Divers Find Explosives in Canal Near L.A.
January 16, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Commercial-grade explosives discovered in a canal south of Los Angeles prompted authorities to ban cell phone use Wednesday to prevent accidental detonation.
Environmental divers hired to check on algae growth found the cigarette-sized blasting caps late Tuesday in a canal lined with homes off of Huntington Beach harbor.
Al Qaida chief ‘not killed by bomb’
January 14, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Two senior Pakistani officials have confirmed that al Qaida second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri was not at the site of a US air strike near the Afghan border.
The officials said that Pakistan’s own investigation concluded that al-Zawahri was not in Damadola village where 17 people were killed in the strike on Friday.
Ayman al-Zawahiri may have been killed in a US strike
January 13, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri may have been killed in a US strike on Friday on a Pakistani village which killed 18 people, according to US media reports.
Pakistani military sources told American ABC television that five of those killed were “high level Al-Qaeda figures”, and their bodies are undergoing forensic tests for identification.
January 13, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Surge in Sale of Disposable Cell Phones May Have Terror Link
January 12, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Federal agents have launched an investigation into a surge in the purchase of large quantities of disposable cell phones by individuals from the Middle East and Pakistan, ABC News has learned.
The phones which do not require purchasers to sign a contract or have a credit card have many legitimate uses, and are popular with people who have bad credit or for use as emergency phones tucked away in glove compartments or tackle boxes. But since they can be difficult or impossible to track, law enforcement officials say the phones are widely used by criminal gangs and terrorists.
Al-Qaeda’s plot to infect troops with AIDS virus
January 8, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Al-Qaeda is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror.
Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their “kill rate” from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.
U.S. issues ‘dirty bomb’ cleanup guide
January 8, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
Once again raising the specter of the unthinkable, the Homeland Security Department yesterday issued cleanup standards for a terrorist attack with an “improvised nuclear device.”
Often called “dirty bombs,” improvised nuclear devices use conventional explosives to disperse radioactive material without a nuclear explosion. Such weapons, which could use Cesium 137 or other radioactive material, would be useful as terror devices because they can render an area dangerous, uninhabitable and spread panic.
The hunt for terror nukes
January 3, 2006 by Homeland Security NTARC News
Filed under Homeland Security News
When U.S. News broke a story the day before Christmas about radiation detection efforts taking place in the capital of the United States, most of the attention such a startling development might have received was diverted by the timing and the emphasis on whether such monitoring might in some way violate civil rights.
