FBI - High Tempo of Terrorist Chatter
May 31, 2007
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The FBI has increased its use of secret search warrants over the past two years because of a “high tempo of terrorist activity,” a top official said yesterday.
FBI Assistant Director John Miller said the 2,176 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act search warrants approved last year, compared with only 1,754 granted in 2005, mostly targeted plotters inside America.
“We’re seeing a very high tempo of terrorist activity, not just based on the cases you’re seeing being brought in the United States,” Miller said in an interview yesterday for C-SPAN’s “Newsmaker” program.
Miller said the warrants, issued by a secret federal court in Washington, are usually not a “way to a prosecution,” but are “an intelligence tool.”
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al Qaeda Threatens New Wave of Global Terror
May 30, 2007
If international terrorism has a global headquarters, it is probably to be found in the barren mountains of Waziristan lining the ungovernable north-west frontier of Pakistan.
Here, British officials believe al-Qaeda’s core leadership, headed by Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has regrouped and found refuge.
For several years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, they were engaged in little else than avoiding capture and fleeing the American-led offensive in Afghanistan.
Today, by contrast, they are probably secure enough to give strategic direction to al-Qaeda cells across the world. Once, al-Qaeda was best thought of as a “franchise” operation: a brand name adopted by numerous terrorist groups operating independently of the key leaders around bin Laden, who British counter-terrorism officials call “core al-Qaeda”.
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Adam Gadahn American Al-Qaeda Threatens Attacks on U.S.
May 29, 2007
An American member of al-Qaida warned President Bush on Tuesday to end U.S. involvement in all Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the Sept. 11 suicide assault, according to a new videotape.
Wearing a white robe and a turban, Adam Yehiye Gadahn, who also goes by the name Azzam al-Amriki, said al-Qaida would not negotiate on its demands.
“Your failure to heed our demands. means that you and your people will. experience things which will make you forget all about the horrors of September 11th, Afghanistan and Iraq and Virginia Tech,” he said in the seven-minute video.
Gadahn, who has been charged in a U.S. treason indictment with aiding al-Qaida, spoke in English and the video carried Arabic subtitles. The video appeared on a Web site often used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of al-Qaida’s media wing, as-Sahab.
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CDC Quarantines Man For TB (Tuberculosis XDR-TB)
May 29, 2007
For the first time in four decades, the CDC has quarantined a man as a public health risk, the government announced today.The Georgia man is infected with extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). He was ordered into isolation in Atlanta.
The agency took the unusual step under the federal Public Health Act after the man, who had been asked not to travel, flew from Atlanta to Prague, via Paris May 12, and then back to Montreal May 24. He re-entered the U.S. by car the same day, according to CDC director Julie Gerberding, M.D.
It’s the first time since 1963 that the agency has used its statutory power to isolate a citizen. In that case, Dr. Gerberding told a press conference today, the patient had smallpox.
“Because (XDR-TB) is so potentially serious and could cause such serious harm to people,” she said, “we felt it was our responsibility to err on the side of abundant caution and issue an isolation order.”
The order came as the CDC, co-operating with public health agencies in several other countries as well as the airlines involved, was trying to track down other passengers on the two flights, she said.
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Open Door To Terror - The 24 Hour Background Check
May 28, 2007
Hugh Hewitt weighs the consequences a proposed guest worker plan would have on Homeland Security. In particular, the 24-hour turnaround time on background checks.
A little background on this…
According to the current version of the bill, each worker who applies for the guest worker program would be required to pass a criminal background check. The government would be required to complete this background check within 24-hours.
The problem with this is fairly evident.
First, a central database for conducting background checks for crimes committed in foreign countries does not exist. NCIC, a computerized index of criminal justice information (i.e.- criminal record history information, fugitives, stolen properties, missing persons) stores information on only U.S. criminal history. Absent the ability to adequately perform background checks on over 12 million applicants, the new guest worker program would potentially provide safe passage to thousands possessing criminal records in their home countries.
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Additional Details On Flight 327 Released
May 28, 2007
The inspector general for Homeland Security late Friday released new details of what federal air marshals say was a terrorist dry run aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29, 2004.
Several portions of the report remain redacted. The release stems from a Freedom of Information request by The Washington Times in April 2006. The Times first reported on July 22 that this and other probes and dry runs were occurring on commercial flights since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Excerpts fom 51-page inspector general report:
On the flight, 13 Middle Eastern men behaved in a suspicious manner that aroused the attention and concern of the flight attendants, passengers, air marshals and pilots.
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Al-Qaeda Trying To Go Nuclear
May 26, 2007
Al-Qaeda is searching for ways to create nuclear weapons for mass destruction, a former UN weapons inspection chief said during a press conference at an international convention ways to prevent a nuclear catastrophe being held in Luxembourg.
Rolf Ekeus, currently High Commissioner at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and formerly Director of the UN Special Commission on Iraq, told reporters that the threat of a nuclear attack on a European city by al-Qaeda was tangible, and that steps are being taken to protect nuclear facilities from which terrorists can obtain enriched uranium.
“Al-Qaeda is searching for nuclear technology,” Ekeus said. “They are looking for simple weapons… for mass destruction,” he added.
Ekeus said al-Qaeda members “cannot be deterred. They are willing to sacrifice themselves,” adding that prevention was the only means to combat the threat of nuclear terrorism.
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Weapons Of Mass Destruction A Threat From Desperate al-Qaeda
May 24, 2007
The likelihood that al-Qaeda and its fellow travellers will use chemical, biological and radiological weapons is growing, a counterterrorism adviser to the White House believes.
“For terrorists, the likelihood of using these weapons grows because they believe that they can have very significant and corrosive psychological impacts on society,” Georgetown University’s Bruce Hoffman told the Herald. He pointed to al-Qaeda’s long history of pursuing unconventional weapons and recent trends in Iraq.
“Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, before 9/11, was pursuing research and development programs, not just with chemical weapons, not just with biological weapons, not just with radiological, but across all three.”
Documents obtained after the invasion of Afghanistan showed Osama bin Laden had two laboratories competing to “weaponise” anthrax, as well as revealing that al-Qaeda hosted two Pakistani nuclear scientists, he said.
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Fort Dix Terror Suspect Applied For Police Jobs
May 24, 2007
One of the men accused of plotting to attack soldiers at Fort Dix had recently applied to be a police officer in two big cities — a move some authorities believe may have been an effort to infiltrate law enforcement agencies.
Serdar Tatar, 23, applied for a job in Philadelphia last month, police spokesman Sgt. D.F. Pace said Wednesday.
“Based on what we know now, I don’t think his intentions were good,” Pace said.
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Los Angeles Remains al Qaeda Target
May 24, 2007
Los Angeles remains a top target of Al-Qaida which sees the city as vulnerable to attack as before 9/11, it was reported on Tuesday.
Terrorist groups may get funding from street gangs which are draining resources from law enforcement agencies working to head off future attacks, the Daily News quoted security experts as saying.
“We are not safe and we will not be safe for many years,” Los Angeles police Deputy Chief Mark Leap said.
“There are many, many more people who consider themselves jihadists now. And criminal enterprises are being used to support terrorist activities.”
Links between organized crime and terrorism are particularly troubling in light of a message posted on an al-Qaida Web site saying the group wants to kill 4 million Americans in retribution for the killing of Moslems.
“Al-Qaida recently announced on their Web site that they have two main targets — Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia,” said Michael Intriligator, a terrorism expert at the University of California in Los Angeles.
“I don’t know why they picked Melbourne, but Los Angeles was specifically mentioned as a target for their next terrorist attack,” said Intriligator.
He expressed concern over the possibility of an attack with a black-market nuclear device, according to the Daily News.
“I think we are not at all prepared for this and we are living in what psychologists call a state of denial,” he said. “It’s such a horrendous thing to think about. We think it happened way back in 2001 and that it can’t happen again.”
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