, in the same extent of the difference between the power of the state and the power of armed gangs.
As in our case today, terrorism and armed robbery are carried by the leader of the strongest military machinery known to humanity. Therefore, the disaster is not local or regional, it is a global disaster. And even though your wars have brought us enormous tragedies and horrors, yet we are patient in war. We are the righteous when meeting the aggressors.
But what causes disgust after all the killing and destruction, the stealing, robberies and the decadence (of your actions), your politicians stand to talk about values. To us, this is unbearable. Do not combine two injustices. If you keep insisting on robbery and theft, you will find what will stop you. So please have some shame and stop this talk about values.
I will present examples from Palestine 's reality to clarify the issue and it will show the fakeness of your values and your double standards when it comes to one issue and that is a trait that is known to your politicians. You call the Palestinian organizations terrorist organizations; they were punished and boycotted.
Now on the other hand, when the Israelis were killing civilians from women and children, either through car bombs as in Jaffa , Haifa and elsewhere. Or what is worse than that, when the Zionist organizations massacred Palestinian villagers to scare them, deport them and rob their lands, what was your stance then?
This shows how you dealt with (Menachem) Begin. Begin was the leader of one of those oppressive Zionist groups. Begin is butcher of the Deir Yassin massacre. Begin cut open the bellies of the pregnant women in the Deir Yassin massacre. Is there terrorism more outrageous than this? Isn't this the ultimate crime and the abyss of decadence?
How can a man kill a woman villager that doesn't know how to fight and has nothing to do with him, and how about cutting her belly open just because she was pregnant. A vision of such a horrible crime blows minds and is unbelievable if not for the evidence and the documents that confirm it. There are even some Israelis who are proud of it, and they say if it wasn't for the massacre of Deir Yassin, the Palestinians would not have ran away and left their lands for them.
What was the stance of the West on what Begin did? Instead of being punished for those crimes, he was recognized as a Prime Minister. That wasn't enough for them; they even presented him with the Nobel Peace Prize. Alas for the injustice and aggression, Alas for the cheap, innocent blood, Alas for the cruelty and brutality. The massacres didn't stop after Deir Yassin but they continued.
Here we are living the massacre of Gaza today. It is happening in front of the eyes of the whole world. One and a half million individual under the deadly siege and they are facing slow death because of poor nutrition and scarcity of medicine.
And here we see, your politicians are forcing Egypt 's ruler to lock down the embargo on them to choke the feeble and most of them are women and children.
So tell me, what is the difference between your contemporary thinking and the values of Haman (one of pharaoh's attendants) in the first age of ignorance when he supported Pharaoh's wish to kill the children of Israel in Egypt ?
At the end, the one who is defending his children cannot be blamed, neither the one who revolts against Pharaoh's oppressive policies.
We will continue, God willing, the fight, against the Israelis and their allies, to impose justice, to be fair to the ones who were mistreated, and we will not abandon one inch of Palestine , God willing, as long as there is one truthful Muslim man left in this world. Whoever plants thorns will not harvest grapes. Peace be upon those who follow the guidance.
--------------------------------------
For more translations and news on terrorism, visit http://www.lauramansfield.com or visit our forum at http://www.lauramansfield.com/forum/
Strategic Translations is a service provided by Laura Mansfield through http://www.lauramansfield.com
In the name of Allah, the most merciful and gracious, 00:00:10 To all populations in general, peace be upon those who follow the guidance. My message to you is about one the most important struggles between our civilization and your civilization and I mean the Palestinian issue. This struggle is intensified by your current policies. Here, I assure that the Palestinian issue is the main single issue of my Umma (Islamic nation). And from this point, it was an important factor in providing me since childhood and providing the 19 free men with this great feeling and obligation to support the unjust and punish the oppressive Jews and their agents.
Your injustices on us continued in Lebanon and other places. This is where the events of September 11 came and what preceded it and what followed it, and here I want to bring to your attention and tell you the following:
For those of you who have a just judgment and wish to know the truth about the Palestinian cause, there's now a golden opportunity to get an insight on it. The Jews celebrate with the participation of western leaders the 60th anniversary of the birth of their nation. This celebration has many important factors. I will talk about three of them in brief.
The first, this event is a clear indication that 60 years ago, the state of Israel did not exist and that it was established on the savagely taken Palestinian land by arms force. This is one of the proofs of our true call that Palestine is our land and that the Israelis are invading occupiers that should be fought.
Second of all, this event showed that the majority of your news sources have abandoned their objectivity, and their professionalism, regarding this cause and whatever resembled it. Those who control it (media) prevailed on your injustices for 60 years. They twisted the truths and have presented the Jews, the invading occupiers of our land as the victims, and on the other hand, they presented the Palestinians unjustly and they were the ones who were only asking for their lands back; they presented them as terrorists and oppressors and that was not right. Here, the danger of the big media outlets is shown. They play the roles of the magicians in twisting the facts, and creating a mislead public opinion, that allows them to drag the Western nations in entering an unjust war against us without any right, as that was clearly shown in the invasion of Iraq. After they marketed the lies of the leader of the White House along those who were with him. That also showed the level of influence of the Zionist lobby in your media outlets where they pictured the issues contradicting its reality just for the advantage of the Israelis.
Thirdly, the participation of Western leaders in the festivities of the Jews, assures that the West supports the Jewish savage occupation of our countries, and that they (the politicians) stand with the Israelis in the same trench against us. They confirmed that in practice by sending foreign troops to South Lebanon to support the Jews. The politicians of the West still live with the mentality of the Middle Ages, by oppressing others, through occupying their lands, killing their free men, and stealing their wealth, and this what Bush and Blair have clearly done in invading Iraq , to steal its oil and humiliating its people.
And even if Britain had enabled the Jewish to occupy Palestine through the Balfour promise, and even if the UN had decided to give the Jewish a country on the majority of land in Palestine , these resolutions have no weight, and do not concern us. It is like the one who doesn't own, gave the one who doesn't deserve.
Isn't he United Nations just another tool of your tools, and what about the peace negotiations that have been going on for 60 years and they will not end. They are nothing but mere lies tricking fools.
And Bush's promises of a state is nothing but a meaningless word, just like the promise of Urqoob. Even though Jihad is a duty to free Palestine , we see that there are people who have an unjust judgment and they are always inclined to start an aggression on the rights of others, and taking their wealth unjustly, by stealing it or by obtaining it by armed robbery. If those reach power, disaster will exceed and reproduce, in the same extent of the difference between the power of the state and the power of armed gangs.
As in our case today, terrorism and armed robbery are carried by the leader of the strongest military machinery known to humanity. Therefore, the disaster is not local or regional, it is a global disaster. And even though your wars have brought us enormous tragedies and horrors, yet we are patient in war. We are the righteous when meeting the aggressors.
But what causes disgust after all the killing and destruction, the stealing, robberies and the decadence (of your actions), your politicians stand to talk about values. To us, this is unbearable. Do not combine two injustices. If you keep insisting on robbery and theft, you will find what will stop you. So please have some shame and stop this talk about values.
I will present examples from Palestine 's reality to clarify the issue and it will show the fakeness of your values and your double standards when it comes to one issue and that is a trait that is known to your politicians. You call the Palestinian organizations terrorist organizations; they were punished and boycotted.
Now on the other hand, when the Israelis were killing civilians from women and children, either through car bombs as in Jaffa , Haifa and elsewhere. Or what is worse than that, when the Zionist organizations massacred Palestinian villagers to scare them, deport them and rob their lands, what was your stance then?
This shows how you dealt with (Menachem) Begin. Begin was the leader of one of those oppressive Zionist groups. Begin is butcher of the Deir Yassin massacre. Begin cut open the bellies of the pregnant women in the Deir Yassin massacre. Is there terrorism more outrageous than this? Isn't this the ultimate crime and the abyss of decadence?
How can a man kill a woman villager that doesn't know how to fight and has nothing to do with him, and how about cutting her belly open just because she was pregnant. A vision of such a horrible crime blows minds and is unbelievable if not for the evidence and the documents that confirm it. There are even some Israelis who are proud of it, and they say if it wasn't for the massacre of Deir Yassin, the Palestinians would not have ran away and left their lands for them.
What was the stance of the West on what Begin did? Instead of being punished for those crimes, he was recognized as a Prime Minister. That wasn't enough for them; they even presented him with the Nobel Peace Prize. Alas for the injustice and aggression, Alas for the cheap, innocent blood, Alas for the cruelty and brutality. The massacres didn't stop after Deir Yassin but they continued.
Here we are living the massacre of Gaza today. It is happening in front of the eyes of the whole world. One and a half million individual under the deadly siege and they are facing slow death because of poor nutrition and scarcity of medicine.
And here we see, your politicians are forcing Egypt 's ruler to lock down the embargo on them to choke the feeble and most of them are women and children.
So tell me, what is the difference between your contemporary thinking and the values of Haman (one of pharaoh's attendants) in the first age of ignorance when he supported Pharaoh's wish to kill the children of Israel in Egypt ?
At the end, the one who is defending his children cannot be blamed, neither the one who revolts against Pharaoh's oppressive policies.
We will continue, God willing, the fight, against the Israelis and their allies, to impose justice, to be fair to the ones who were mistreated, and we will not abandon one inch of Palestine , God willing, as long as there is one truthful Muslim man left in this world. Whoever plants thorns will not harvest grapes. Peace be upon those who follow the guidance.
--------------------------------------
For more translations and news on terrorism, visit http://www.lauramansfield.com or visit our forum at http://www.lauramansfield.com/forum/
Strategic Translations is a service provided by Laura Mansfield through http://www.lauramansfield.com
The lastest threats
Mystery Continues As To The Fate of Adam Gadahn - American al Qaeda
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
As we reported earlier this year, it’s likely that American al Qaeda, Adam Gadahn is dead, or at the very least, seriously incapacitated.
Counterterrorism Blog has more.
This afternoon, Al-Qaida’s As-Sahab Media Foundation has released the second audio recording of Usama Bin Laden in the space of only three days–this time, openly addressed “to the Islamic nation.” But, perhaps what is most interesting about Bin Laden’s latest set of audio recordings is not what they contain–but rather, what they inexplicably lack: the English-language subtitles and matching transcript that have, until recently, been a customary feature of professional-quality As-Sahab videos.
An analysis of the history of As-Sahab recordings and their evolution over time would seem to indicate that the responsibility for creating these English-language products fell largely on the shoulders of one man alone: Adam Gadahn (a.k.a. “Azzam al-Amriki”), the California native who was recruited by Al-Qaida computer specialists living in Garden Grove in the late 1990s, and who later traveled on to Pakistan seeking to join his new hero Usama Bin Laden. Gadahn’s voice and, more recently, his face have been an integral part of As-Sahab releases since their first video production in 2001, “The Destruction of the U.S.S. Cole” (a.k.a. “State of the Ummah”). He has frequently appeared as a freely identified commentator in As-Sahab videos, with clips of him speaking in English juxtaposed amid footage of Usama Bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
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FBI Warns Against Careless Use of Wi-Fi Hotspots
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:07 AM CDT
Computer users should be careful while using Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and other public places, to prevent hackers lurking around from having access to sensitive information, US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned.
As a matter routine, the FBI says people “kill” time at airports connecting to airport’s Wi-Fi to check their office e-mail, do personal banking or shop for a gift.
But they should first consider the odds, for there could be a hacker nearby, with his own laptop, attempting to “eavesdrop” on their computer to obtain personal data.
In the United States, there are 68,000 Wi-Fi “hot spots” at airports, coffee shops, hotels, bookstores, schools and other locations.
While many of these hot spots have secure networks, some do not, according to Supervisory Special Agent Donna Peterson of FBI’s Cyber Division. And connecting to an insecure network can leave one vulnerable to attacks from hackers.
Agent Peterson said one of the most common types of attack is this: a bogus but legitimate-looking Wi-Fi network with a strong signal is strategically set up in a known hot spot…and the hacker waits for nearby laptops to connect to it.
At that point, your computer and all your sensitive information, including user ID, passwords, credit card numbers, basically belongs to the hacker, Peterson said.
The intruder can mine your computer for valuable data, direct you to phony webpages that look like ones you frequent, and record your every keystroke.
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Asia’s Most Wanted Terror Suspect ‘Noordin Top’ May Have Fled Indonesia
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Southeast Asia’s most wanted terror suspect, Noordin Top, may have evaded a massive manhunt and fled Indonesia, according to police documents.
A militant who was arrested and extradited to Indonesia told police that an Algerian who helped him escape from the country also said that Top had managed to flee, according to the police interrogation documents.
A senior anti-terror officer said Monday that police were still “crosschecking” the information with other sources. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his job.
Top is accused of directing the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and three other attacks on Western targets in Indonesia that have together killed more than 240 people, most of them foreign tourists.
If confirmed, Top’s escape would be a blow to Indonesia, which has been praised for its successes in the fight against terrorism. It would also raise worrying questions about Top’s current location and future plans.
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Britains Most Dangerous al Qaeda Terrorists Moving To Special Prison Wing
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Britain’s most dangerous al-Qaeda extremists are being moved to a special terror wing to boost security.
The move follows a rise in violence involving Islamic extremists behind bars.
The new terror wing at Wakefield jail, West Yorks, will be similar to those once used to segregate IRA supporters and loyalist paramilitary inmates.
Some convicts in Belmarsh, South East London, have been moved to the section.
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It is designed to reduce attacks on terrorists by other inmates and cut the spiralling cost of securing their safety.
Up to 20 convicted extremists and terror suspects will be held on the wing at first but that could rise to 40.
A prison service source said last night: “This will no doubt be compared to Guantanamo Bay. But such is the rapid growth of extremist Muslim terrorists in our prisons, that something must be done quickly.”
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‘Join Us or Die’ - Drug Cartels Threaten Mexican Police - Mexico Violence Out Of Control
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Violence is spinning out of control is areas along the U.S. Mexico border and now drug cartels are sending a chilling message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.
The threat appears in recruiting banners that are hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops are receiving additional threats over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.
Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the publics respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply.
Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to “those who still don’t believe” in the power of the cartels.
Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit, and city officials said he didn’t want to be interviewed.
Read More - Source
Ciudad Juarez Police Cheif Resigns Amid Violence
The police chief of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez has submitted his resignation following a string of killings that included some of his top officers, officials said on Sunday.
City spokesman Sergio Belmonte said Public Safety Director Guillermo Prieto would be replaced by a military officer on leave from the armed forces, but declined to release the name of the new police chief.
Murder rates have spiked this year in this city across from El Paso, Texas, and at least seven city police commanders were killed by hit men believed to be linked to drug cartels.
On Saturday, the bodies of a federal consumer-protection official and two other men were found in a car just hours after they were kidnapped by armed, masked men in Ciudad Juarez. The official had been strangled to death; the other two men have not yet been identified.
State spokesmen in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, did not offer any information on a possible motive in the killing.
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Mexican Drug Gang Executes Eight
A heavily armed gang dragged eight men, including three local police officers, out of their homes in northern Mexico overnight and executed them with automatic weapons, officials said.
The murders in Villa Ahumada added to five recent killings in Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, and three others elsewhere in the state, are part of a rising wave of violence gripping Mexico, mostly related to the Government’s stepped up fight against drug trafficking.
In a brazen attack on Sunday (local time), heavily armed thugs in camouflage uniforms drove into Villa Ahumada in several pickup trucks and broke into several homes.
“The attackers were all dressed in camouflage, military-style uniforms,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“They threatened the families (of the eight men) to keep them from talking.
“Then they murdered (the eight) with bursts of AK-47 rifles and handguns and fled to unknown whereabouts.”
It said the eight victims had not been identified although three of the men were local police officers.
Source - Read More
Time Magazine - Can Mexicos Drug Terror Be Stopped
Mexicans are accustomed to tales of crooked cops abetting drug-related killings. So this week’s announcement that a federal officer is among those charged with conspiracy in a drug-mafia hit on the nation’s acting police chief Edgar Millan caused little surprise south of the border. Mexican officials say the May 8 assassination was ordered by the Sinaloa drug cartel, and if convicted, the accused officer, Jose Montes, will join a long and infamous line of cops — including one of Mexico’s former anti-drug czars — who have moonlighted for the cartels.
Still, last week’s murder of Millan, one of the the highest-ranking police officials ever to be gunned down in Mexico, set a new benchmark in the Colombia-style drug carnage that continues to rage from Tijuana to Cancun. Mexico has already logged almost 1,200 drug-related killings this year — putting it well on track to break last year’s record of almost 2,500 — as an increasingly chaotic array of drug gangs fight one another for trafficking turf, and against any officials who dare to confront them.
Source - Read More
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Bin Laden To Deliver ‘Strong Message’ to Muslims
Posted: 18 May 2008 09:45 AM CDT
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden will shortly deliver a “very strong” message to Muslims, a website used by Islamist militants announced on Sunday.
“To the Islamic ummah (nation), soon, God willing, a very strong address from the lion of Islam, Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” the Internet site said.
The announcement comes two days after an audio message posted on the Internet in which bin Laden slammed Western leaders for taking part in Israel’s 60th birthday celebrations.
“The participation of Western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the West supports this ugly Jewish occupation of our lands and that they stand in the Israelis’ trench against us,” he said on Friday.
Bin Laden vowed that Muslims would battle on for Palestine.
“We will continue the fight against the Israelis and their allies… and we will not give up one inch of Palestine, God willing, as long as there is one sincere Muslim on this earth.”
Source
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Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
As we reported earlier this year, it’s likely that American al Qaeda, Adam Gadahn is dead, or at the very least, seriously incapacitated.
Counterterrorism Blog has more.
This afternoon, Al-Qaida’s As-Sahab Media Foundation has released the second audio recording of Usama Bin Laden in the space of only three days–this time, openly addressed “to the Islamic nation.” But, perhaps what is most interesting about Bin Laden’s latest set of audio recordings is not what they contain–but rather, what they inexplicably lack: the English-language subtitles and matching transcript that have, until recently, been a customary feature of professional-quality As-Sahab videos.
An analysis of the history of As-Sahab recordings and their evolution over time would seem to indicate that the responsibility for creating these English-language products fell largely on the shoulders of one man alone: Adam Gadahn (a.k.a. “Azzam al-Amriki”), the California native who was recruited by Al-Qaida computer specialists living in Garden Grove in the late 1990s, and who later traveled on to Pakistan seeking to join his new hero Usama Bin Laden. Gadahn’s voice and, more recently, his face have been an integral part of As-Sahab releases since their first video production in 2001, “The Destruction of the U.S.S. Cole” (a.k.a. “State of the Ummah”). He has frequently appeared as a freely identified commentator in As-Sahab videos, with clips of him speaking in English juxtaposed amid footage of Usama Bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri.
ShareThis
FBI Warns Against Careless Use of Wi-Fi Hotspots
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:07 AM CDT
Computer users should be careful while using Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and other public places, to prevent hackers lurking around from having access to sensitive information, US Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned.
As a matter routine, the FBI says people “kill” time at airports connecting to airport’s Wi-Fi to check their office e-mail, do personal banking or shop for a gift.
But they should first consider the odds, for there could be a hacker nearby, with his own laptop, attempting to “eavesdrop” on their computer to obtain personal data.
In the United States, there are 68,000 Wi-Fi “hot spots” at airports, coffee shops, hotels, bookstores, schools and other locations.
While many of these hot spots have secure networks, some do not, according to Supervisory Special Agent Donna Peterson of FBI’s Cyber Division. And connecting to an insecure network can leave one vulnerable to attacks from hackers.
Agent Peterson said one of the most common types of attack is this: a bogus but legitimate-looking Wi-Fi network with a strong signal is strategically set up in a known hot spot…and the hacker waits for nearby laptops to connect to it.
At that point, your computer and all your sensitive information, including user ID, passwords, credit card numbers, basically belongs to the hacker, Peterson said.
The intruder can mine your computer for valuable data, direct you to phony webpages that look like ones you frequent, and record your every keystroke.
Source
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Asia’s Most Wanted Terror Suspect ‘Noordin Top’ May Have Fled Indonesia
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Southeast Asia’s most wanted terror suspect, Noordin Top, may have evaded a massive manhunt and fled Indonesia, according to police documents.
A militant who was arrested and extradited to Indonesia told police that an Algerian who helped him escape from the country also said that Top had managed to flee, according to the police interrogation documents.
A senior anti-terror officer said Monday that police were still “crosschecking” the information with other sources. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of his job.
Top is accused of directing the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings and three other attacks on Western targets in Indonesia that have together killed more than 240 people, most of them foreign tourists.
If confirmed, Top’s escape would be a blow to Indonesia, which has been praised for its successes in the fight against terrorism. It would also raise worrying questions about Top’s current location and future plans.
Source - Read More
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Britains Most Dangerous al Qaeda Terrorists Moving To Special Prison Wing
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Britain’s most dangerous al-Qaeda extremists are being moved to a special terror wing to boost security.
The move follows a rise in violence involving Islamic extremists behind bars.
The new terror wing at Wakefield jail, West Yorks, will be similar to those once used to segregate IRA supporters and loyalist paramilitary inmates.
Some convicts in Belmarsh, South East London, have been moved to the section.
Advertisement
Click here to find out more!
It is designed to reduce attacks on terrorists by other inmates and cut the spiralling cost of securing their safety.
Up to 20 convicted extremists and terror suspects will be held on the wing at first but that could rise to 40.
A prison service source said last night: “This will no doubt be compared to Guantanamo Bay. But such is the rapid growth of extremist Muslim terrorists in our prisons, that something must be done quickly.”
Source
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‘Join Us or Die’ - Drug Cartels Threaten Mexican Police - Mexico Violence Out Of Control
Posted: 19 May 2008 02:01 AM CDT
Violence is spinning out of control is areas along the U.S. Mexico border and now drug cartels are sending a chilling message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die.
The threat appears in recruiting banners that are hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops are receiving additional threats over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico’s acting federal police chief.
Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the publics respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and the assurance that their colleagues are watching their backs. Here, the taboo on cop-killing familiar to Americans seems hardly to apply.
Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to “those who still don’t believe” in the power of the cartels.
Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit, and city officials said he didn’t want to be interviewed.
Read More - Source
Ciudad Juarez Police Cheif Resigns Amid Violence
The police chief of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez has submitted his resignation following a string of killings that included some of his top officers, officials said on Sunday.
City spokesman Sergio Belmonte said Public Safety Director Guillermo Prieto would be replaced by a military officer on leave from the armed forces, but declined to release the name of the new police chief.
Murder rates have spiked this year in this city across from El Paso, Texas, and at least seven city police commanders were killed by hit men believed to be linked to drug cartels.
On Saturday, the bodies of a federal consumer-protection official and two other men were found in a car just hours after they were kidnapped by armed, masked men in Ciudad Juarez. The official had been strangled to death; the other two men have not yet been identified.
State spokesmen in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juarez is located, did not offer any information on a possible motive in the killing.
Source - Read More
Mexican Drug Gang Executes Eight
A heavily armed gang dragged eight men, including three local police officers, out of their homes in northern Mexico overnight and executed them with automatic weapons, officials said.
The murders in Villa Ahumada added to five recent killings in Ciudad Juarez, on the US border, and three others elsewhere in the state, are part of a rising wave of violence gripping Mexico, mostly related to the Government’s stepped up fight against drug trafficking.
In a brazen attack on Sunday (local time), heavily armed thugs in camouflage uniforms drove into Villa Ahumada in several pickup trucks and broke into several homes.
“The attackers were all dressed in camouflage, military-style uniforms,” the state prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
“They threatened the families (of the eight men) to keep them from talking.
“Then they murdered (the eight) with bursts of AK-47 rifles and handguns and fled to unknown whereabouts.”
It said the eight victims had not been identified although three of the men were local police officers.
Source - Read More
Time Magazine - Can Mexicos Drug Terror Be Stopped
Mexicans are accustomed to tales of crooked cops abetting drug-related killings. So this week’s announcement that a federal officer is among those charged with conspiracy in a drug-mafia hit on the nation’s acting police chief Edgar Millan caused little surprise south of the border. Mexican officials say the May 8 assassination was ordered by the Sinaloa drug cartel, and if convicted, the accused officer, Jose Montes, will join a long and infamous line of cops — including one of Mexico’s former anti-drug czars — who have moonlighted for the cartels.
Still, last week’s murder of Millan, one of the the highest-ranking police officials ever to be gunned down in Mexico, set a new benchmark in the Colombia-style drug carnage that continues to rage from Tijuana to Cancun. Mexico has already logged almost 1,200 drug-related killings this year — putting it well on track to break last year’s record of almost 2,500 — as an increasingly chaotic array of drug gangs fight one another for trafficking turf, and against any officials who dare to confront them.
Source - Read More
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Bin Laden To Deliver ‘Strong Message’ to Muslims
Posted: 18 May 2008 09:45 AM CDT
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden will shortly deliver a “very strong” message to Muslims, a website used by Islamist militants announced on Sunday.
“To the Islamic ummah (nation), soon, God willing, a very strong address from the lion of Islam, Sheikh Osama bin Laden,” the Internet site said.
The announcement comes two days after an audio message posted on the Internet in which bin Laden slammed Western leaders for taking part in Israel’s 60th birthday celebrations.
“The participation of Western leaders with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the West supports this ugly Jewish occupation of our lands and that they stand in the Israelis’ trench against us,” he said on Friday.
Bin Laden vowed that Muslims would battle on for Palestine.
“We will continue the fight against the Israelis and their allies… and we will not give up one inch of Palestine, God willing, as long as there is one sincere Muslim on this earth.”
Source
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Friday, May 9, 2008
new events, same ideas
Recipe for Disaster - Teens Making Homemade Bombs
Posted: 09 May 2008 02:31 AM CDT
13 Investigates an explosive issue: Dangerous chemicals in the hands of teens. The FBI says it can’t stop kids from getting a recipe for disaster. But with public support authorities can help keep teens from creating a deadly mix.
It’s a new homegrown threat prompting a wake-up call for parents and businesses. Behind pimples and “peach fuzz” are teens accused of terrorist acts. Some set off home-made bombs, while others are facing charges for plotting deadly attacks.
Jeff Muller, the Assistant Section Chief in the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, wants parents to understand an important fact up front.
“The information is out there,” he said emphatically.
A few recent cases are good reminders.
Two Indianapolis teens on spring break in Savannah, Georgia are caught on tape carrying volatile chemicals behind a pool/patio store.
The video shows 17-year-old Kenneth Smock as he puts a container on a manhole. His 17-year-old friend, Taylor Sandlin, fuels the mix.
It’s an internet recipe for disaster and creates a cooked-up bomb that explodes in minutes.
Just up the map, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger had ten pounds of ammonium nitrate delivered to his parents’ door. Police say the teen planned to blow up his high school in Chesterfield and had all the ingredients to get started.
“It’s the same substance Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City, if that gives you an idea of how volatile that is,” said Chesterfield Police Chief Randall Lear, describing the explosive components police found.
Schallenberger had just a fraction of what McVeigh concocted, but enough to tip off his parents to potential trouble. They turned him in.
“Ten pounds could take out, certainly take out a classroom,” said Donald Sachtleben, an FBI Bomb Technician with the Indianapolis FBI Field Office.
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Two Security Guards Suspended After Breach At Lambert Airport
Posted: 09 May 2008 02:11 AM CDT
There are new developments in the Lambert security breach.
Two security officers are suspended without pay after a homeless man slipped by them early Wednesday morning at a vehicle checkpoint.
The guards work for Whalen Security- the company’s president, Greg Twardowski, told FOX 2 News over the phone that he is extremely concerned about what took place.
He’s not the only one- an aviation expert and passengers are also speaking out.
“Obviously it was a thoughtless breach of security,” said SLU aviation expert Mel Burkart about the incident.
Airport officials say the Whalen Security officers were searching cars when a homeless man walked right past them.
The man then found his way into a Trans States Airlines regional jet- where he fell asleep until an airline employee found him.
Burkart says outside areas around airports are the weakest links in security.
“The potential is there. You know you have an airport like St. Louis that has hundreds of acres of ground and it has a fence up all the way around it but it’s not monitored and it’s not under total security vigilance day and night,” explained Burkart.
T.S.A. officials tell us the breach shows the importance of layered security.
That is security from T.S.A., airports and airlines.
T.S.A.. spokesperson Carrie Harmon said, “We all recognize that these layers are important because no single layer is 100 percent full proof 100 percent of the time.”
Authorities say the 58 year old homeless man has been released from custody until warrants are issued.
We’re told that might not come until Monday and that the man could face a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
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Terrorists Create Sophisticated Recruiting and Marketing Campaigns On Internet
Posted: 08 May 2008 09:33 PM CDT
Foreign terrorist groups have developed sophisticated Internet recruitment and marketing campaigns, increasing the threat of home-grown terrorism, a Senate committee said in a report released Thursday.
“The use of the Internet by al-Qaeda and other violent Islamist extremist groups has expanded the terrorist threat to our homeland,” the report said. “No longer is the threat just from abroad … the threat is now increasingly from within.”
The bipartisan report, written by the staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, recommended that the U.S. government develop a comprehensive outreach and communications strategy to isolate and discredit the “violent Islamist ideology as a cause worth supporting, let alone a cause worth advancing by attacking and killing one’s neighbors and fellow citizens.”
The U.S. government has some programs with narrow missions to combat al-Qaeda’s use of the Internet, but they are “disjointed or uncoordinated, and insufficient,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and the committee chairman, told reporters on Thursday.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the committee, said that the report shows there is “a highly coordinated effort by al-Qaeda and like-minded groups to spread their message of hate and violence over the Internet.”
There are “thousands” of Web sites and al-Qaeda even has a “clearing house” to give anti-American Web sites and messages its stamp of approval so that viewers know the site is legitimate, Lieberman said.
The senators showed a video with clips from several anti-American Web sites, showing American troops being killed in Iraq, how to make weapons and bombs, and terrorists displaying their weapons and propaganda.
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Eco-terrorist Gets 20 Years For Plotting Bombing Campaign
Posted: 08 May 2008 09:27 PM CDT
An “eco-terrorist” convicted of plotting to blow up or firebomb government and commercial buildings across California was on Thursday jailed for nearly 20 years, justice officials said.
Eric McDavid, 29, who was found guilty in March on conspiracy to damage or destroy property by fire and an explosive, was sentenced to roughly 19 and a half years prison at a hearing in Sacramento, northern California.
Two other co-conspirators, Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner, have already pleaded guilty in the case and are awaiting sentencing later this year.
Prosecutors said the three environmental militants had planned attacks on the US Forest Service’s Institute of Forest Genetics, a dam and fish hatchery, cellular telephone towers and electric power stations.
Bomb-making expertise was acquired from a book — “Poor Man’s James Bond” — which contains details of how to create home-made explosive devices, justice officials said. The three extremists were arrested in January 2006 after buying materials for the explosives and finalizing their targets, prosecutors said.
“Today’s severe punishment of nearly 20 years in federal prison should serve as a cautionary tale to those who would conspire to commit life-threatening acts in the name of their extremist views,” US Attorney McGregor Scott said.
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Leader of al Qaeda in Iraq al Masri Reportedly Arrested
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:59 PM CDT
A joint Iraqi-American raid in the northern city of Mosul has resulted in the arrest of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said on Thursday, but U.S. officials aren’t convinced yet of the suspect’s identity.
You might recall that al Masri made headlines a couple of weeks ago when he declared a 30 day offensive against U.S. forces.
DNA tests are being conducted to confirm the man captured is Abu Ayyub al-Masri. U.S. officials are cautious because al-Masri is an elusive figure and previous reports of his death or capture all turned out to be false.
One U.S. source tells FOX News that the intelligence community is “extremely skeptical” that al-Masri has been arrested.
If al-Masri’s identity is confirmed, however, the arrest would be a significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq, not so much because of the disruption to its leadership but because of the information he may be able to provide.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that Mosul police “arrested one of Al Qaeda’s leaders at midnight and during the primary investigations he admitted that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir,” according to the Associated Press.
News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television and Arab satellite TV stations.
The state channel, Iraqiya, said that Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani would reward Mosul police for the capture.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khalaf told the station by phone that a source close to the al-Qaida leader informed Mosul police that al-Masri would be at a house in the city’s Wadi Hajar area at midnight Wednesday.
“The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now a broader investigation of him is being conducted,” he said to Iraqiya.
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Canadian Terrorism Suspect Tells Court He Won’t Recognize Law - Attempts To Walk Out On Trial
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:19 AM CDT
An Islamic convert facing terrorism charges was re-arrested after trying to walk out of his own trial Tuesday – saying simply that “I’m outta here” – after telling the court he wouldn’t recognize Canadian law.
The 20-year-old, who can’t be identified because he was underage at the time of his arrest two years ago, had been released on bail. But he spent last night in jail, and his legal future is unclear.
At the time proceedings broke down, a police officer had been on the stand, and the court was discussing the young man’s mental status, including whether he was suicidal.
The only youth among 11 Torontonians accused of a variety of conspiracies is also the only suspect whose case has got to its trial phase. He faces charges of attending a terrorist training camp. The court has heard only preliminary motions so far, and has yet to delve into evidence or testimony.
While on bail, the young man had been living with his Hindu parents.
A Toronto Muslim preacher told The Globe that the suspect had been coming to Friday prayers, saying that he’d rather return to jail than live in a non-Islamic household.
“He said ‘In jail, I can at least pray,’” Aly Hindy, imam of the Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, said in an interview.
“I said ‘Don’t do this!’” Mr. Hindy said. He added that he counselled the young man to pray in secret, but tensions between the suspect and his father had reached a boiling point.
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Senior RCMP Mountie: What We’re On To Scares Us, Keeps Me Awake At Night - Canada
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:14 AM CDT
The RCMP is investigating seven suspected terrorist plots so disturbing they “keep me awake at night,” the senior Mountie for national security disclosed yesterday.
Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said the cases are “spread right across the country” and each is comparable in scale to Canada’s biggest alleged jihadist conspiracy, which resulted in the arrests of 18 Toronto-area people in a suspected plot to bomb federal buildings in 2006.
The seven cases are among an unprecedented 848 national security cases, most related to terrorism, currently under investigation, Assistant Commissioner McDonell told an Ottawa conference on critical infrastructure protection.
“What we’re onto scares us,” he said in a later interview, without elaborating. “What we’re not onto really scares us.”
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the RCMP’s national security criminal investigation section’s caseload has grown 780 per cent, with the $40-million-a-year section “borrowing people from here, there and everywhere, there’s just that much work out there,” he said. “It’s a no-risk environment. Our people are running at the limit.”
His comments are the most detailed and candid yet from police on the threat confronting Canada.
“What we’re facing is a violent Islamist born-again social movement,” comprised mostly of young, second- or third-generation immigrants with a secular background, he told the Conference Board of Canada gathering of security, industry and government experts.
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Posted: 09 May 2008 02:31 AM CDT
13 Investigates an explosive issue: Dangerous chemicals in the hands of teens. The FBI says it can’t stop kids from getting a recipe for disaster. But with public support authorities can help keep teens from creating a deadly mix.
It’s a new homegrown threat prompting a wake-up call for parents and businesses. Behind pimples and “peach fuzz” are teens accused of terrorist acts. Some set off home-made bombs, while others are facing charges for plotting deadly attacks.
Jeff Muller, the Assistant Section Chief in the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, wants parents to understand an important fact up front.
“The information is out there,” he said emphatically.
A few recent cases are good reminders.
Two Indianapolis teens on spring break in Savannah, Georgia are caught on tape carrying volatile chemicals behind a pool/patio store.
The video shows 17-year-old Kenneth Smock as he puts a container on a manhole. His 17-year-old friend, Taylor Sandlin, fuels the mix.
It’s an internet recipe for disaster and creates a cooked-up bomb that explodes in minutes.
Just up the map, 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger had ten pounds of ammonium nitrate delivered to his parents’ door. Police say the teen planned to blow up his high school in Chesterfield and had all the ingredients to get started.
“It’s the same substance Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City, if that gives you an idea of how volatile that is,” said Chesterfield Police Chief Randall Lear, describing the explosive components police found.
Schallenberger had just a fraction of what McVeigh concocted, but enough to tip off his parents to potential trouble. They turned him in.
“Ten pounds could take out, certainly take out a classroom,” said Donald Sachtleben, an FBI Bomb Technician with the Indianapolis FBI Field Office.
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Two Security Guards Suspended After Breach At Lambert Airport
Posted: 09 May 2008 02:11 AM CDT
There are new developments in the Lambert security breach.
Two security officers are suspended without pay after a homeless man slipped by them early Wednesday morning at a vehicle checkpoint.
The guards work for Whalen Security- the company’s president, Greg Twardowski, told FOX 2 News over the phone that he is extremely concerned about what took place.
He’s not the only one- an aviation expert and passengers are also speaking out.
“Obviously it was a thoughtless breach of security,” said SLU aviation expert Mel Burkart about the incident.
Airport officials say the Whalen Security officers were searching cars when a homeless man walked right past them.
The man then found his way into a Trans States Airlines regional jet- where he fell asleep until an airline employee found him.
Burkart says outside areas around airports are the weakest links in security.
“The potential is there. You know you have an airport like St. Louis that has hundreds of acres of ground and it has a fence up all the way around it but it’s not monitored and it’s not under total security vigilance day and night,” explained Burkart.
T.S.A. officials tell us the breach shows the importance of layered security.
That is security from T.S.A., airports and airlines.
T.S.A.. spokesperson Carrie Harmon said, “We all recognize that these layers are important because no single layer is 100 percent full proof 100 percent of the time.”
Authorities say the 58 year old homeless man has been released from custody until warrants are issued.
We’re told that might not come until Monday and that the man could face a misdemeanor trespassing charge.
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Terrorists Create Sophisticated Recruiting and Marketing Campaigns On Internet
Posted: 08 May 2008 09:33 PM CDT
Foreign terrorist groups have developed sophisticated Internet recruitment and marketing campaigns, increasing the threat of home-grown terrorism, a Senate committee said in a report released Thursday.
“The use of the Internet by al-Qaeda and other violent Islamist extremist groups has expanded the terrorist threat to our homeland,” the report said. “No longer is the threat just from abroad … the threat is now increasingly from within.”
The bipartisan report, written by the staff of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, recommended that the U.S. government develop a comprehensive outreach and communications strategy to isolate and discredit the “violent Islamist ideology as a cause worth supporting, let alone a cause worth advancing by attacking and killing one’s neighbors and fellow citizens.”
The U.S. government has some programs with narrow missions to combat al-Qaeda’s use of the Internet, but they are “disjointed or uncoordinated, and insufficient,” Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., and the committee chairman, told reporters on Thursday.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the senior Republican on the committee, said that the report shows there is “a highly coordinated effort by al-Qaeda and like-minded groups to spread their message of hate and violence over the Internet.”
There are “thousands” of Web sites and al-Qaeda even has a “clearing house” to give anti-American Web sites and messages its stamp of approval so that viewers know the site is legitimate, Lieberman said.
The senators showed a video with clips from several anti-American Web sites, showing American troops being killed in Iraq, how to make weapons and bombs, and terrorists displaying their weapons and propaganda.
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Eco-terrorist Gets 20 Years For Plotting Bombing Campaign
Posted: 08 May 2008 09:27 PM CDT
An “eco-terrorist” convicted of plotting to blow up or firebomb government and commercial buildings across California was on Thursday jailed for nearly 20 years, justice officials said.
Eric McDavid, 29, who was found guilty in March on conspiracy to damage or destroy property by fire and an explosive, was sentenced to roughly 19 and a half years prison at a hearing in Sacramento, northern California.
Two other co-conspirators, Zachary Jenson and Lauren Weiner, have already pleaded guilty in the case and are awaiting sentencing later this year.
Prosecutors said the three environmental militants had planned attacks on the US Forest Service’s Institute of Forest Genetics, a dam and fish hatchery, cellular telephone towers and electric power stations.
Bomb-making expertise was acquired from a book — “Poor Man’s James Bond” — which contains details of how to create home-made explosive devices, justice officials said. The three extremists were arrested in January 2006 after buying materials for the explosives and finalizing their targets, prosecutors said.
“Today’s severe punishment of nearly 20 years in federal prison should serve as a cautionary tale to those who would conspire to commit life-threatening acts in the name of their extremist views,” US Attorney McGregor Scott said.
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Leader of al Qaeda in Iraq al Masri Reportedly Arrested
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:59 PM CDT
A joint Iraqi-American raid in the northern city of Mosul has resulted in the arrest of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Defense said on Thursday, but U.S. officials aren’t convinced yet of the suspect’s identity.
You might recall that al Masri made headlines a couple of weeks ago when he declared a 30 day offensive against U.S. forces.
DNA tests are being conducted to confirm the man captured is Abu Ayyub al-Masri. U.S. officials are cautious because al-Masri is an elusive figure and previous reports of his death or capture all turned out to be false.
One U.S. source tells FOX News that the intelligence community is “extremely skeptical” that al-Masri has been arrested.
If al-Masri’s identity is confirmed, however, the arrest would be a significant blow to Al Qaeda in Iraq, not so much because of the disruption to its leadership but because of the information he may be able to provide.
Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said that Mosul police “arrested one of Al Qaeda’s leaders at midnight and during the primary investigations he admitted that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir,” according to the Associated Press.
News of the arrest was also reported by Iraqi state television and Arab satellite TV stations.
The state channel, Iraqiya, said that Minister of Interior Jawad al-Bolani would reward Mosul police for the capture.
Interior Ministry spokesman Khalaf told the station by phone that a source close to the al-Qaida leader informed Mosul police that al-Masri would be at a house in the city’s Wadi Hajar area at midnight Wednesday.
“The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Now a broader investigation of him is being conducted,” he said to Iraqiya.
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Canadian Terrorism Suspect Tells Court He Won’t Recognize Law - Attempts To Walk Out On Trial
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:19 AM CDT
An Islamic convert facing terrorism charges was re-arrested after trying to walk out of his own trial Tuesday – saying simply that “I’m outta here” – after telling the court he wouldn’t recognize Canadian law.
The 20-year-old, who can’t be identified because he was underage at the time of his arrest two years ago, had been released on bail. But he spent last night in jail, and his legal future is unclear.
At the time proceedings broke down, a police officer had been on the stand, and the court was discussing the young man’s mental status, including whether he was suicidal.
The only youth among 11 Torontonians accused of a variety of conspiracies is also the only suspect whose case has got to its trial phase. He faces charges of attending a terrorist training camp. The court has heard only preliminary motions so far, and has yet to delve into evidence or testimony.
While on bail, the young man had been living with his Hindu parents.
A Toronto Muslim preacher told The Globe that the suspect had been coming to Friday prayers, saying that he’d rather return to jail than live in a non-Islamic household.
“He said ‘In jail, I can at least pray,’” Aly Hindy, imam of the Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, said in an interview.
“I said ‘Don’t do this!’” Mr. Hindy said. He added that he counselled the young man to pray in secret, but tensions between the suspect and his father had reached a boiling point.
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Senior RCMP Mountie: What We’re On To Scares Us, Keeps Me Awake At Night - Canada
Posted: 08 May 2008 08:14 AM CDT
The RCMP is investigating seven suspected terrorist plots so disturbing they “keep me awake at night,” the senior Mountie for national security disclosed yesterday.
Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell said the cases are “spread right across the country” and each is comparable in scale to Canada’s biggest alleged jihadist conspiracy, which resulted in the arrests of 18 Toronto-area people in a suspected plot to bomb federal buildings in 2006.
The seven cases are among an unprecedented 848 national security cases, most related to terrorism, currently under investigation, Assistant Commissioner McDonell told an Ottawa conference on critical infrastructure protection.
“What we’re onto scares us,” he said in a later interview, without elaborating. “What we’re not onto really scares us.”
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the RCMP’s national security criminal investigation section’s caseload has grown 780 per cent, with the $40-million-a-year section “borrowing people from here, there and everywhere, there’s just that much work out there,” he said. “It’s a no-risk environment. Our people are running at the limit.”
His comments are the most detailed and candid yet from police on the threat confronting Canada.
“What we’re facing is a violent Islamist born-again social movement,” comprised mostly of young, second- or third-generation immigrants with a secular background, he told the Conference Board of Canada gathering of security, industry and government experts.
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