Shipping Container Terror Threat Remains

Only 2 percent of cargo containers entering America’s ports are ever inspected. And the inspections performed are often unreliable. For instance, ABC News, as part of an investigative story, shipped a container full of depleted uranium to a New York port. There were sufficient red flags to make it one of the one in 50 containers singled out for examination. Had radiation detectors been used, they would have indicated a problem. But they were not.

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Mystery Qantas Cargo Escorted Through City

Australia - Thousands of Sydney commuters were left shaken and stirred this morning as they watched a large, heavily armed police convoy whisk two mystery cargo containers through heavy city traffic this morning.

Police have confirmed that the operation took place, but refused to comment on what the two containers – carried by Qantas trucks – held.

“If you knew what was in there you would understand,” a police spokesman told smh.com.au.

Bill McArthur, a 36-year-old marketing manager, was near the corner of South Dowling and Cleveland Street when he noticed all traffic had been brought to a standstill by red lights in all four directions.

About five minutes later, the convoy came into view.

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The Impact Of Nuclear Attacks On U.S. Cities

Researchers from the Center for Mass Destruction Defense (CMADD) at the University of Georgia have created a detailed simulation of the catastrophic impact a nuclear attack would have on American cities. They’ve looked at the detailed consequences that such attacks would have on four cities, Atlanta, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C., and concluded that the destruction of the major hospitals in the downtown areas of the four cities would be almost nearly complete.

They’ve estimated the numbers of direct deaths from the blasts and indirect ones from burns and radiations. They also give some solutions to reduce the number of lost lives, which could reach 5 million for the New York City area. Frightening…

Click the story link to view a diagram showing the thermal impact of a 550 kiloton surface nuclear detonation on New York City with weather as of September 17, 2004. The destruction of the major hospitals in the downtown area would be almost nearly complete in the city

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New Evidence Surfaces In Jose Padilla Case

New court filings say a key piece of evidence in the case against alleged terrorism operative Jose Padilla came from an Afghan man who told the C.I.A he found it in an al-Qaida safehouse.

The filing says a man drove up to the agency’s installation in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in a pickup truck containing “stacks of papers and other office materials” found in the house occupied by a group of Arabs.

Among the Arabic documents was a blue binder containing dozens of forms that U-S officials say were essentially applications for al-Qaida terrorism training camps. Prosecutors say one of those forms was filled out and signed with a name Padilla had used as one of his aliases.

Navy Denies Rumor Iran Fired At U.S. Warship

The US military denied reports Tuesday that Iran fired a missile at a US ship in the Persian Gulf.

The rumors of an attack had sent oil prices soaring, but Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown of the U.S. Navy 5th fleet told an Associated Press reporter that all ships in the Gulf had been checked and the rumors were untrue.

DHS To Investigate Nuclear Detection Gaps

The Homeland Security Department plans to enlist experts both inside and outside the government to launch a program probing the vulnerabilities of the nation’s nuclear detection network.

The assessment would take place even as the United States continues to develop its radiation detection systems and looks to invest more than $1 billion in next-generation detectors.

The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, a division within DHS, is hoping that by employing independent experts it can garner a glimpse of the current nuclear and radiological detection approach from a terrorist’s perspective, according to a description of the plan posted to a government Web site last week.

These “Red Teaming Assessments” would be based solely on publicly available information in order to identify vulnerabilities a terrorist group might be able to locate with the same data.

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Sick Passengers Allowed To Leave Jet

Passengers have been allowed to get off a plane that landed Monday afternoon at Newark Liberty International Airport from Hong Kong after some passengers reported feeling ill.

The Continental flight arrived at 2 p.m. in New Jersey, and passengers disembarked about 4 p.m. after officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed them off, said Marc La Vorgna, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport.

Continental Flight 98 departed Hong Kong at 11 a.m. with 272 passengers on board.

During the flight, the cabin crew noticed that several passengers appeared ill, and airline officials notified health authorities in the U.S., said Dave Messing, a spokesman for Houston-based Continental Airlines.

The CDC sent a representative to meet the passengers before they were allowed to leave the flight.

Messing said the airline believes the ill passengers were part of a group of more than 80 tourists who sailed together on a river cruise in Asia.

The final destination of the group, after switching planes in Newark, is Montreal, Canada.

TIDE Terror Database Casts Wide Net

Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world — field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip — arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation’s central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.

Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives.

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Explosive Device – IED Discovered

Uniontown PA. An improvised explosive device found in a garbage can in Uniontown on Sunday had city police on high alert.

City Detective Donald M. Gmitter said a resident found the suspicious package while taking out his garbage.

According to Gmitter, Officer David Rutter was dispatched to 52 John St. at 10:15 a.m. after a man called Fayette County 911 and said he found a suspicious package.

Rutter, in an incident report, said 71-year-old Kenneth Weasenworth reported finding two bottles with bullets inside of them in his garbage can, located next to Weasenworth’s residence.

Rutter said two clear plastic bottles were taped together with a can of wood wax spray and that two wicks were visibly sticking out of the bottles.

The bottles, according to Rutter, initially appeared to be empty, except for the bullets.

In the incident report, Rutter said he removed the taped bottles from the garbage can and took the package to the city police station. While transporting the package, Rutter said he noticed the smell of a “flammable liquid.”

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Iran To Try Britons For Espionage

British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying.

A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

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Hostage Fears Over Troops Seized By Iran

Britain’s crisis with Iran deepened last night after Tehran justified seizing 15 British servicemen by claiming that they had strayed into Iranian territorial waters “illegally”.

The announcement appeared to rule out any hope that the incident was a simple mistake that could be quickly rectified.

Instead, there were growing fears that the 15 British sailors and Royal Marines were victims of a deliberate ambush on the disputed Shatt al-Arab waterway by Iranian Revolutionary Guards, perhaps seeking to use the captives as hostages in the increasingly tense stand-off between the West and Iran over its nuclear programme.

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Chlorine Bombs Raise Worries of U.S. Attack

Chlorine bombs in Iraq have raised concern that lax security at U.S. chemical plants could make the country, and particularly New York City, vulnerable to similar attacks.

Policymakers and law enforcement officials said poor security at the plants could lead to the theft of ingredients needed to build a bomb like the ones detonated in Iraq.

“It is perplexing that a nation that has expended so much blood and treasure searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would allow what could become their equivalent to sit largely overlooked on U.S. soil,” Stephen Flynn, former U.S. Coast Guard officer and now analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Congress this week.

Flynn said he expects Islamic militants to try to strike the United States again within five years using lessons learned in Iraq. Chemical plants, he said, were likely a top target.

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Ahmadinejad Cancels U.N. Visit

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has canceled a planned visit to the United Nations, blaming a delay in U.S. visas being issued to the crew of his airplane.Ahmadinejad wanted to speak to the U.N. Security Council before a vote, scheduled for Saturday on sanctions against Iran.

Iran says it will still try to get high-level representation to the U.N. most likely the foreign minister.

The draft resolution comes after the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog agency said last month it could not verify that Iran’s uranium enrichment program was strictly for peaceful purposes, as Iran has said. Western nations, including the United States, believe Iran is using its uranium enrichment program to develop nuclear weapons.

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Iranian Vessels Seize 15 British Navy Personnel

Iranian naval vessels on Friday seized 15 British sailors who had boarded a merchant ship in Iraqi waters of the Persian Gulf, British and U.S. officials said. Britain immediately protested the incident which comes at a time of high tension between the West and Iran.

Iran had no immediate comment about the incident. In London, the British government summoned the Iranian ambassador, Rasoul Movahedian, to the Foreign Office at mid-afternoon and demanded “the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.”

The U.S. Navy, which operates off the Iraqi coast along with British forces, said the British sailors appeared unharmed and that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard naval forces were responsible.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said the British Navy personnel were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed a ship inspection when they were accosted by the Iranian vessels.

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