Several Killed In Trolley Square Mall Shooting

Salt Lake Police say a man opened fire inside the Trolley Square Mall on Monday evening. Police have shot and killed one suspect, and there are preliminary reports that at least five people are dead. There is no second shooter loose inside the mall.

Police report that the shooter was shooting at random in multiple areas, but is no longer a threat and there is no further risk at Trolley Square.

Police say that there have been “several” victims and “some” fatalities and “some” in critical condition, but could not report further. All victims have been transported to several hospitals in the area.

Multiple police and ambulance vehicles surrounded the area as the mall was locked down. Most people were evacuated immediately, but some remained locked in stores as police secured the area. Police could not confirm how many people remained inside the mall.

UPDATES:

• Police confirm 5 dead, several injured.

• KSL Newsradio reporting gunman possibly shot dead by off-duty Ogden police officer.

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Colorado Police Arrest Man On Terrorist Watch List

In what is described as a ‘sensitive’ case, police took a man into custody early Friday morning whose name is on the FBI’s terrorist watch list, officials said.

Police stopped Moussa Bitar, 27, at 2 a.m. for suspicion of drunk driving and then took him into custody on unrelated charges, officials said.

When asked to provide identification, police said, Bitar produced papers that listed the name of a dead man. Police were later able to determine his true identity and learned of his listing on the terrorist watch list.

Bitar is currently being held at the Aurora Detention Center, said David Gaouette, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Denver.

“The federal government is looking into any possible federal violations,” Gaouette said. “The FBI and other agencies are interested in talking to him.”

2 Bombs May Be From The Bishop Bomber

The person who recently mailed an unarmed pipe bomb to a Loop investment firm fits the description of The Bishop, the nom de guerre of someone who has sent threatening letters to Midwest companies since 2005, according to a security expert.

The bomb and another one recently sent to a company in Kansas City were inside packages with a northwest suburban Rolling Meadows postmark and a Streamwood return address, said Fred Burton of Strategic Forecasting Inc.

“If The Bishop is not identified and apprehended, he likely will continue his efforts to manipulate stock prices. As his threats are ignored, his demands unmet and his grandiose plans thwarted, he probably will continue to escalate his behavior and eventually will send live devices to his targets,” Burton wrote in a report issued Wednesday.

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Bomb Expert Warns Schools of Terror Threat

It’s not a matter of if, but when, terrorists will once again strike the United States, according to a retired lieutenant of the Oklahoma City Police Department who now leads awareness sessions on terrorism and response plans.

The fast-paced information presented Wednesday by John Clark, employed as an adjunct professor with the New Mexico Tech’s Institute of Mining and Technology, and Don Renner, also an adjunct professor and an explosive ordinance technician with 21 years of military service, was sobering for the 117 attending.

Clark, who developed the emergency response team for Oklahoma City police and responded to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in 1995, told participants his intent was not to make them paranoid but prepared.

“What’s happening with our military on foreign countries will happen here. It’s coming like a freight train. … And one of the things they want is your children,” he said.

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If you are a school administrator or law enforcement officer, learn what steps you can take.

“Bomb Threat Response: A FREE Interactive Planning Tool” CD-Rom has been released across the country to School Administrators and Law Enforcement Officers. We have reviewed this CD and highly recommend it.

The Bomb Threat CD-ROM was developed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

This CD-ROM is a FREE interactive planning tool for schools that included staff training presentation and implementation resources. ATF will distribute the CD-ROM to State and local law enforcement and public safety agencies and the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools will handle distribution to the country’s public and private school systems.

Fore information on the CD and how to order, go to thier website: threatplan.org

Distrust Hinders FBI In Outreach to Muslims

The FBI’s worst fears that hidden homegrown terrorist groups could take root in this country were fanned here in the summer of 2005, when four young Muslim men were charged with conspiring “to levy war against the United States” via deadly attacks on military installations and synagogues in Southern California.

The men belonged to what Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales called a “radical Islamic organization” named Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh (JIS), or Assembly of True Islam. They were discovered before they could carry out their alleged plans.

Although Gonzales claimed an intelligence victory, the FBI had only stumbled upon JIS. Numbers on a cellphone dropped during a gas-station holdup led local police to an apartment and a computer with documents that authorities said outlined a terrorism spree.

Read Article – Washingtonpost.com

Nuclear Terrorism Risk Seen Growing

(Reuters) Western governments must take seriously the possibility of terrorists exploding a nuclear bomb as the necessary materials and know-how become easier to acquire, security analysts argue in two new reports.

“The threat of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons is real … moreover, the likelihood of terrorists acquiring such weapons is growing as more states aggressively pursue their own nuclear ambitions,” the EastWest Institute said in a study.

It said the first nuclear terrorist may turn out to be an American or European, reflecting a likely evolution in security threats over the next 10-15 years and a possible shift away from al Qaeda-style Islamist militancy toward eco-terrorism.

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More Americans Fear Chemical Biological Attack

More adults in the United States are worried about a chemical terrorist attack, according to a poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Trust for America’s Health. 70 per cent of respondents are concerned about the release of dangerous chemicals into drinking water, up 18 points in a year.

In addition, 64 per cent of respondents are worried about a biological attack, such as the use of anthrax or small pox, up 14 points in a year.

In September and October 2001, letters containing anthrax bacteria were sent to the offices of five media organizations and two U.S. senators. Five people died and 17 more became ill. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offered a $2.5 million U.S. reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators, but the case remains unsolved.

In 2004, the U.S. Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act. In July 2004, U.S. president George W. Bush signed the bill into law, saying, “(It) will help America purchase, develop and deploy cutting-edge defences against catastrophic attack.”

Source: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research / Trust for America’s Health Methodology: Telephone interviews with 856 registered American voters, conducted from Jan. 18 to Jan. 22, 2007. Margin of error is 3.4 per cent.

Angus Reid Global Monitor

U.S. Intel – Iraqi Lawmaker Is U.S. Embassy Bomber

A man sentenced to death in Kuwait for the 1983 bombings of the U.S. and French embassies now sits in Iraq’s parliament as a member of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s ruling coalition, according to U.S. military intelligence.

Jamal Jafaar Mohammed’s seat in parliament gives him immunity from prosecution. Washington says he supports Shiite insurgents and acts as an Iranian agent in Iraq.

U.S. military intelligence in Iraq has approached al-Maliki’s government with the allegations against Jamal Jafaar Mohammed, whom it says assists Iranian special forces in Iraq as “a conduit for weapons and political influence.”

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November 2008: America Is Nuked

Only two weeks after the elections in November of 2008, the United States of America, a nation of former greatness, lay in absolute desolate ruin. Within the previous 72 hours a series of eight successive, delayed nuclear devices had been detonated. Indescribably large portions of metro Washington, D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, and two thirds of the island of Manhattan have been turned into steaming craters. Millions are dead. President George W. Bush is in intensive care; two-thirds of the Cabinet, including the vice president, are missing or dead.

President-elect Barack Obama faces the most enormous challenge of any incoming president in the history of the nation.

But why?

How did it happen?

Read Article at WorldNetDaily

al-Qaeda Tells British Cells to Start Beheadings

Islamic terror cells in Britain have been instructed to carry out a series of kidnappings and beheadings of the kind allegedly planned by the nine terrorist suspects arrested in Birmingham last week.

The “strategic” assassination instruction was issued by Al-Qaeda’s leaders in Pakistan and Iraq to dozens of their followers in this country. It was uncovered by MI5 last autumn, senior security sources say.

As a result police are on standby for multiple attempts by terrorists to kidnap and then behead people across Britain. MI5 is conducting a counter-terrorism surveillance operation to prevent such an attack.

The alleged attempt to kidnap and behead a Muslim soldier or soldiers in Birmingham was just the first of a series of planned attacks, security sources say.

The revelation explains the recent deployment of a permanent SAS unit to London. The unit has been placed on 24-hour standby to respond to a terrorist attack in the capital. It would aim to carry out a hostage rescue mission within minutes of being alerted.

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Man Was Arming For War Says FBI

A St. Charles man obtained fully automatic weapons and tried to buy as many explosives as possible in preparation for what an associate called “war,” the FBI says in court documents.

He bought three rifles and a Claymore anti-personnel mine and negotiated for a case of hand grenades, documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch show.

Mousa M. Abuelawi, 22, of Franjoe Court, was arrested Dec. 29 and charged on complaints accusing him of three counts of illegal possession or distribution of a machine gun and conspiracy to violate machine gun statutes.

Abuelawi, a Palestinian immigrant free on $50,000 bond, could not be reached. His brother declined to comment on his behalf. His lawyers, Scott Rosenblum and Gil Sison, did not return calls.

The context of the word “war” was not explained in court filings; the FBI declined to comment.

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Sleeper Cells in the United States and Canada

Excellent article by David Gaubatz in the American Thinker.

There is every reason to suspect that we will endure suicide missions by Islamist sleeper cells. They are already in place. They are waiting for the right time. I know this from experience.

I have worked over 15 years as a U.S. Federal Agent, a U.S. State Department Arabic linguist, and the first civilian Federal Agent deployed into Iraq at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. Since returning from Iraq I have been involved in terrorism analysis, specifically the mindset of terrorists. During my extensive research on sleeper cells I have talked with hundreds of people from the Middle East from all walks of life, and have talked with Iraqi Government officials, Iraqi military, and Iraqi police officers. In addition I have interviewed numerous counter-terrorism specialists in the U.S. and abroad. In the last year alone I have trained over 4000 U.S. Law Enforcement officers in Basic Investigative Arabic and counter-terrorism. The conclusion of my research is the title of this article.

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The War On Terror Is MIA On The Big Screen

I recently attended “FBI 101,” a G-man seminar for Hollywood writers.

I do this kind of thing a lot: law-enforcement seminars, ride-alongs, citizen academies and the like. The writers get information and research contacts; the law dogs get a fighting chance at being portrayed realistically and maybe even sympathetically.

In my case, the federales were preaching to the converted. Any agency with a record of battling gangsters, communists and dirty pols can show up as good guys in my work anytime. And never mind just their record. Since 9/11 chastened by blunders the FBI has reinvented itself as a thin gray line against Islamic terrorism. Pulling 16-hour days, volunteering for repeated tours of duty at FBI outposts in the Middle East, constantly aware that their failures will be remembered when their successes are forgotten, the G-people are clearly heroes.

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