Derailed Train In Colorado No Accident - Reward Offered For Information
Posted: 12 Jun 2008 03:13 AM CDT
Investigators say someone purposely sabotaged the railroad tracks that caused a freight train derailment in Westminster.
The railroad company is offering a $10,000 reward for information in the case.
The huge cleanup project continued Wednesday morning in Westminster where the freight train derailed and cars and locomotives stacked up against each other.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway officials say it was a tree stump purposely left on tracks that derailed four locomotives and 16 cars of the freight train late Monday night near Wadsworth Parkway between 92nd and 100th Avenues.
BNSF officials offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for sabotaging the tracks. BNSF asks anyone who has information to call toll-free 1-800-832-5452.
BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg didn’t know the exact size of the stump but said it would have most likely required at least two people to move it.
Westminster police say they believe the stump was actually placed on the tracks about two hours before the derailment Monday night. They say they received a call about the stump on the tracks, and an officer responded and used his own muscle to push it off of the tracks.
But investigators say someone put it back, and then the freight train hit it.
Forsberg said Tuesday the stump got caught on a switch on the tracks, causing the first of four locomotives to lift up, triggering the derailment.
The train carrying lumber and building materials jumped the tracks about 10:35 p.m. Monday. The train included four engines and 37 rail cars.
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Top Secret al-Qaeda Files Left On Train - UK
Posted: 12 Jun 2008 02:55 AM CDT
The Metropolitan police has launched an investigation after top secret intelligence documents on al-Qaida and Iraq were left on a train in London, the Cabinet Office confirmed today.
It is understood the two documents, relating to al-Qaeda activity in Pakistan and the security situation in Iraq, were lost yesterday.
The files were left at Waterloo station, on a train heading to Surrey, by a senior security official. They were found by a passenger who handed them to the BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner.
The documents, which were compiled by the government’s joint intelligence committee, contained the latest assessment of al-Qaida and a “top secret and, in some cases, damning” assessment of Iraq’s security forces, said Gardner.
A full-scale police inquiry was launched immediately as officials were concerned the sensitive papers could find their way into the wrong hands, he said.
The al-Qaida document, commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office, was classified “UK top secret”, said Gardener. It was so sensitive that each page was numbered and marked “For UK, US, Canadian and Australian eyes only”.
The second document, on Iraq, was commissioned by the Ministry of Defence.
Gardner said: “This was a clear breach of government rules. They should be sealed in a briefcase if they are taken out.”
A spokesman for the Cabinet Office said: “Two documents which are marked as ’secret’ were left on a train and have subsequently been handed to the BBC.
“There has been a security breach, the Metropolitan police are carrying out an investigation.”
The spokesman declined to discuss the contents of the documents, but said the papers had been in the possession of a senior intelligence officer based in the Cabinet Office.
Asked how many people would have had access to the papers, he said: “‘Secret’ is a high classification so they would have had limited circulation.”
A Met spokesman said: “We are making inquiries in connection with the loss of documents on June 10.”
The Conservative shadow security minister, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, attacked the government for its record of security lapses and called for an independent parliamentary inquiry.
“This is just the latest in a long line of serious breaches of security involving either the loss of data, documents or government laptops, further highlighting the most basic failures in this government’s ability to maintain our security.
“The government must make an immediate statement to parliament and an inquiry must be launched.”
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokeman, Chris Huhne, said: “This is an appalling breach of security, which suggests that procedures on such sensitive matters are lax to the point of utter carelessness.
“There should be strict guidelines about when such secret documents are outside carefully monitored premises.
“It beggars belief that the government could have scored such a devastating own goal on the very day that it was pushing draconian counter terrorism laws through parliament.”
In January, the Ministry of Defence was forced to contact the security agencies MI5 and MI6, as well as banks and individuals, after the theft of a laptop computer from a car.
The computer held the personal details of 600,000 Royal Navy, Royal Marine and RAF recruits, and other people who applied to join the services.
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UPDATE:
The Cabinet Office has suspended the civil servant at the centre of an inquiry into the loss of top-secret documents on al-Qaeda and Iraq.
The unnamed Cabinet Office employee was questioned in an internal inquiry after the sensitive papers were left on the seat of a commuter train.
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Lafayette Bridge Shooting - Two Cars Struck Multiple Times - St Paul
Posted: 12 Jun 2008 02:42 AM CDT
Two cars and one of their passengers were struck by bullets tonight while traveling over the Lafayette Bridge Wednesday evening, according to St. Paul police.
About 8:20 p.m., four men pulled into Regions Hospital in a car that had been riddled with bullets. One of them, a 22-year-old passenger from South St. Paul, had two bullet wounds himself, though police said he would live.
The men told police they had been shot at while driving north on the Lafayette Bridge, a part of Highway 52 connecting downtown St. Paul to the West Side. They said they did not see anything, but “heard popping sounds” before their car was struck, police officials said.
Shortly thereafter, the driver of another vehicle contacted police, saying his car had also been struck by bullets while traveling north over the bridge this evening. The man drove to his home on St. Paul’s East Side and called police from there.
Police searched the bridge within the hour and discovered shell casings in the northbound lanes. There are no pedestrian walkways on the bridge.
The men in the first car were still being questioned late this evening.
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Rumor - Did U.S. Missile Strike Get al Qaeda #2 al Zawahiri ?
Posted: 12 Jun 2008 02:27 AM CDT
There is rumor and speculation that a U.S. fired missile in Pakistan earlier this week was more than a response to a clash on the Afghan border. Several blogs and other sources are speculating that it may have been a surgical strike against an al Qaeda high value target (HVT), and the target may have been al Qaeda #2 man, Ayman al Zawahiri.
AJStrata Has more, including comments
as does Rusty at My Pet Jawa
We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
Background Info
U.S. Drone Suspected of Firing Missile In Pakistan
A pilotless U.S. drone was suspected to have fired a missile into a Pakistani area on the Afghan border on Tuesday, but there was no word on the target or casualties, a government official said.
The missile was thought to have been fired into the Mohmand ethnic Pashtun tribal area in northwest Pakistan where this year, U.S.-controlled Predator aircraft have struck at least four sites used by al Qaeda operatives, killing dozens of suspected militants.
“There was an attack by a spy plane close to the Afghan border but we don’t have information about casualties or damage,” said the government official based in the region. He declined to be identified.
Mohmand has not been a hotbed of support for al Qaeda and the Taliban but militants are known to operate there.
A Pakistani military spokesman said there had been a clash in the area but on the Afghan side of the border, where Afghan forces had been battling militants.
Neither U.S. nor Pakistani authorities usually confirm U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani territory, which would be an infringement of Pakistan
U.S. Military Confirms Pakistan Missile Strike
The United States military has confirmed that it carried out a missile strike on Pakistan soil near the Afghan border that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers.
Our South Asia correspondent Peter Lloyd, says it appears the Pakistani troops died during an operation, which was meant to be targeting Taliban militants.
The US was responding to an earlier incident in which insurgents launched an attack into Afghanistan.
The incident is said to have occurred at a border post in the Mohmmand Tribal area in northwestern Pakistan.
Officials say the Pakistani post was hit during an exchange of fire between Taliban militants and troops in Afghanistan’s neighbouring Kunar Province.
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