Todays threats

Pentagon Official Tells ABC News Israel May Attack Iran

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 03:01 AM CDT


Israel is increasingly likely to attack Iranian nuclear facilities this year, a U.S. Defense Department official told ABC News.

Iran’s government dismissed as propaganda the ABC report on the unidentified Pentagon official’s comments. Israeli government officials declined to comment on the report.

In the U.S., Pentagon spokesmen Bryan Whitman declined to address the report. “I don’t comment for Israel,” he said. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he had “no information that would substantiate” the ABC report and criticized the official for not speaking publicly.

An Israeli strike might be triggered by the production of enough enriched uranium at Iran’s Natanz nuclear plant to make a bomb, ABC cited the official as saying. A second possible trigger would be the delivery of a Russian SA-20 air-defense system, the installation of which would make an Israeli attack more difficult, the U.S. official told ABC.

Oil rose on concern any conflict would cut supplies from OPEC’s second-largest producer. Crude oil for August delivery increased as much as $2.95, or 2.1 percent, to $142.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Former Israeli Air Force General Isaac Ben-Israel, now a lawmaker in Israel’s ruling Kadima party, told Germany’s Spiegel that his nation is “prepared” for an attack if diplomacy and United Nations sanctions fail to stop Iran from making a nuclear weapon. Ben-Israel helped plan Israel’s 1981 strike on an Iraqi nuclear reactor, the magazine said.

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Joint Terrorism Task Force Arrests Man For Possession of Illegal Toxin

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 02:44 AM CDT

A Lake in the Hills man arrested with puffer fish toxin in Algonquin on Monday may have been looking for a hitman.

Edward F. Bachner IV was questioned by the FBI in 2006 about e-mail messages soliciting the killing of a Chicago area woman. He told agents, “I was bored. I had no intent,” according to an FBI affidavit released Tuesday morning.

A hazardous materials team decontaminates in the driveway after a search of a Lake in the Hills home Monday afternoon. An FBI-led joint terrorism task force arrested a man on a charge of possession of an illegal toxin.

Bachner, 35, was taken into custody Monday in Algonquin after accepting a Federal Express package containing tetrodotoxin, a poison extracted from puffer fish that is 1,200 times more deadly than cyanide.

In a search of Bachner’s home, agents found six empty tetrodotoxin vials, needles and syringes, and a book dealing with effective doses for killing people, according to the FBI.

Bachner was charged with one count of illegal possession of a toxin, namely tetrodotoxin, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Rockford. If convicted he faces a possible sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

The toxin appears in varieties of puffer fish that are considered a delicacy in Asia. They fish are specially prepared to remove the poison. Tetrodotoxin is a poison so potent the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it can “produce rapid and violent death.” Ingesting the toxin can cause paralysis, vomiting, heart failure and death.

The FBI did not give a motive for why Bachner allegedly purchased the poison under an alias and fake company name.

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US Fears Possible Al Qaeda Attack Next Year

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 03:46 AM CDT

The White House warned on Monday that Al Qaeda could launch a major attack on the United States in 2009, endorsing a similar warning by an independent senator Joe Lieberman.

The warnings coincide with media reports that top Bush administration officials drafted a secret plan late last year to enable US forces to operate inside Fata, but Washington turf battles and the diversion of resources to Iraq have held up the effort.At a White House briefing, press secretary Dana Perino did not confirm or deny the reports – saying that she could not “comment either way” – but she assured US citizens that the Bush administration had never allowed a “let up” in the search for Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

Ms Perino, however, did not hesitate to confirm Mr Lieberman’s fears. “Unfortunately, he could be right,” she said. “We know there are people who are very dangerous and are trying to do that.”

Mr Lieberman, who was a vice-presidential candidate in 2004, said in a television interview on Sunday that history shows the United States would likely face a terrorist attack in 2009.

“Our enemies will test the new president early,” he said. “Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Centre happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration.”

At the White House, Ms Perino noted that the people who were planning to attack the United States were “very dangerous and very secretive,” and operated from “a very dangerous terrain, hiding in caves.”

Explaining President Bush’s strategy for dealing with this threat, she said the president was clear that “whenever we can we will take action” against such people. “We will not wait.”

She said that people hiding in this “dangerous terrain” were “plotting to kill innocent people not just in the US but in other countries as well, even Muslims like in Iraq.”

Mr Perino said that as part of its strategy to deal with this threat, the Bush administration was trying to help establish a better economic and political environment in Fata and elsewhere.

“So Senator Lieberman could be right but we are doing anything we can” to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States, she said.

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Woman Arrested Smuggling C-4 Explosives Inside Coconuts - Sri Lanka

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 03:14 AM CDT

A woman was arrested in Vavuniya yesterday (June 1) at a Police roadblock, while clandestinely transporting C-4 high explosives concealed in coconut nuts at around 5.15p.m.

According to the Vavuniya Police, the woman had been traveling in a bus plying towards Siddambarapuram, along the Vavuniya - Horowpotana main road when the bus was stopped at a Police roadblock at the Cemetery junction in Vavuniya.

The police searched the woman for her suspicious behavior and found the high explosive weighing 1kg separately stuffed in packets and concealed inside 4 coconut nuts.

Vavuniya Police is conducting further investigations.

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Couple Admits To Sending Explosives, Threatening To Blow Up Charlotte-Douglas International Airport

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 03:05 AM CDT

A couple has been convicted of sending explosive devices throughout the Carolinas and threatening to blow up Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

Christopher Gilberto and his wife Cruz De Jesus Gilberto pleaded guilty in federal prison and are awaiting their sentence. They are charged with aggravated identity theft, the manufacturing of an explosive device, as well as two separate conspiracies related to mailing the devices.

Christopher Gilberto, Cruz De Jesus Gilberto

Federal authorities say the Gilbertos were the masterminds behind the plot, which spanned over two years. They sent explosive devices to banks and former coworkers, as well as threatening letters to the FBI and Charlotte Douglas International. One of the threatening letters stated a bomb would go off on at the airport at 9:11 a.m. in March 2007, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Authorities say Christopher Gilberto began sending the explosive devices in February of 2006, the first to a Ruby Tuesday restaurant in Rock Hill. They say he was upset because the restaurant did not renew his license to clean the windows.

The couple would send letters with other people’s addresses in the “return address” spot, in an effort to harass people they were upset with and make them a target of law enforcement, according to federal officials.

The couple was arrested in at their home in York, S.C. in March of last year. Neighbors say they had no idea what was going on when they saw police cars on the property.

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Police Find Arsenal - Suspect Said To Be Preparing To Engage In Combat With Terrorists

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 02:51 AM CDT

Scores of bullets, firearms and pipe-bomb-making material were confiscated today from a home where local police first responded to a domestic dispute.

The man living at the house in the 5200 block of Graening Street NE, identified by police as Timothy Ward, 43, had been terrorizing his wife before police arrived, they said. The woman, according to police, was placed in handcuffs and forced to watch gospel television programs.

“She was able to escape the handcuffs and called the police at a neighbor’s (home),” Officer Ryan Wise of the township Police Department said. “He exited the house after I got here. He came up and approached me. I asked him what was going on, and he said he dispatched demons.”

After Wise placed Ward in handcuffs, police discovered firearms in the house, ranging from rifles, shotguns, semi-automatic rifles, handguns and ammunition. Also, authorities say they confiscated material to make pipe bombs.

“There are going to be an assortment of felonies and misdemeanors involved in this,” police Chief Ron Devies said. “We think he is an extremely dangerous individual. Based on our investigation thus far, he had an obsession with killing. We see pictures of dead dogs and dead cats. We found skins of dead cats in his house. And he had a collection of animal skulls. He is not our garden-variety-type of domestic violence arrest we get here.”

To prepare charges, township police will consult with the Alliance Law Department. Marlboro Township is under jurisdiction of the Alliance Municipal Court.

The couple’s home is about 100 yards south of the driveway entrance on Graening Street NE in a remote farming area less than a mile east of Hartville.

Police said Ward’s wife mentioned that her husband was harboring a willingness to engage in combat with extremist Islamic terrorists.

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Two Arrested For Carrying Bullets At Airport - India

Posted: 02 Jul 2008 02:32 AM CDT

Two men were detained at Indira Gandhi International Airport for carrying live cartridges on Tuesday morning. One of them was identified was Shiv Vardhan Singh, who is a nephew of an Uttar Pradesh minister.

Singh was to board an Air India flight for Mumbai when officials at the X-ray counter stopped him after they found a strip of 10 bullets of .32 bore in his hand baggage, said an officer.

“He said the bullets perhaps belonged to the ministers son, who has a licensed revolver.

We are verifying his claims,” an officer said.

During baggage screening, a live cartridge was found inside his bag. He was detained by the security personnel at the airport and subsequently handed over to the police.

Another man who was detained was identified as Darshan Singh, who was to take flight to take to Malaysia and detained for carrying 11 rounds of .32 bore.

“He said it were of his licensed revolver and he carried them accidentally. We are also verifying his claims,” an officer said.

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