India – Discrepancy Over Alert, Warning of Sea Based Attack

Union Home Ministry on Monday refused to confirm any intelligence alert suggesting a possible 26/11 like attack in the country, a Times Now report said.

Earlier, it was reported that the intelligence agencies had issued an alert warning of possible sea-based terrorist strike.

The alert was reportedly issued for Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata following information that 30 to 40 terrorists of Lashkar-e-Taiba are planning a sea based strike.

It had also stated that local police and Coast Guard have been put on a specific alert in view of the intelligence inputs.

The warning comes only a few weeks prior to the date exactly one year ago that terrorists struck Mumbai India in a similar style attack.

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Coast Guard’s Statement on Reports of Potomac Gunfire

UPDATE: The White House derided CNN Friday for misreporting a Coast Guard training exercise near the Pentagon that the network represented as a possible suspicious incident complete with gunfire.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said he wasn’t going to second guess the Coast Guard’s decision to hold an exercise on the day the United States was commemorating eight years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but suggested the cable channel may have wanted to use a little more discretion before going with its report.

“Let’s understand that best I can tell there was reporting based on listening to a police scanner that was not verified, and then it was on television and now we’ve raced back to find out that it’s a training exercise. So I think it appears as if a lot of this might have been avoided,” Gibbs said.

Confusion reigned following a CNN report of the Coast Guard firing 10 rounds at a suspicious boat and then aired images of vessels circling in the water. Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said immediately after media inquiries that no shots were fired as part of the exercise and Coast Guard Chief of Staff Vice. Adm. John Currier later announced that no suspicious boats were in the area.

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The U.S. Coast Guard conducted a training exercise on the Potomac River this morning, although reports that shots were fired are false, said Lt. Commander Tony Russell. The incident grabbed attention because today is the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and President Barack Obama had earlier crossed the river to attend a remembrance at the nearby Petnagon. Here, the Coast Guard’s statement:

The U.S. Coast Guard reported on Friday that reports in the media were based on overheard radio calls made over a training frequency.

We are still gathering information of how this training event might have been misconstrued as an actual incident. We will conduct a thorough review of this incident.

How and when this exercised was conducted will be reviewed.

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U.S. Readies To Detect Nuclear Material At Sea

Dozens of law enforcement and emergency boats in one of the nation’s largest and most congested waterways will be outfitted this fall with radiation detectors aimed at preventing terrorists from smuggling deadly weapons into the country.

The first-of-its kind test in Washington’s Puget Sound will try to find out whether radioactive or nuclear bomb-making components could be picked up if they’re hidden on board a small boat cruising into a busy harbor.

“We’ll all suffer the consequences if we’re not able to detect something,” says Coast Guard Capt. Chip Strangfeld, who is working on the project with the Homeland Security Department’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO).

DNDO chief Vayl Oxford says he puts the nation’s coasts “at the top of the list” of security challenges. “It’s one of the most difficult threats we have,” he says.

Puget Sound was chosen for the tests because it is so big and so busy, both with small recreational boats and cargo ships.

The area is home to two commercial ports and the nation’s largest ferry system. It’s the nation’s top region for non-commercial pleasure boats from overseas, and 750,000 cruise ship passengers and 15 billion gallons of oil move through its waters each year, according to Seattle Fire Department Assistant Chief A.D. Vickery.

“There’s a huge amount of movement of people, ships and cargo,” he says. “We’ve got some big, big challenges here, and the federal government has recognized there are some porous areas we need to address.”

The detector testing comes in response to security concerns about the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction on U.S. soil.

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