Urgent Manhunt Across Europe for Terror Suspects

It is being reported that a manhunt that began in Spain for suspected terror cell members has now extended to France and other European Union countries.

The attorney general in Spain said today that there are three cell members they are urgently searching for and that the missing members could be suicidal terrorists with a mission to attack somewhere outside of Spain. Read more

Blue Chemical-like Haze Over Charleston West Virginia

Metro 911 reports haze and chlorine smell over Charleston and South Charleston

Officials advise if you are in distress, stay inside and do not hesitate to call 911 for help

Metro 911 of Kanawha County is reporting a haze and strong chlorine smell in the Charleston and South Charleston area. Read more

Monte Carlo Hotel Casino Las Vegas On Fire

The Monte Carlo Hotel Casino in Las Vegas is on fire. CNN has live coverage. It appears a good portion of the facade on the front of the building is on fire. The hotel is being evacuated . Read more

Hannah Montana Concert Target of Would-be Teen Hijacker

A Hannah Montana Concert was the apparent target of a would-be teen hijacker. The California teenager has been arrested in Nashville and charged with felony terrorism.

The teenager boarded a plane in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, and Nashville police said he had handcuffs, rope and duct tape and intentions to hijack the plane. The plane was bound for Nashville, where the he was taken into custody. Read more

al-Qaeda Threatens Suicide Terror Attack on Gordon Brown and Tony Blair

al-Qaeda in Britain has threatened suicide attacks on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and predecessor Tony Blair unless London withdraws its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The message was posted in English to an al-Qaeda-affiliated online forum by “Umar Rabie al-Khalaila”, US-based monitoring service the SITE Intelligence Group said.

The group, blamed for suicide bombings in London in 2005, vowed fresh attacks if Britain fails to withdraw its troops from Iraq and Afghanistan by the end of March.

“If the British government fails to respond to our demands within the last day of March 2008 … then the martyrdom seekers of the Organisation of al-Qaeda in Britain will target all the political leaders, especially Tony Blair and Gordan (sic) Brown,” the message said.

It vowed that suicide bombers would also “target all embassies, crusaders centre(s) and their interests throughout the country.”

In July 2005, four suicide bombers killed themselves and 52 other people in attacks on London’s public transport system while last June saw failed car bomb attacks in London and Glasgow.

The message also demanded that the British government “free all Muslim captives from Belmarsh prison” in south-east London which houses Britain’s most high-profile Islamist militants.

SITE said the author of the message, “Umar Rabie al-Khalaila”, is the same individual who posted a January 2 message claiming the establishment of al-Qaeda in Britain with the purpose of carrying out large scale attacks and killing political leadership.

It was not possible to independently verify the authenticity of the message, which was posted in an open section of the website, unlike “official messages from jihadist groups” which are usually posted in a section not open to the general members, SITE said.

In November last year, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, Jonathan Evans, said that al-Qaeda was “grooming” children and young people to carry out attacks in the country.

The number of people with suspected links to terrorists rose from 1600 in 2006 to at least 2000 in 2007, he said.

MI5 said the terror threat level facing Britain is currently “severe”, meaning there is a high likelihood of future attacks.

Officials Ponder School Bus Terror Attack

You may remember that we covered a possible school bus terror threat back in September of 2007. At the time several school buses had been stolen in the Houston area and there was concern that they could be used in some type of attack. What you may have missed was the follow-up story in which we reported that 4 men had been arrested in connection with the thefts. It turns out they were scrapping and selling the buses for profit.

Is there a threat? Yes, but there is also the threat of someone shooting up a mall, tampering with food, detonating a bomb in a public building and thousands of other scenarios. You can’t live your life in fear of all of the possibilities. The fact remains that the odds of you ever actually being the victim of a terror attack are incredibly small.

The point we want to make is this. Be aware of your surroundings. If you see something unusual, report it. Take necessary precautions but don’t let those precautions dictate how you live your life.

Stories like this should not be used to cause fear and panic. They should be used to examine and re-evaluate risk. Once the risk is properly evaluated, reasonable (reasonable) security precautions can be put in place.

The man in charge of school bus safety across North Carolina has a nightmare terrorism scenario: Three bombs exploding simultaneously each on a different bus in a different city across the country.

“Imagine what that would do,” said Derek Graham, transportation chief with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction and president of a national group of school transportation directors.

“Imagine the economic impact if parents weren’t confident their children would be secure when they take the bus to school,” Graham said. “The nation’s school bus system is the largest system of public transportation. It’s just very vulnerable.”

That’s why local school bus drivers are getting training in spying suspicious activity and why, in Durham County, drivers peek under their buses every morning for anything odd.

But Graham and other school transportation leaders fear the federal government isn’t taking their concerns seriously.

The federal Transportation Security Administration has yet to begin a safety assessment ordered by Congress in August. Though the agency has poured billions of dollars into security for ports, railways, motor coaches and the air industry in the past six years, school leaders say it has done little for the millions of children who ride buses.

Last August, legislation signed by President Bush gave the TSA, part of the Department of Homeland Security, a year to develop an assessment of school bus security.

Five months later, though, little has been done.

U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge, a Lillington Democrat and member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, chairman of the committee, learned last week that the TSA has yet to develop a plan for how to go about the assessment.

“School buses have always been soft targets,” said Etheridge. “I’m kind of disappointed. In just a few months we expect this report, and I don’t see the urgency.”

Source

El Paso – Thomason Hospital Goes On Lockdown After Mexican Police Commander Transported To Trauma Center

Thomason Hospital was placed in “lockdown” Wednesday by El Paso and federal law enforcement authorities guarding a Chihuahua police commander who survived an assassination attempt.

El Paso police and sheriff’s deputies stood guard outside with assault rifles, doors were locked and all visitors went through a metal detector in usually tight security for the public hospital. Read more

Pakistan Police Find Bomb With Timer On Sharif Convoy Route

Pakistani police defused a roadside timebomb just minutes before opposition leader Nawaz Sharif was due to pass the spot in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Thursday, officials said.

Former prime minister Sharif was travelling in a convoy to address a lawyers’ convention and a political rally in the troubled city near the Afghan border ahead of elections on February 18.

The discovery comes exactly four weeks after fellow opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a gun and suicide attack at an election meeting in the northern city of Rawalpindi.

“We recovered a 400 gram (0.8 pounds) bomb fitted with a timer beneath a main bridge near the high court on the route that Sharif was to take. We have defused it,” bomb disposal squad official Hukam Khan told AFP.

Ijaz Khan, a senior police officer, said the bomb was found wrapped in a plastic shopping bag.

“It was planted on the road that Nawaz Sharif was to pass. When policemen were searching the area they found it and immediately called in bomb disposal staff who defused it,” Khan said.

A spokesman for Sharif said their convoy had been halted about a kilometre (half a mile) before it reached the area.

“We are sitting in the car. Police have stopped our convoy. They have said there is a report of some explosives in the area where we were supposed to go,” the spokesman told AFP by telephone.

Pakistani officials have said that Sharif and other politicians are targets for Islamic militants trying to destabilise the nuclear-armed nation ahead of the elections.

The government has blamed a tribal warlord with alleged links to Al-Qaeda for assassinating Bhutto on December 27. Unrest sparked by her death caused elections to be postponed by six weeks.

Four of Sharif’s supporters were killed in a gun attack on his convoy in Rawalpindi on the same day that Bhutto was killed.

Read More

Stolen Equipment Could be Used To Jam Emergency Radio Frequencies

The FBI has joined an investigation into the theft of electronic equipment after break-ins at several transmitting towers in Charleston. According to a Huntington TV station, ten break-ins at three separate sites (Garfield, North Charleston, North Gate Business Park) resulted in the loss of a radio receiver/transmitter (repeater) and frequency counter.

Charleston police asked the FBI to enter the investigation after they learned the stolen equipment could possibly be used to jam emergency frequencies.

Source

Two Stowaways Discovered On Plane At Dulles Airport

Investigators are looking into what can only be described as a major security breach.

Two stowaways were discovered Wednesday on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that landed at Dulles International Airport.

Even so, the regional director for Ethiopian Airlines says security at Addis Ababa Airport, where the two men got on-board is one of the tightest in the world.

A spokesman says the two men who hid themselves in the ceiling of the aircraft appear to be Ethiopian Nationals, part of a cleaning crew that cleaned the plane just before take-off.

It’s unclear what their intentions were but some passengers suspected they wanted to come to the United States for a better life.

With no answers as to how the men went undiscovered for 36 hours, including a stop-over in Rome, a security expert told 9NEWS NOW, “If you can store human bodies, you can certainly store a bomb or put weapons on board.” Larry Johnson says the TSA and FAA should demand better security measures by airlines overseas or suspend flying privileges in the U.S.

At last check, the two stowaways were in the custody of Customs and Border Control. No one returned our phone calls when we attempted to seek information about their status or any charges they may face.

Read More

Britain – Plans To Hold Terror Suspects For 42 Days Before Being Charged

The government is pressing ahead with plans to allow the police to hold terrorism suspects for 42 days before they are charged.

The Counter Terrorism Bill, due to be published later, will propose to extend the limit beyond the current 28 days. Read more

Barcelona Arrests Thwarted Terror Attack – Suspects Planned Spanish Suicide Attacks

The Spanish judge overseeing the arraignment of 10 terrorism suspects said Wednesday that they had “planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks” last weekend on public transportation in Barcelona.

In a sequence of six-page rulings, one for each of the 10 suspects he ordered to be held in jail after their arraignments.

“Judge Ismael Moreno wrote that the suspects “had achieved human operational capacity and were very close to achieving full technical capacity with explosives, with the aim of using the those explosives for a jihadi terrorist attack, and it can be deduced that the members of the terrorist cell now broken up planned to carry out a series of suicide attacks last weekend, January 18 to 20, against public transport in the city of Barcelona.”

CNN has viewed a copy of one of the court orders.

The ruling said three suspected suicide bombers had traveled from Pakistan to Barcelona since October, with the most recent one arriving as late as mid-January.

The three had followed another Pakistani man the alleged explosives expert who had just arrived after a five-month stay in Pakistan.

“This pattern is common in Islamic extremist groups, which to carry out an attack usually send in the suicide bombers shortly before it will occur,” the judge wrote.

“The arrivals of these three occurred about two months after the presumed bomb maker had returned (to Barcelona).”

Further, Moreno wrote that an informant had told authorities about the suspected suicide bombers and the suspected explosives expert.

Suspects ‘planned Spanish suicide attacks’ – CNN.com

Georgetown Wal-Mart Evacuated After Suspicious Device Found

The Super Wal-Mart in Georgetown is back to normal after it was evacuated when a suspicious device was found in the portrait studio of the store Tuesday afternoon. After investigation by the Austin Police Bomb Squad, the device was found to be an aerosol can with wires coming out if it.

Georgetown Police say around 4:00 p.m. Wednesday, an employee reported the device to the store manager. Dozens of customers and employees were evacuated into the parking lot during the investigation.

An Austin Bomb Squad robot X-rayed the device and found it to not be explosive.

Now police are trying to figure out who put the device made to look suspicious inside the store.

Source

Operation Meltdown – Undercover Op Leads To Cell Phone-Triggered Bombs – IEDs

San Jose and Santa Clara police chiefs announced Wednesday the results of a massive sting operation in their cities. Operation Meltdown, as the joint effort was called, netted investigators hundreds of criminals, tons of stolen copper, dozens of stolen cars and weapons, and in one case, homemade bombs.

A Fremont man was arrested in October as part of Operation Meltdown. He is accused of trying to sell the officers improvised explosive devices capable of being denoted remotely by a cell phone. During a news conference at San Jose Police headquarters Wednesday morning, police showed a video, recorded by hidden camera, of the suspect demonstrating the technology to officers by detonating a bomb for them.

Operation Meltdown was begun in March 2007. Undercover officers from both departments opened a fake metal-recycling business in the city of Santa Clara called Jose Clara Co-Op.

Within days, San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said, customers started showing up offering to sell what appeared to be stolen copper. Over the course of the next year, the undercover officers purchased 14 tons of copper with a street vale of almost $100,000. Soon after the officers began buying the copper, though, Davis said visitors to the recycling shop started offering to sell other stolen goods. The officers eventually purchached 40 stolen vehicles and 74 firearms, including 21 assault weapons.

Over the life of the operation, Davis said, 273 suspects were investigated, 63 of whom were arrested over the course of the investigation. Another 73 suspects were picked up during a sweep Tuesday. There are still another 70 suspects with outstanding warrants yet to be arrested.

Read More

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