Plane Delayed In Lynchburg After Suspicious Comments

A flight heading to Charlotte from Lynchburg had to be delayed because of comments made by a passenger.

The 23-year-old man was in the lobby of the airport around 2:30 Sunday afternoon when he was overheard talking on his cell phone. Witnesses say he told whomever he was speaking with that the plane wouldn’t make it to Charlotte and that it would fall out of the sky.

He broke his phone in half when he was approached by Transportation Security Administration officials. He told them he had he was God, but he was injured so he couldn’t show them his powers.

He then told deputies with the Campbell County Sheriff’s Office that he had been treated at a mental hospital in West Virginia.

The man was taken to Lynchburg General Hospital on an emergency custody order for a mental evaluation. He was not charged with anything.

Explosives trained dogs searched his luggage, his car, and the airplane, but they didn’t find anything suspicious.

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Pilots Leaving Houston Report Near Miss With Mystery Object

A strange object was spotted Friday night by pilots of a plane that just had just taken off from Bush Intercontinental Airport. And now, federal investigators are trying to pinpoint what the flying object was.

Eyewitnesses say the object, possibly a rocket, came close to hitting the plane. The Continental Express plane, operated by Express Jet, was flying from Houston to South Carolina last night when it happened.

The plane had just left Bush Airport around 8:20pm Friday when the captain reported seeing the object about 150 feet away. According to the FAA, the incident occurred about 11,000 feet into the air above Liberty County.

On Saturday, sheriff’s officials interviewed two Hardin High School students who reported seeing the object come close to the plane.

What’s strange is that the FAA says they have no reports of any scheduled hobby rocket launches in the area.

“All we’ve been told it was bigger than a bottle rocket. It was enough of a light or big enough of an object the pilot had to call it in,” said Corporal Hugh Bishop with the Liberty County sheriff’s office. “But again, we haven’t found anything to substantiate it yet.”

The sheriff’s department is scouring a large area from the Harris County line east to Liberty between Mont Belviu and Moss Hill for any sign of what might have come close to the plane. It’s about a 24 by 12 mile area.

Officers were also on the radio today asking for witnesses. If you have any information about this, you’re being asked to call the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office at 936-336-4500

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Security Tight For Obama Visit To Cairo

US president Barack Obama has not yet decided whether his historic speech reaching out to the Muslim world will be delivered on June 4 from a lecture hall at Al Azhar University in Cairo or its main mosque. If the second, his address will take place in the presence of Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the Sunni Muslim world’s greatest religious authority. In any event, Al Azhar is the most eminent school of Islamic learning in the world and the US president therefore expects its impact to far outweigh his first address to Muslims from Istanbul.

His arrival from a meeting with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on June 3 is planned to add extra weight to Obama’s dramatic outreach to Muslims, since the king officiates as Custodian of the Holy Places to Islam.

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Giant transports have been landing at Cairo airport, unloading a fleet of armored vehicles, White House helicopters, counter-terror weapons and the vanguard of the 3,000 Secret Service officers backed by CIA and FBI personnel who will secure the US president during his stay in Egypt. Cairo will soon be in turmoil as forces are deployed from a command center at the American Embassy to control sections of downtown Cairo, with guard posts on the Nile River’s banks, the international airport, main railway terminals and approaches to the city.

Some 30,000 Egyptian security personnel including army units stationed in Cairo have been placed on special duty until the American president leaves. Their names and those of the welcoming party at Al Azhar University were submitted to the US presidential security center.

Obama is due to land in Cairo Thursday at 10 a.m., drive to the Abidin Palace to meet President Hosni Mubarak and proceed from there to Azhar University. His convoy will be escorted by vehicles equipped with sensors for detecting firearms and explosives and covered by Marine helicopters overhead.

Until the last minute, the president’s routes to the university have been withheld from Egyptian security authorities as a safeguard against leaks to hostile elements.

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Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing and Surviving Terrorism

Homeland Security: A Complete Guide to Understanding, Preventing and Surviving Terrorism is the authoritative textbook on one of the most important topics facing our nation.

From complex policy issues to common terrorist tactics, Homeland Security provides a practical foundation for professionals, students, and concerned citizens alike. Designed for readers who need to understand both the “big picture” and their own roles in the war against terror, the book provides a clear, comprehensive and fascinating overview of an increasingly complex and misunderstood topic.

This indispensable reference, filled with fascinating real-life examples and tips, covers the basics of homeland security such as: national strategies and principles; federal, state and local roles; terrorist history and tactics; cyber-terrorism; business preparedness; critical infrastructure protection; weapons of mass destruction; and key policy issues. Perfect for academic and training classrooms, each chapter includes an overview, learning objectives, source document, discussion topic, summary, and quiz.

Media Reviews: “Homeland Security is much more than a textbook. It is an indispensable reference resource for those seeking to understand how terrorists operate and the structures and mechanisms that have been developed to respond to the magnitude of the terrorist threats confronting us”

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Terror Trial Nears For Former Georgia Tech Student

Syed Haris Ahmed was a terrorist wannabe. He’s already admitted to that.

The former Georgia Tech student contemplated an attack on Dobbins Air Reserve Base, but didn’t carry it out. He traveled to Pakistan hoping to die a martyr fighting alongside brother jihadists — but changed his mind and returned home. He took almost laughably bad “casing videos” of Washington landmarks, taping surreptitiously through his pickup truck window in a city where tourists overtly take pictures of everything.

Syed Haris Ahmed agreed to a nonjury trial so he can deliver what he calls ‘the message of Islam’ during closing arguments.

Was he all talk? Or was he, as federal prosecutors suspect, a time bomb that simply hadn’t gone off yet?

On Monday, after three years in solitary confinement at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Ahmed will stand trial for conspiracy to provide support for acts of terrorism in the United States and abroad. There will be no jury, and there seems little doubt about the verdict because during interviews with federal agents Ahmed helped outline the case against him.

Ahmed, 24, evinces scant concern about the judgment of a temporal court, saying the only laws that matter are the laws of Allah. He agreed to a bench trial so he can deliver what he calls “the message of Islam” during closing arguments.

“It is the duty of every Muslim to deliver the message of God to mankind,” he said in a neatly handwritten motion filed recently. “I hope that Allah will be pleased with this act of mine and forgive me on the Day of Judgment when only He will be the Judge of all mankind.”

In his motion, which quotes from the Quran, Ahmed said he cannot be a “true and loyal servant of God” by arguing for his acquittal because that would be tantamount to accepting the legitimacy of man-made laws.

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Passports Become Mandatory at Mexico, Canada Borders

New rules requiring passports or new high-tech documents to cross the United States’ northern and southern borders are taking effect Monday, as some rue the tightening of security and others hail it as long overdue.

The rules are being implemented nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks and long after the 9/11 Commission recommended the changes. They were delayed by complaints from state officials who worried the restrictions would hinder the flow of people and commerce and affect border towns dependent on international crossings.

In 2001 a driver’s license and an oral declaration of citizenship were enough to cross the Canadian and Mexican borders; Monday’s changes are the last step in a gradual ratcheting up of the rules. Now thousands of Americans are preparing by applying for passports or obtaining special driver’s licenses that can also be used to cross the border.

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North Korea Preparing For Test Of Long Range ICBM Missile ?

North Korea appears to be preparing for a long-range missile test, defying the U.N. Security Council whose members are negotiating a resolution to punish it for its recent nuclear test, Yonhap News Agency reported Saturday, quoting an informed intelligence source.

The source, asking not to be identified, said an object that appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile ICBM was recently spotted on a cargo train at an artillery research center near Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

“We believe that the object is certainly an ICBM,” said the official, adding that its size is somewhat similar to the one the North fired into the Pacific on April 5.

North Korea is believed to have started moving the object to a missile launch pad in Musudan-ri on the country’s east coast, according to the official.

“The missile may be a modified version of a Taepodong-2 missile, which can travel over 4,000 km,” the official said. A Taepodong-2 missile is theoretically capable of reaching the western U.S.

“It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June,” the source said.

The developments of what appears to be preparations for a missile launch follow Monday’s nuclear test, which drew the international community’s condemnation against North Korea. The test came less than two months after it fired a rocket that the U.S. and its allies say was a disguised form of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The remarks came shortly after a South Korean defense source in Singapore said some activities were spotted at a North Korean munitions factory used to build long-range missiles.

Some watchers speculate that North Korea may launch a missile at a time close to a summit set for June 16 between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama.

“There is a possibility that North Korea may push the ‘fire’ button right before or after the South Korea-U.S. summit,” said a key diplomatic official at the presidential office, requesting to be unnamed.

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Taliban Target Britain On Orders From al-Qaeda

The terrorist informant has told prosecutors he was trained by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban, and was planning a series of suicide attacks with 11 other men.

The informant, known as “Ahmed”, told investigators the bombers were to work in pairs using a “device carried in a backpack with a third person to detonate a remote control” in order to ensure the bombers went through with their mission.

Details of the attempted attacks emerged in papers submitted to the Spanish authorities in a case against the alleged bombers, who were arrested in raids in the Raval district of Barcelona in January last year.

It is claimed the attacks were to begin on the Barcelona underground system and then spread to the other European countries with a presence in Afghanistan, thought to include Britain, according to new documents.

The information echoed claims made by British security services that a terrorist cell was sent to Manchester from the Taliban heartland in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas.

British investigators believe that the cell, which was allegedly planning attacks on the Trafford and Arndale shopping centres over the Easter holidays, had connections with al-Qaeda, and Spanish prosecutors say their cell may also have had links with al-Qaeda.

The terrorist group is believed to have formed a “holy alliance” with the Taliban to launch terrorist attacks on foreign soil.

Instead of relying on British-born men travelling to Pakistan for training, al-Qaeda is now recruiting “ready made” terrorists from among the Taliban, investigators believe.

The 10 men arrested in the north west are fighting deportation on national security grounds after Government lawyers accused them of being members of a “UK-based network linked to al-Qaeda involved in attack planning”.

Spanish police found chemicals including nitrocellulose and potassium perchlorate along with batteries, timers and cables in the raids.

They also found “materials for indoctrination” relating to attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan and books and DVDs.

Spanish prosecutors submitted documents laying out their case earlier this month and Dolores Delgado Garcia, a prosecutor at Spain’s National Court, told the Daily Telegraph she believed the Barcelona cell was inspired by speeches by Osama bin Laden about the “loss of Andalucia” once part of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

“Al-Qaeda has been targeting Spain because of its historic associations with Andalucia,” she said. “But other cities in Europe where countries have troops in Afghanistan were also targets.”

Explaining her case at a top-level conference organised by New York University’s Centre for Law and Security, she said “Ahmed” had become a “protected witness” and had told them that “Baitullah Mehsud would make demands and when they were not complied with, they would launch their attacks”.

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Homeland Security To Scan Fingerprints of Foriegn Travellers Exiting US

The US Department of Homeland Security is set to kickstart a controversial new pilot to scan the fingerprints of travellers departing the United States.

From June, US Customs and Border Patrol will take a fingerprint scan of international travellers exiting the United States from Detroit, while the US Transport Security Administration will take fingerprint scans of international travellers exiting the United States from Atlanta.

Biometric technology such as fingerprint scans has been used by US Customs and Border Patrol for several years to gain a biometric record of non-US citizens entering the United States.

But under the Bush Administration, a plan was formulated to also scan outgoing passengers.

Michael Hardin, a senior policy analyst with the US-Visit Program at the United States Department of Homeland Security told a Biometrics Institute conference today that the DHS will use the data from the trial to “inform us as to where to take [exit screening] next.”

“We are trying to ensure we know more about who came and who left,” he said. “We have a large population of illegal immigrants in the United States – we want to make sure the person getting on the plane really is the person the records show to be leaving.”

The original exit scanning legislation planned by the Bush administration stipulated that airlines would be responsible for conducting the exit fingerprints.

But after much protest, Hardin said the new Obama administration re-considered this legislation two weeks ago and is “not as sold that private sector should be agency for exit fingerprints.”

“The new administration feels that perhaps it is more appropriate that Government should take that role.”

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FBI Planning Bigger Role In Terrorism Fight

The FBI and Justice Department plan to significantly expand their role in global counter-terrorism operations, part of a U.S. policy shift that will replace a CIA-dominated system of clandestine detentions and interrogations with one built around transparent investigations and prosecutions.

Under the “global justice” initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said.

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5% of released detainees commit terrorist acts, Pentagon says
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High-tech ways to combat terrorism
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Torture and terrorism: Q & A on Guantanamo

Though the initiative is a work in progress, some senior counter-terrorism officials and administration policy-makers envision it as key to the national security strategy President Obama laid out last week — one that presumes most accused terrorists have the right to contest the charges against them in a “legitimate” setting.

The approach effectively reverses a mainstay of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, in which global counter-terrorism was treated primarily as an intelligence and military problem, not a law enforcement one. That policy led to the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; harsh interrogations; and detentions without trials.

The “global justice” initiative starts out with the premise that virtually all suspects will end up in a U.S. or foreign court of law.

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Russia Fears Korea Conflict Could Go Nuclear

Russia is taking precautionary security measures, including military ones, because it fears tensions over North Korea’s atomic test could descend into nuclear war, news agencies quoted an official as saying on Wednesday.

Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying that a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang’s nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia’s far eastern regions, which border North Korea.

Provocation
Reports: N. Korea tests missiles, starts nuke plant / Associated Press
S. Korean newspaper says steam detected coming from nuclear facility at Pyongyang’s main plant, indicating North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium; country also test-fires another missile. Meanwhile, N. Korea warns of military action against South
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“The need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures,” the source said.

“We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula,” he added.

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12-Year-Old With Incendiary Device Detained At DIA

Police in Colorado say a 12-year-old boy is in custody after allegedly trying to take an incendiary device through a security checkpoint at Denver International Airport.

Authorities said Transportation Security Administration agents stopped the boy early Wednesday and called police.

Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said the boy had a homemade device similar to a flare. He said it didn’t ignite and no passengers or aircraft were in danger.

Authorities didn’t identify the youngster.

Officers say he had the device in a backpack and was traveling to California with family members.

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Pakistan – Scores Killed In Bombing of Police Offices

A suicide car bomber targeted buildings housing police and intelligence agency offices in eastern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing about 30 and wounding nearly 150 in one of the deadliest such blasts in the country this year, officials said.

The attack, which was followed by gunfire, was the third major strike in the city of Lahore in recent months, and it came amid worries of retaliation from Taliban militants facing a major Pakistani military offensive in the northwest.

Lahore is a major cultural metropolis near the Indian border, and assaults there have heightened fears that militancy in Pakistan is spreading well beyond the northwest region bordering Afghanistan.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s bombing.

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Additional Details

FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force Raid Chicago Apartment

Very little is being reported on a recent raid that resulted in 2 arrests, in Chicago. A source in federal law enforcement told Fox Chicago that the case is similar to one that unfolded in New York.

Glenda Johnson saw so many police and plain clothed federal agents on her block that she thought someone had been shot.

“The police was so crowded, you couldn’t even walk past. They was in trucks, they was in cars, they was in regular cars. It looked like someone had killed someone,” said Johnson.

That swarm of badges consisted of the FBI, Chicago Police and the Joint Terrorism Task Force. In their sights were two buildings on the 6300 block of North Artesian. People who live in a six flat there say the feds were very interested in its basement, specifically, two storage lockers.

A spokesperson for the FBI confirms a search warrant was executed at the building as part of an ongoing investigation. Glenda Johnson says an FBI agent made the search sound extremely urgent.

“They was looking for someone who lives in this building. So I was like ‘what’s the cause?’ They said ‘we don’t want to say yet, but it’s a life and death situation.’ I was like ‘wow,’” said Johnson.

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