Terror Threat In London Severe – Highest Level Since 9/11

Security chiefs in London are extremely concerned that Israel’s actions in Palestine will provoke a furious response by Islamic extremists based in the UK, with 4,000 active terrorists identified by a former head of the Met.

With the death toll in Gaza reaching 340 London has been put on a “high state of alert” following the violent clashes outside of the Israeli Embassy in Kensington and the worrying statistic that 4,000 terrorism suspects are active in the UK.

Lord Stevens the head of the Met disclosed the figure that up to 4,000 terrorism suspects are active in the UK, and stated that police and MI5 were “still too under funded and undermanned to cope with the task they face in the decades to come. And that’s how long this will last.”

Security chiefs in London are concerned that the escalation of violence in Gaza with the prospects of a ground offensive by the IDF could provoke a violent response by Arab and Muslim Londoners with minority elements influenced by Al-Qaeda plotting reprisal attacks in London.

MI5 have outlined the possible security threats posed by Al Qaeda:

Explosive devices

These can be delivered to their targets in vehicles, by post or by a person. Currently an explosive device within a vehicle is the most prevalent means of attack. Unlike the Provisional IRA, who also used this method, Al Qaida networks often seek to ensure that their target is hit by employing a suicide operative within the vehicle to detonate the device at the required moment.

Suicide bombers are also deployed to carry an explosive device into the vicinity of a target individual or location. On some occasions the terrorists decide, as they did in the Madrid commuter train attacks in March 2004, to detonate their devices remotely, so that they can go on to perpetrate further attacks.”

Shootings

Al Qaida have orchestrated a campaign of shootings and close quarter attacks targeted against Westerners in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Most recently, on 6 December 2004, gunmen mounted an assault on the US consulate in the Saudi city of Jeddah, in which five of the consulate staff and four of the attackers were killed. Al Qaida claimed responsibility for this attack. In Europe, an extremist shot dead the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in November 2004.

Kidnappings

There has been an increase in the number of kidnappings taking place, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan. The kidnapping of UK citizen Kenneth Bigley in Iraq in September 2004 resulted in his murder.

Surface to air missiles

An unsuccessful missile attack was attempted on an Israeli charter plane departing from Mombasa, Kenya, in November 2002. Similar attacks have been carried out in recent months against coalition aircraft in Iraq.

Chemical, biological and radiological CBR devices

To date, no such attacks have taken place in the UK. Alternative methods of attack, such as explosive devices, are more reliable, safer and easier for terrorists to acquire or use. Nevertheless, it is possible that Al Qaida and some other associated networks may seek to use chemical, biological or radiological material against the West. Usama bin Laden has referred to such devices on several occasions. In November 2001, he said that “if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent”.

In a June 2002 article, Al Qaida spokesman Sulaiman Abu Gaith also said “it is our right to fight [the Americans] with chemical and biological weapons”.

In April 2005, Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian with known links to Al Qaida, was convicted of plotting to manufacture and spread poisons, including ricin, in the UK.

via Read More Thelondondailynews.com.

Abduction of U.S. Security Expert Demonstrates Brazenness of Criminals in Mexico

They ordered the goat. That’s what the kitchen is famous for at the upscale La Principal restaurant in Saltillo, a prosperous manufacturing city in the high desert of northern Mexico. And so it was only natural that Felix Batista, an American expert in corporate security, and his new friends decided to get it. But Batista never finished his meal.

Instead, after a series of quick cellphone calls and whispered conversations, Batista excused himself from the table. On his way out, he gave the well-heeled businessmen he was meeting with his laptop, shoulder bag and a contact.

“If I’m not back,” he told his companions, according to one of them, “call these numbers.”

The 55-year-old Miami resident, who has successfully negotiated the release of hundreds of kidnapping victims in Latin America, then willingly got into an SUV that had pulled to the curb, according to investigators who have a security camera image capturing that moment on the evening of Dec. 10.

Batista has not been heard from since.

His is probably the highest-profile kidnapping of a U.S. citizen in Mexico in years, and it has sent tremors through the executive class of expats in Saltillo, known as “the Detroit of Mexico” for its Chrysler and General Motors assembly plants. A fellow security consultant described the abduction as “highly professional, sophisticated, very slick. The work of people who did not fear being caught, which is the most disturbing element.”

Source – Washingtonpost.com.

Report – The Observer Makes 2009 Terror Predictions

Where is Al Qaeda going to hit next?  That question tops a list of 14 key questions the Observer said would dominate the headlines in 2009 and concluded that the most likely next target would be the UK.

However, before discussing the likely targets of Al Qaeda during the next year, Observer correspondent Jason Burke in his report claims that the terror organisation leadership itself was now on the run because of attacks from US drones in Pakistan’s tribal areas and also that Bin Laden was under attack from within the jihadi movement for failing to stage any major attack since 9/11. Read more

Israeli Troops Mobilize For Possible Gaza Ground Assault

Israel widened its deadliest-ever air offensive against Gaza’s Hamas rulers, targeting a house next to the Hamas premier’s home early Monday after pounding smuggling tunnels and a central prison, sending more tanks and artillery toward the Gaza border and calling up thousands of reserve soldiers for a possible ground invasion.

Israeli leaders said they would press ahead with the Gaza campaign, despite enraged protests across the Arab world and Syria’s decision to break off indirect peace talks with the Jewish state. Israel’s foreign minister said the goal was to halt Gaza rocket fire on Israel for good, but not to reoccupy the territory.

Early Monday, Israeli aircraft bombed the Islamic University and government compound in Gaza City, centers of Hamas power. Witnesses saw fire and smoke at the university, counting six separate airstrikes there just after midnight.

Other targets were a guest palace used by the Hamas government and the house next to Gaza Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s home in a refugee camp next to Gaza City. He was not home, as Hamas leaders have gone into hiding.

Click here for photos (WARNING: Graphic)

Hamas, whose charter specifically calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdon and the European Union and is banned in Jordan.

From 2000 to 2004, Hamas was responsible for killing nearly 400 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000 in 425 attacks, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

From 2001 through May 2008, Hamas launched more than 3,000 Qassam rockets and 2,500 mortar attacks against Israeli targets.

via FOXNews.com Read Miore

India Hijack threat: Security Stepped Up At All Airports

With the Centre receiving intelligence inputs about terrorists’ plan to hijack a plane or take control of non-functional airports or abandoned airstrips for aerial attack, the CISF has further heightened security at all airports where its personnel are posted. It has also held consultations with state police to beef up the perimeter security.

The civil aviation ministry has also alerted states and UTs over proper security of non-functional airports. CISF, in turn, on Friday briefed home ministry officials about the measures being taken by it.

CISF, an official said, had been on high alert ever since it received intelligence inputs earlier this month suggesting terrorists’ gameplan of using the air route. “The civil aviation ministry has circulated some instructions to all the airports,” home minister P Chidambaram told reporters after the Cabinet meeting on Friday. He, however, did not elaborate.

All airports across the country have been on a state of high alert with civil aviation secretary M Madhavan Nambiar writing to states and UTs to secure all airports and airstrips under their jurisdiction. There are about 340 airports and airstrips in the country, many of them non-functional. A large number of these airstrips are of World War II vintage.

Besides securing the airports, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) have also issued instructions for additional layers of personal and hand-baggage checking before a passenger boards an aircraft. They have also given directions that the strength of sky marshals be increased and they should be put on more flights, rather than on the already identified sectors like those in Jammu and Kashmir and the North-East.

With Lok Sabha elections nearing and the use of helicopters increasing, the DGCA will soon issue a new set of security guidelines for helicopter operators to report mandatorily to the local police before making landings at any unscheduled place.

via Source -Read More

Terror Threats to Target Economic Losses

The terrorism threat to the United States over the next five years will be driven by instability in the Middle East and Africa, persistent challenges to border security and increasing Internet savvy, says a new intelligence assessment.

Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks are considered the most dangerous threats that could be carried out against the U.S. But those threats are also the most unlikely because it is so difficult for Al Qaeda and similar groups to acquire the materials needed to carry out such plots, according to the internal Homeland Security Threat Assessment for the years 2008-2013. Read more

House Searched After Man Found Near Mall With Bomb

A robot has been combing a metro home for explosives since Tuesday morning after finding a man near Penn Square Mall with a bomb on Monday, police said.

Officers said an anonymous tip led police to Steven Andrew Jordal, 24, who has been accused of making bombs inside his northwest Oklahoma City house.

“We received a tip from an informant that he was making an explosive device and possibly had the device on (his) person,” said police spokesman Gary Knight.

That’s when police found Jordal walking near Penn Square Mall with a bomb, officers confirmed. Read more

Dallas Freeway Shooting Spree – Ex Utah State Trooper Suspect

UPDATE: A man suspected in a series of rush hour shootings near Dallas is a former Utah state trooper wanted on burglary and robbery warrants who apparently shot himself after a standoff with police, authorities said Tuesday

Brian Smith, 37, killed at least one of the victims of Monday’s shootings, Dallas police Lt. Craig Miller said. Investigators tied Smith to a killing in Dallas because by matching the bullets found at the standoff, he said.

“We feel safe in saying (Smith) … was the shooter,” Miller said.

Source

UPDATE: Live press conference on My Fox DFW at 11:30 CST .

Two drivers were shot to death and a third injured on roads in northeast Dallas and Garland during rush hour Monday evening.

Police were investigating four incidents Monday after the first fatal shooting was reported about 5:40 p.m. in Garland just north of LBJ Freeway. Police are working to establish whether the three shootings in Dallas are related to the Garland one.

“For whatever reason, this person is upset with something or someone and he’s taking it out on innocent victims going down the road, and that’s very scary,” said Dallas police Sgt. Gil Cerda.

The first victim was a man driving a small two-door car on Jupiter Road, police said. He stopped at a red light at Marquis Drive and an extended-cab Ford F150 pickup pulled up alongside his car. A balding white man in his 40s fired several shots at the car’s driver, killing him, said Officer Joe Harn of the Garland police.

Police said the pickup fled south on Jupiter Road. Minutes later it was reported that a man began shooting at a semi with no trailer on LBJ between Royal Lane and Skillman Street. No one was injured.

Police said a driver then shot at a 42-year-old man driving a United Van Lines 18-wheeler. The trucker was killed. His rig came to a stop in the middle lane of westbound LBJ just east of the Miller Road exit.

Police have not released the names of the men who were killed but said the driver of the 18-wheeler was about to park his rig.

“The plan was he was going to fly home to be with his wife and kids,” said Lt. Craig Miller of the Dallas homicide unit.

Farther west on LBJ near Skillman Street, another truck was struck by bullets – the fourth incident. That driver was struck by flying glass, said Jesse Medford, terminal manager with Dugan Truck Line. The driver was taken to an area hospital.

Mr. Medford said the driver, his employee, radioed him saying, “I’m getting shot at! I think I’m shot!” The trucker said he didn’t know why he was being fired upon, Mr. Medford said.

Mr. Medford told his driver to pull over, then Mr. Medford called 911.

Mr. Medford did not identify his driver other than to say he’s a longtime trucker in his 40s. He said the driver told him that he did not know who was shooting and did not give a detailed description of the assailant.

“He didn’t say anything about any type of road rage,” Mr. Medford said.

Rush hour traffic slowed to a crawl along the highway as police shut down all westbound lanes of LBJ east of the homicide scene for several hours. Drivers used access roads and alternate routes to get home as authorities began an intense investigation at the site

via  Source – Dallas Morning News

Five Found Guilty In Fort Dix Terror Trial

A jury has found five men guilty of conspiring to kill soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office said Monday.

The defendants were acquitted of attempted murder charges but face life in prison.

The jury spent six days deliberating.

Six men were arrested on May 7, 2007, in New Jersey, as two of them were meeting a confidential government witness “to purchase three AK-47 automatic machine guns and four semi-automatic M-16s to be used in an attack they had been planning from at least January 2006,” according to a criminal complaint.

The sixth defendant, Agron Abdullahu, pleaded guilty in October to a reduced charge of providing firearms to illegal aliens and received a sentence of 20 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

Abdullahu told the court in October that, from January 2006 to May 2007, he and Turkish-born Serdar Tatar provided firearms to brothers Dritan Duka, Shain Duka and Eljvir “Elvis” Duka.

The Duka brothers, born in the former Yugoslavia, were in the United States illegally.

Tatar and Abdullahu are both legal U.S. residents. The other defendant, Jordanian-born Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, is the only U.S. citizen among them.

The alleged Fort Dix plot came to light when two men gave an 8 mm videotape to a clerk at a Circuit City store in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and asked him to convert it to DVD format.

Authorities said the tape showed 10 young men shooting at a practice range and shouting in Arabic, “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great.”

FBI Uses Triage to Shift From Terror to Madoff, Subprime Probes

The FBI has engaged in “triage,” taking agents off terror and other crimes to respond to a cascade of financial frauds such as the alleged Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme, the head of the bureau’s New York criminal division said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was forced to reallocate its manpower in New York to deal with recent frauds involving subprime mortgages, auction-rate securities and Madoff, who prosecutors said confessed this month to bilking investors out of $50 billion, FBI official David Cardona said in an interview.

“We have to work those cases which we think pose the greatest threat,” he said. “In this case, it’s a threat to the financial system and Wall Street.”

Special Agent Rachel Rojas, who once worked on tracing terrorist financing and al-Qaeda, now oversees 15 agents investigating mortgage fraud, said Cardona, a career agent with 23 years at the bureau. He declined to say how many other agents he has reassigned from anti-terror work to financial crimes.

Rojas heads one of two such mortgage-fraud squads that work with federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and Manhattan and other federal agencies, Cardona said. The U.S. Justice Department has created more than 40 mortgage-fraud task forces around the country this year.

Some of the FBI’s anti-terror experience has come in handy in investigating financial crime, Cardona said. Agents who were looking at bank-provided “suspicious activity reports” or SARS to track financing of terrorism are now doing so to spot mortgage or other financial fraud, he said.

Cardona’s office still handles multimillion dollar crimes, while referring smaller cases to state prosecutors or New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Cardona said.

via Source – Read More

Reward Offered For Information On Suspicious Letters Sent To State Governors

New information has been released about suspicious letters containing white powder that have been mailed across the country.

The offices or more than 40 governors across the country have received the letters, including Governor Brian Schweitzer, according to the FBI.

Additional letters have been received at several U.S. Embassies overseas.

So far, the FBI said it does not believe the powder is dangerous, but it still looks suspicious.

A message was located inside the envelope, which is not being released at this time. The FBI said it is not clear on what the message means.

The white powder has been field screened and the tests have met with negative results.

The powder has been forwarded to local laboratories and some believe it could be corn starch or flour, but the FBI has asked everyone to be on the lookout for additional letters.

The Postal Inspection Service is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone responsible for these mailings.

Anyone with information on who may be sending the letters is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL FBI or 1-800-225-5324, the Postal Inspection Service at 877-876-2455 or local law enforcement.

These letters are postmarked Dallas, Texas or North Texas.

via Montana’s News Station – Fair. Accurate. To the Point. -FBI continues investigation into suspicious letters.

Border Terror – Violence and Brutality Spreads In Mexico

Violence in Mexico continues to grow in both brutality and the  number of dead.  Here’s just a few of the many stories to come from the border cities over the past week.

Mystery Man Blamed As Body Count Grows

He is said to love the ladies, fast horses and dissolving enemies in lye.

Teodoro Garcia Simental is among the best known but least identifiable villains in Mexico’s drug war, blamed for a trail of terror across Baja California.

His heavily armed hit men, authorities say, have been leaving the gruesome displays of charred and decapitated bodies across the city, signed with the moniker “Tres Letras,” for the three letters in “Teo.” And authorities believe he runs a network of hide-outs where kidnap victims are held in cages.

Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem to find him.

Billboards showing Tijuana’s most wanted kidnappers don’t include Garcia’s image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.

“That tells you that you don’t want to be the one responsible for putting Teo’s picture in public,” said one U.S. law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s no future in it.”

[...]

Garcia is said to be in his mid-30s — even his date of birth is not known. He reportedly bets big on clandestine horse races at isolated ranches outside Ensenada. He hires people at $400 per week to guard kidnapping victims and to weld together the barrels of caustic chemicals used to dispose of some of his victims, according to documents and interviews. One Mexican law enforcement official said Garcia has killed people at parties, laughing at their stunned reactions.

Read More

A Week In Tijuana

The teenage nephew of the army general leading the local fight against drug traffickers was killed this weekend in Baja California’s continuing violence.

A municipal police department spokesman said gunmen shot the boy, Carlos Alfonso Ortiz Davila, 16, about 8:30 p.m. Friday while he was in front of a high school known as CECYTE on the southside of Tijuana, the spokesman said.

He said the teen was the nephew of Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mujica, commander of the Second Military Zone and a leading figure in the fight against drug cartels in northwest Mexico.

A state police officer also was killed during the weekend. Around 6 p.m. Sunday, a battle broke out on city streets between gunmen and state police officers. The officer was wounded and died soon after the fight, said the Baja California State Attorney General’s Office.

The boy and the officer were among seven people killed this weekend in the state.

In Tijuana, police around 2 a.m. Saturday found the body of man who had been burned to death on the the east side of the city, the Attorney General’s Ofice said.

About 3:30 that afternoon, two men were shot, also in eastern Tijuana. One of them died three hours later, the Attorney General’s Office said.

About 8 p.m., municipal police found two decapitated bodies in an empty lot in in far eastern Tijuana near the Tecate city limits. The bodies had a message signed by “La Maña,” a nickname used by a drug trafficking leader, the state agency said.

The violence extended to Rosarito Beach, when a man was shot to death around 11 a.m. Sunday as he drove his car, the state agency reported.

About 800 have been killed in Tijuana this year. Most of the deaths have been blamed on rival drug gangs battling for supremacy.

Source – Read More

Four Police Officers Killed in Ciudad Juarez

Gunmen staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four officers in a Mexican border city overrun by drug violence, an official said Monday.

Authorities are investigating whether the attacks Sunday night were coordinated, municipal police spokesman Jaime Torres said.

Dozens of Ciudad Juarez police have been killed this year in attacks blamed on drug gangs trying to consolidate territory. Many officers have quit out of fear for their lives, often after their names have appeared on hit lists left in public.

Another such list naming 26 officers was found early Monday at a dog racing track above the bodies of four civilian men gunned down at the track, Torres said. One of the four had been decapitated, and a Santa Claus hat had been placed on his head. A fifth man who survived was left bound and gagged next to the bodies.

At Least 9 Soldiers Found Decapitated

Mexican police on Sunday found nine decapitated bodies and the army identified eight soldiers who had died fighting powerful drug gangs and whose murders were seen as a brazen challenge to the government.

The bodies showed signs of torture. They were left on the side of a highway about an hour north of the tourist resort of Acapulco in the southern state of Guerrero, state police said.

Their heads were stuffed in a plastic bag and left outside a shopping center.

Mexico’s President Feline Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of troops and police since 2006 to take on drug cartels. The defense ministry vowed not to back down despite its latest losses.

“They are trying to scare the military. Regardless, the ministry promises to continue fighting,” it said in a statement.

The ministry released the names of eight decapitated soldiers but said one of them was recovered on December 9.

Drug killings throughout Mexico have more than doubled to over 5,300 this year, scaring off investment and tourists. The United States has sent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to help its southern neighbor fight the cartels.

The Mexican army has made some prominent captures, but the cartels seem able to quickly replace their losses. Meanwhile, a growing number of police have been gruesomely murdered.

A note left with the severed heads warned of more decapitations, the state police said.

Source

Defusing Armageddon – Doomsday Detectives Battle Nuclear Terror

The U.S. government has developed a suite of technologies that would enable it to determine the origin of a nuclear weapon used in an attack against the United States, according to a forthcoming book on America’s nuclear detectives.

In the event of such an attack, U.S. officials believe they could determine where the fissile material used in the nuclear weapon originated, as well as who carried out the assault, intelligence historian Jeffrey T. Richelson writes in “Defusing Armageddon.”

“Not only can intelligence help prevent a nuclear terrorist attack, but also in the event one occurs, it may be able to identify the entity responsible and those who contributed, particularly by providing a bomb or components,” Richelson claims in the first book-length treatment of these counter-nuclear efforts, including the Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), America’s bomb hunters.

This is important, Richelson argues, because U.S. officials believe the most likely nuclear attack would involve an established nuclear power providing either a nuclear device or components to a terrorist group. Finding out which nuclear power provided these items to the terrorists would be key in crafting an appropriate U.S. response.

Source – msnbc.com.

Tucson Police Detonate Suspicious Device At I-10 Underpass

Tucson Police blew up a suspicious device just before noon Friday on Grant Road at Interstate Ten.

A bicyclist reported seeing something on the underpass sidewalk wrapped in duct tape with wires sticking out of it.

Investigators believe it was a real explosive device.

Police closed off Grant Road at I-10 and the northbound frontage road bomb while teams disposed of the device.

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