Explosion Leads To Evacuation of Islamic School in Syracuse

No word yet on the actual cause but authorities say initial reports are that a boiler exploded and it appears to be an accident. Additional details are expected to be released on Monday.

From Syracuse.com

Syracuse authorities are investigating an explosion in the basement of a private Islamic School that forced the evacuation of 75 students this afternoon.

It was too early to determine if the explosion was intentionally set, authorities said.

“It would be crazy for me to say what happened here right now,” said fire investigator Joe Galloway. “We’re doing a very thorough investigation.”

School officials said they were aware of no threats and had no reason to believe the explosion was anything but an accident.

Initial reports were that the boiler had exploded, but firefighters still need to sift through the large amount of debris to figure out what happened, Galloway said. Police consulted the FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives because the school is considered a place of worship.

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Huge Blast In Peshawar Pakistan, Several Killed

At least 30 people have been killed in a suspected bomb blast near a market in the north-western Pakistani city of Peshawar, witnesses and officials say. The bomb is reported to have been on board a minibus.

Several people have also been injured, reports said.

Officials said that a vehicle laden with explosives had been detonated and destroyed near Peshawar’s Khyber Bazaar.

Friday’s explosion was the latest in a series of recent bombings across north-western Pakistan.

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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

Major Terror Attack Averted At Haifa’s Lev Hamifratz Mall

A major terrorist car bombing was averted at a Haifa mall on Saturday night when one of several explosive devices hidden in a parked vehicle malfunctioned.
An Israeli mall.

“We believe this is a terrorist incident,” a police statement said.

After being alerted by an employee of the Lev Hamifratz shopping center, who reported hearing an explosion at about 8:30 p.m., police sappers were dispatched to scan the area.

The sappers found a partially exploded bomb in the trunk of a white Subaru car which was parked outside the shopping center.

A further search of the vehicle uncovered several more unexploded bombs, which were neutralized by the sappers. No one was injured.

It was not immediately clear how the vehicle managed to get past the security checks at the mall entrance. The car was registered to a woman who lives in Jerusalem, but police would not release her identity.

Police immediately moved to evacuate the mall, which was filled with shoppers, and sealed off the area.

A major road adjacent to the mall was also closed to traffic, as police went on high alert across the Haifa area. Roadblocks were erected and the police presence was increased in crowded areas.

Northern Police spokesman Moshe Weitzman told The Jerusalem Post that “dozens of kilograms of explosives” were uncovered in the car.

“We have gone on alert and will remain prepared,” Weitzman said.

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Space Debris Rains Down On Kentucky Causing Alarm

The crash of two satellites 500 miles over Sibera has caused alarm in Kentucky. The collision generated an estimated tens of thousands of pieces of space junk that could circle Earth and threaten other satellites for the next 10,000 years, space experts said Friday. Several of those chunks caused concern in Southeastern Kenutcky Friday night.

The 27 NEWSFIRST Newsroom checked into numerous reports of sightings of blue and white lights in the sky, as well as loud booms that, in some cases, rattled homes. So far, emergency officials in Kentucky believe the falling debris from the satellites has covered a 500-mile area in North America, but has led to no injuries or damages.

One expert called the collision “a catastrophic event” that he hoped would force President Barack Obama’s administration to address the long-ignored issue of debris in space. Russian Mission Control chief Vladimir Solovyov said Tuesday’s smashup of a derelict Russian military satellite and a working U.S. Iridium commercial satellite occurred in the busiest part of near-Earth space – some 500 miles 800 kilometers above Earth.

“800 kilometers is a very popular orbit which is used by Earth-tracking and communications satellites,” Solovyov told reporters Friday. “The clouds of debris pose a serious danger to them.” Solovyov said debris from the collision could stay in orbit for up to 10,000 years and even tiny fragments threaten spacecraft because both travel at such a high orbiting speed.

James Oberg, an experienced aerospace engineer who worked on NASA’s space shuttle program and is now a space consultant, described the crash over northern Siberia as “catastrophic event.” NASA said it was the first-ever high-speed impact between two intact spacecraft – with the Iridium craft weighing 1,235 pounds 560 kilograms and the Russian craft nearly a ton.

“At physical contact at orbital speeds, a hypersonic shock wave bursts outwards through the structures,” Oberg said in e-mailed comments. “It literally shreds the material into confetti and detonates any fuels.”

Most fragments are concentrated near the collision course, but Maj.-Gen. Alexander Yakushin, chief of staff of the Russian military’s Space Forces, said some debris was thrown into other orbits, ranging from 300 to 800 miles 500-1,300 kilometers above Earth.

David Wright at the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security said the collision had possibly generated tens of thousands of particles larger than 1 centimeter half an inch, any of which could significantly damage or even destroy a satellite.

Wright, in a posting on the group’s Web site, said the two large debris clouds from Tuesday’s crash will spread over time, forming a shell around Earth. He likened the debris to “a shotgun blast that threatens other satellites in the region.”

Meanwhile, there’s no global air traffic control system that tracks the position of all satellites.

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Two Officers Killed When Bomb Explodes Inside Woodburn Oregon Bank

UPDATE: An Oregon State Police bomb technician became the second victim of a bomb in a Woodburn bank branch, State Police spokesman Lt. Gregg Hastings confirmed Saturday.

Technician Bill Hakim, a senior trooper, and Woodburn Police Capt. Tom Tennant were killed in Friday evening’s blast, Hastings said. Both men were 51 years old.

Woodburn Police Chief Scott Russell, 46, was critically injured. A female bank employee also was injured. She was treated at a hospital and released, the State Police said in a written statement. Her name was not immediately available.

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A bomb ripped through a West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn Oregon Friday evening, killing two officers, others were injured.

It happened about 5:30 p.m. Nearby residents reported hearing a loud explosion. Moments later, police cars rolled up and ambulances lined up outside the branch, located next to I-5 on Newberg Highway 214.

Amid the confusion and chaos came reports of serious injuries. Police later confirmed more than one injury, in a statement that said, “Woodburn police, with the assisatance of FBI and an Oregon State Police Bomb Technician, were investigating a suspicious device at the West Coast Bank on Highway 214 east of Interstate 5. While officers were in the area, the device detonated, resulting in serious injuries.” Later, a Marion County deputy medical examiner confirmed a death from those injuries. The bomb technician was mentioned as one of those injured, but it was not known whether he was the confirmed fatality.

West Coast Bank CEO and President Bob Sznewajs says the explosive device was first spotted outside the bank by employees. However, he adds that they found it only after police had looked twice for reported explosive devices, and failed to find them (see related story). Snewajs says when they came out the third time, after the employees finally found it, they evacuated his bank branch, then brought the bomb inside it, where it exploded.

Highway 214 was closed in both directions east of I-5 toward downtown Woodburn. Nearby businesses were evacuated.

Earlier in the day, a nearby Wells Fargo branch had a police incident, after a reported bomb scare there, but any possible connections will be part of a police investigation involving the F.B.I., Marion County Deputies, Woodburn Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Additionally, West Coast Bank will be doing its own independent investigation.

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Editors Note: There is nothing to suggest this is terror related. From time to time we feature stories such as this that may be of interest to our readers.

Canada Pipeline Bombed A Second Time

UPDATE 10/17/08 A gas pipeline in northern British Columbia was bombed for a second time in a week, the police said Thursday. Neither the explosion last Saturday nor the second bombing, which occurred late Wednesday or early Thursday, significantly damaged the pipeline, which carries sour gas, natural gas that contains toxic hydrogen sulfide.

An antiterrorism unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is investigating the bombings. EnCana, the energy company that owns the pipeline, said the second blast created a small leak and forced a shutdown of the pipeline. Last week, news organizations in the region received anonymous letters demanding that oil and gas projects in the area be shut down.

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Original Post

Former CSIS strategist David Harris says a weekend explosion near the town of Dawson Creek in northeastern B.C. fits the description of terrorism, despite police statements to the contrary.

Sometime overnight Saturday, someone detonated a large explosion next to the sour gas pipeline about 50 kilometres from the B.C.-Alberta border.

The blast did not rupture the pipeline but blew a 1.8-metre crater in the ground, which was discovered by a hunter on Sunday.

“How on earth anyone could declare this was not terrorism at this early stage is beyond me. Terrorism is associated with an attempt by threat or actual violence … to change policy,” said Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and now a private security expert.

The previous week, suspicious handwritten letters arrived at newspapers and a TV station in Dawson Creek calling EnCana Corp. and other energy companies “terrorists” for expanding “deadly” gas wells and giving the firms a deadline to shut down operations, including the gas plant served by the pipeline.

“You have until Oct. 11, 2008 (Saturday, 12 noon) to close down your operations … and leave the area until further notice,” the letters said.

“We will not negotiate with terrorists, which you are, as you keep on endangering our families with crazy expansion of deadly gas wells in our homelands,” the letters said.

RCMP spokesman Sgt. Tim Shields called the blast a serious criminal matter but stopped short of calling the explosion terrorism.

“It was set there … with the intent to blow up that pipeline. That’s a threat to the infrastructure of this province,” said Shields. “We’re not categorizing this as terrorism.”

“We just don’t want to start using the word terrorism at this point. It gives credence and maybe satisfaction to the people who are involved in setting this explosive off,” he said.

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New Fertilizer To Foil Bomb-makers

Industrial manufacturer Honeywell said Tuesday it has developed a new nitrogen-based fertilizer that is difficult to ignite — a discovery that could reduce criminals’ ability to make explosives used in major terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing. Read more

Marriott Hotel, Pakistan – Several Killed, Injured After Huge Explosion

A huge explosion ripped through part of the heavily guarded Marriott Hotel in Pakistan’s capital Saturday, damaging buildings in a wide radius, killing at least two people and wounding at least 25.

The Marriott in Islamabad is a favorite place for foreigners to stay and gather, and it has previously been targeted by militants. Read more

Japan – Police Probe Bomb Blasts Near US Naval Base

Japanese police said Saturday they are investigating two explosions near a US naval base southwest of Tokyo, as media reports indicated the blasts may have been set off deliberately.

The explosions occurred late Friday, ahead of the controversial scheduled arrival later this month of a nuclear-powered US aircraft carrier in the port of Yokosuka. Read more

Man Injured By Chemical In Suspicious Box, FBI Investigating

Greenville Department of Public Safety Director Michael Stuck said a high concentration of fertilizer led to a man being injured and the evacuation of a hospital’s emergency room.

The FBI is investigating the incident and Montcalm County sheriff’s deputies told 24 Hour News 8 they are handling the case as a criminal investigation.

It was around 8:30 a.m. Thursday when the incident occurred at a home on Arloa Drive near Burgess Lake in Eureka Township southwest of Greenville.

The 27-year-old homeowner found a wooden box that was left in his driveway overnight. He opened the box and an unknown – at the time – substance was released as he inspected it, creating a liquid chemical reaction. The substance hit him in the face, causing facial injuries and began eating away at his clothing.

Witnesses near the home told us they heard a “thud,” then went out and saw their injured neighbor.

He was taken by ambulance to Spectrum Health System’s United Memorial Hospital in Greenville. After he arrived, hospital officials evacuated 26 patients and staff from the emergency room for fear they had become contaminated. The evacuees were decontaminated in large tents outside the hospital around 10 a.m.

Ambulances were diverted from United Memorial Hospital to Spectrum’s Kelsey Hospital in Lakeview and Carson City Hospital. The hospital was accepting walk-up patients to the emergency room until 4 p.m. when the E.R. reopened.

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