Las Vegas Urges Officials To Cancel Mock Nuclear Blast

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is asking the Department of Homeland Security to cancel it’s plans for a simulated nuclear explosion scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next May.

In a letter Wednesday to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Authority President and Chief Executive Officer Rossi Ralenkotter said the premise of an upcoming emergency preparedness drill “will generate undue anxiety about visiting or conducting business in Las Vegas.”

FEMA has been planning its 2010 “national level exercise” since last year. The simulation, which is designed to test the capabilities of first responders to catastrophic events, involves the response to a mock nuclear blast in Clark County.

Nearly 10,000 local, state, and federal agents are expected to participate in the exercise.

In the letter to FEMA’s regional office in Oakland, Calif., Ralenkotter asked FEMA to consider “a non-nuclear scenario” for the exercise. He also requested that the simulation not be associated with the resort corridor.

“Our destination already receives a disproportionate amount of attention when the Department of Homeland Security releases even the most routine bulletin,” Ralenkotter wrote. “This exercise has the potential to escalate that attention and potentially harm our economy.”

Ralenkotter also sent his letter to Nevada’s congressional delegation and other local politicians.

Sen. Harry Reid, in a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano today, weighed in with objections to the exercise.

“I am deeply sympathetic to the need of our first responders to conduct preparedness training, and I look forward to revisiting this issue when Nevada’s economy has improved,” Reid wrote. “However, at this time, economic recovery efforts would be stymied, or reversed entirely, by artificially creating anxiety surrounding tourism and investment in Las Vegas.”

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DHS Seeks Partnerships to Increase Information Sharing

In  an increased effort to identify and help reduce possible acts of terrorism, The Department of Homeland Security is seeking to identify communities of interest that don’t fit the normal models found in local government and the private sector (hey, this sounds like us).  The goal is to improve lines of communication between ethnic and faith-based communities and respond to terror threats by adopting procedures used by the Secure Community Network (SCN). The department’s goal is to mimic the SCN platform for national security and preparedness and use it as a means to decrease the number of acts of terrorism by increasing both communications and information sharing.

The DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) focuses on protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR). The IP works to reduce terror threats and to strengthen national preparedness and response and recovery times, largely through public-private partnerships because most of the national CIKR is privately owned.

William F. Flynn, the IP’s acting assistant secretary, shares that DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano wants to identify “communities of interest that don’t fit that normal model where we have outreach, like through local government and the private sector. She’s taken a personal interest in expanding this initiative.”

SCN is one such group. Because the Jewish community is often a target for terrorists, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations created SCN four years ago to address heightened security concerns. The organization has two purposes: to share information in crisis situations quickly and to improve security awareness of Jewish organizations to protect against terrorism and other threats.

SCN’s national director, Paul Goldenberg, notes, “Our community has seen an unprecedented number of attacks during recent years. DHS recognized that our community was vulnerable and that they should establish formal ties with the Jewish community. They felt training civilians to understand terror threats would help create eyes on the ground for DHS and local law enforcement.”

DHS and SCN have collaborated for four years, with DHS providing “tons of services” to the Jewish community, Goldenberg says.

Flynn adds, “SCN has a great platform to reach a broad audience. They have a pipeline, a technical means of broadly reaching their partners and constituents. That’s very valuable to help push out information. [DHS] has leveraged that relationship. We’ve sponsored security clearances for some of their staff; we’ve provided Web-based training and done webinars for them.”

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National Level Exercise 2009 – NLE 09 Terror Exercise

National Level Exercise 2009 (NLE 09) is scheduled for July 27 through July 31, 2009. NLE 09 will be the first major exercise conducted by the United States government that will focus exclusively on terrorism prevention and protection, as opposed to incident response and recovery.

NLE 09 is designated as a Tier I National Level Exercise. Tier I exercises (formerly known as the Top Officials exercise series or TOPOFF) are conducted annually in accordance with the National Exercise Program (NEP), which serves as the nation’s overarching exercise program for planning, organizing, conducting and evaluating national level exercises. The NEP was established to provide the U.S. government, at all levels, exercise opportunities to prepare for catastrophic crises ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.

NLE 09 is a White House directed, Congressionally- mandated exercise that includes the participation of all appropriate federal department and agency senior officials, their deputies, staff and key operational elements. In addition, broad regional participation of state, tribal, local, and private sector is anticipated. This year the United States welcomes the participation of Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom in NLE 09.

EXERCISE FOCUS

NLE 09 will focus on intelligence and information sharing among intelligence and law enforcement communities, and between international, federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector participants.

The NLE 09 scenario will begin in the aftermath of a notional terrorist event outside of the United States, and exercise play will center on preventing subsequent efforts by the terrorists to enter the United States and carry out additional attacks. This scenario enables participating senior officials to focus on issues related to preventing terrorist events domestically and protecting U.S. critical infrastructure.

NLE 09 will allow terrorism prevention efforts to proceed to a logical end (successful or not), with no requirement for response or recovery activities.

NLE 09 will be an operations-based exercise to include: activities taking place at command posts, emergency operation centers, intelligence centers and potential field locations to include federal headquarters facilities in the Washington D.C. area, and in federal, regional, state, tribal, local and private sector facilities in FEMA Region VI, which includes the states of Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.

EXERCISE OBJECTIVES

Through a comprehensive evaluation process, the exercise will assess prevention and protection capabilities both nationally and regionally. Although NLE 09 is still in the planning stages, the exercise is currently designed to validate the following capabilities:

• Intelligence/Information Sharing and Dissemination
• Counter-Terrorism Investigation and Law Enforcement
• Air, Border and Maritime Security
• Critical Infrastructure Protection
• Public and Private Sector Alert/Notification and Security Advisories
• International Coordination

VALIDATING THE HOMELAND SECURITY SYSTEM

Exercises such as NLE 09 are an important component of national preparedness, helping to build an integrated federal, state, tribal, local and private sector capability to prevent terrorist attacks, and rapidly and effectively respond to, and recover from, any terrorist attack or major disaster that occurs.

The full-scale exercise offers agencies and jurisdictions a way to test their plans and skills in a real-time, realistic environment and to gain the in-depth knowledge that only experience can provide. Participants will exercise prevention and information sharing functions that are critical to preventing terrorist attacks. Lessons learned from the exercise will provide valuable insights to guide future planning for securing the nation against terrorist attacks, disasters, and other emergencies.

For more information about NLE 09, contact the FEMA News Desk: 202-646-4600.

FEMA leads and supports the nation in a risk-based, comprehensive emergency management system of preparedness, protection, response, recovery, and mitigation, to reduce the loss of life and property and protect the nation from all hazards including natural disasters, acts of terrorism and other man-made disasters.

Feds Warn Of Possible al Qaeda Terror Threat To New York Subway Trains

Feds Warn Of Possible NYC Terror Plot, FBI: “Plausible But Unsubstantiated” Report Of Al Qaeda Plans To Attack Subway System

The FBI has warned New York area law enforcement of a “plausible but unsubstantiated” al Qaeda suicide bomb attack against the area’s commuter rail systems over the holiday.

An internal memo obtained by The Associated Press says the FBI has received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al Qaeda terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system.

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the warning was issued as a routine matter, but added that there may be an increased police presence in New York and other large metropolitan areas.

A US official said the FBI report had been issued “out of an abundance of caution” and that “there is nothing concrete to suggest the plot went beyond the talking stage.”

The report indicates that al Qaeda terrorists “in late September may have discussed targeting transit systems in and around New York City. These discussions reportedly involved the use of suicide bombers or explosives placed on subway/passenger rail systems,” according to the document.

“We have no specific details to confirm that this plot has developed beyond aspirational planning, but we are issuing this warning out of concern that such an attack could possibly be conducted during the forthcoming holiday season,” states the warning, which is dated Tuesday.

While federal agencies regularly issue all sorts of advisory warnings, the language of this one is particularly blunt.

Intelligence and homeland security officials are working with local authorities to try to corroborate the information “and will continue to investigate every possible lead,” the memo says.

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