Rat Poison Found in Tainted Pet Food

A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Agriculture says rat poison was found in tainted pet food that killed several animals and sparked a nationwide recall.

Developing…

Ahmadinejad To Offer New Proposals At U.N.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad is expected to arrive in New York City late Friday or, early Saturday to address emergency UN Security Council meeting now slated for Saturday.

Ahmadinejad has promised to make new proposals for resolving the dispute over his country’s nuclear program when he appears at the United Nations.

But he again rejected international demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

Speaking in a French TV interview, the Iranian leader said the demanded freeze on enrichment, a process that can be used to produce fuel for power plants or material for atomic weapons – was illegal.

“We will make new proposals, good proposals,” he told France-2 television in an interview in Tehran. It was his first appearance on Western TV since UN sanctions were imposed on Iran in December.

“Our proposals will be based on rights and laws and on the inalienable rights of all nations. Not only on what the US or Great Britain wants,” he said, without offering specifics on the proposals.

“Uranium enrichment is legal. The American and British Security Council proposals are illegal,” Ahmadinejad said. “For us, it’s an illegal demand.”

Three Held In London Terror Attack

Three men were arrested yesterday in connection with the 7 July suicide bomb attacks on London.

Two men were held at Manchester Airport as they prepared to fly to Pakistan. The third was detained at a house in Leeds.

Last night, they were being questioned at a high-security police station in central London.

Scotland Yard said the three were arrested “on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.”

Security sources said the arrests related to “unanswered questions” about the attacks in July 2005, which killed 52 people. Among those questions are why the car in which the bombers travelled to London contained spare explosive devices.

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Study – U.S. Cities Unprepared For Nuclear Attack

The largest U.S. cities are catastrophically unprepared for a nuclear attack and the widespread medical emergencies that would result, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

The three-year study produced by UGA’s Center for Mass Destruction Defense and published in the most recent edition of the International Journal of Health Geographics _ paints a horrifying picture.

Millions dead. Hundreds of thousands more wounded with burns and radiation poisoning. The most critical hospital infrastructure in downtowns destroyed and outlying medical facilities unable to cope with the mass burn injuries.

“It would be hard for me to see how we’ll make it more than 10 years without a nuclear weapon being detonated on American soil,” said Cham Dallas, center director and co-author of the study. “We’ve got to prepare.”

The study looks at four cities, Atlanta, New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. and simulates the impact a 20 kiloton and a 550 kiloton nuclear detonation would have. To compare, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II ranged from 12 to 20 kilotons.

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Al-Qaeda Terrorists Obtain UK Passports

Two convicted terrorists, including a key al-Qaeda member, were among at least 10,000 applicants who fraudulently obtained passports from the Home Office in the last year, ministers said.

One of the men Dhiren Barot was the al-Qaeda figure who planned radioactive “dirty” bombs in London. He was convicted in December after admitting conspiracy to murder and jailed for 40 years. He managed to obtain nine British passports, seven of them in his name.

The other, Salaheddine Benyaich, a Moroccan national, obtained two British passports. He is serving 18 years in a Moroccan jail for terrorist offences.

Last night, the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) said a face-to-face interview would have stopped the applications.

The Home Office revealed that an estimated 10,000 fake applications had been successful by the year to September, out of more than 16,500 attempted fraudulent applications. The real figure could be far higher as officials admitted 10,000 was only an estimate.

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Extremists Buying School Buses ?

Good follow-up article to the recent story, Extremists Seek School Bus Work .

Atlas Shrugs points out that extremists may be interested in more than just obtaining school bus drivers licenses. The may also be purchasing school buses for as little as $1,205.00 on the Repo Market.

The article includes a list of repossessed bus sales in the last 48 hours.

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Iran Planning To Kidnap Americans And Israelis

Iran is threatening to kidnap Israelis, Europeans and Americans, Britain’s Sunday Times reported on Sunday.

The article on the newspaper’s Web site described the move as retaliation for what Iran claims was an undercover operation by the West to kidnap senior officers in the Iran Revolutionary Guard.

Iranian sources say several officers have been kidnapped over the past three months, the Times said. According to the report, the US has drawn up a list of other targets for capture, with the aim of destabilizing Iran’s military.

The Revolutionary Guard’s newspaper, Subhi Sadek, published an article warning that Iran intended to strike back.

“We’ve got the ability to capture a nice bunch of blue-eyed, blond-haired officers and feed them to our fighting cocks,” it read.

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Fake Police and Prisoner Arrested At LAX

Two people who claimed to be taking a handcuffed prisoner to Hawaii for a court hearing were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport after one was found to be carrying a gun without a permit, authorities said.

A man and woman were arrested for investigation of impersonating police officers after they entered a security screening area at Terminal Three on Friday morning, Los Angeles Airport Police spokeswoman Belinda Nettles said Saturday.

The couple, who were wearing plainclothes, claimed to be law enforcement officers. The woman said she was carrying a firearm, and both claimed they had written documents indicating they were authorized to carry firearms, Nettles said.

Airport police ran a check and found that neither was a police officer, and the woman did not have a permit to carry a gun, Nettles said.

The gun was seized and the pair were taken into custody. Officials did not immediately release their names.

The “prisoner” also was taken into custody, Nettles said but she did not have additional details.

The FBI said it was assisting local authorities in their investigation.

Terror Extremists Seek School Bus Work

Members of extremist groups have signed up as school bus drivers in the United States, counterterror officials said Friday, in a cautionary bulletin to police. An FBI spokesman said “parents and children have nothing to fear.”

Asked about the alert notice, the FBI’s Rich Kolko said “there are no threats, no plots and no history leading us to believe there is any reason for concern,” although law enforcement agencies around the country were asked to watch out for kids’ safety.

The bulletin, parts of which were read to The Associated Press, did not say how often foreign extremists have sought to acquire licenses to drive school buses, or where. It was sent Friday as part of what officials said was a routine FBI and Homeland Security Department advisory to local law enforcement.

It noted “recent suspicious activity” by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, according to a counterterror official who read parts of the document.

Foreigners under recent investigation include “some with ties to extremist groups” who have been able to “purchase buses and acquire licenses,” the bulletin says.

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New Terror Group Fatah al Islam Vows U.S. Attacks

Deep in a violent and lawless slum just north of this coastal city, 12 men whose faces were shrouded by scarves drilled with Kalashnikovs.

In unison, they lunged in one direction, turned and lunged in another. “Allah-u akbar,” the men shouted in praise to God as they fired their machine guns into a wall.

The men belong to a new militant Islamic organization called Fatah al Islam, whose leader, a fugitive Palestinian named Shakir al-Abssi, has set up operations in a refugee camp here where he trains fighters and spreads the ideology of Al Qaeda.

He has solid terrorist credentials. A former associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda of Mesopotamia who was killed last summer, Mr. Abssi was sentenced to death in absentia along with Mr. Zarqawi in the 2002 assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, Laurence Foley. Just four months after arriving here from Syria, Mr. Abssi has a militia that intelligence officials estimate at 150 men and an arsenal of explosives, rockets and even an antiaircraft gun.

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FBI Raids HQ of Japans All Nippon Airways

FBI agents raided the North American headquarters of Japan’s All Nippon Airways on Thursday, authorities said.

Agents executed a federal search warrant at ANA’s customer relations and services office in Torrance early Thursday, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. She declined to say why the office was under investigation because the search warrant was under seal.

In a statement issued by ANA’s headquarters in Tokyo, the company said it had not yet confirmed the reason for the investigation.

“There is no suspicion of terrorism and the ANA flights are operating normally,” the statement said.

The center resumed operating late in the afternoon.

As Japan’s second-largest airline by revenue, ANA flies to 50 destinations in Japan and 24 cities throughout Asia, Europe and the United States. The company also has assets in land, air transport, travel, hotels and other businesses.

Developing…

Ahmadinejad Plans Trip To New York City

Iran President Ahmadinejad Plans Trip To New York City/UN next week; requests visas for more than 25  security agents. The Iranians want to fly in private plane and leave a large group in the plane at JFK airport who will not pass through US customs.

Iran’s U.N. Mission sent a letter Thursday requesting that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be allowed to speak before the Security Council when it votes on new sanctions against Tehran for its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, the council president said.

Richard Grenell, spokesman for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the U.S. has received official visa requests for an Iranian delegation.

He refused to disclose any details, but a council diplomat said Iran asked for visas for 38 people to accompany Ahmadinejad, including Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani.

Developing… 

Chertoff – Terrorists Using Internet To Recruit

Radical Islamists are using the Internet to recruit homegrown terrorists in the U.S., Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel yesterday. “I don’t think it’s necessary to send radical recruiters into the United States, and I think there’s a risk to doing that,” Mr. Chertoff told the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.

“But I have no question about the fact that [Osama] bin Laden and [Ayman al-Zawahiri] and others like them quite consciously use the media, including the Internet, as a recruiting tool,” Mr. Chertoff said. “In terms of recruiting, I would say that the principal way to enter the U.S. is through the Internet.”

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DHS Focuses On Homegrown Terrorists

The Homeland Security Department said Wednesday it has created a unit to combat the threat posed by “homegrown terrorists” — citizens or legal residents who plot attacks from inside the nation’s borders.

“This phenomenon presents a real and serious challenge to our nation,” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a Senate panel.

Chertoff emphasized that violent extremists “represent a small, fringe element within the American Muslim community” and that members of that community have been “outspoken in their opposition to terrorist violence.” He noted that the last major attack by homegrown terrorists was the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995.

Homeland’s Chief Intelligence Officer Charles Allen’s new unit will address all forms of extremist activity but will focus mainly on the threat from radicalized Muslims. The group has met with officials in 18 cities from Albany, N.Y., to Sacramento to get a handle on the problem. Allen said members have found that radicalization is a growing problem in prisons and at universities and impressionable students are particularly susceptible to charismatic leaders aiming to “instill a brand of extreme ideology.”

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