2nd Chicago Man Tied To Terror Plot

The Chicago Tribune reports that the FBI has arrested a second Chicago man allegedly involved in an international terrorist plot with Western European targets.

The man was taken into custody Oct. 3 before he boarded a flight at O’Hare International Airport to Philadelphia, the first stop on a trip to Pakistan, where he planned to meet people with known ties to terrorist organizations that have carried out fatal attacks that resulted in the deaths of U.S. citizens, a source said. He has not been charged.

After that arrest, dozens of FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 18 raided a Grundy County meat-processing plant that specializes in Islamic foods.

The owner of the plant, Tahawar Hussain Rana, also of Chicago, was arrested at his North Side home the same day as the raid on First World Management Services in Kinsman, northwest of Dwight. Agents seized records from the plant, as well as a related North Side business also raided the same day, said the source, who is familiar with the investigation.

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Joint Terrorism Task Force Raids Homes In New York Terror Probe

UPDATE 2:18pm PST: Al Qaeda Suspect Tracked to New York Over the Weekend, Met with Possible Followers

Authorities raided properties in New York City today in an effort that was intended to disrupt the plans of a terror suspect whose travels had been tracked by the FBI, according to an official briefed on the raids.

“He was being watched and concern grew as he met with a group of individuals in Queens over the weekend,” said Congressman Pete King (R-NY). “The FBI went to court late last night for an emergency warrant to conduct the raids this morning.” A resident in the neighborhood said there was police activity around 2 a.m. Monday.

Source – Brian Ross ABC News

UPDATE 1:48pm PST: – Two U.S. intelligence officials, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly, said the target of any purported attack, or who would carry it out, remained unclear. Authorities have not found any weapons ready for use, such as a bomb, that would indicate an attack was imminent, they said. Nevertheless, one of the officials called the threat very real and emphasized the urgency of the threat.  Source – WCBS Radio

UPDATE 1:40pm PST: NYPD and FBI, citing ‘activity’ Sunday night, raided the residences in Queens as part of joint anti-terror probe.

Original Post

Law enforcement agents have raided several homes in New York City as part of a terrorism probe, and are preparing to brief Congress about the investigation later today. A NYPD spokesman confirms that searches were conducted in the borough of Queens on Monday by agents of a joint terrorism task force.

Additional Reports

NY1

From Reuters

New York City police are conducting an investigation into suspected terrorism in the borough of Queens, a spokesman said on Monday. “There was activity in Queens last night by the NYPD and the FBI that was part of an ongoing joint terrorism taskforce investigation,” Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said.

Source

New Detector Not Much Better Catching Nuke Material

Federal investigators say the government’s next generation radiation detectors are only marginally better at detecting hidden nuclear material than monitors already at U.S. ports, but would cost more than twice as much.

The machines are intended to prevent terrorists or criminals from smuggling into the U.S. a nuclear bomb or its explosive components hidden in a cargo container.

The monitors now in use can detect the presence of radiation, but they cannot distinguish between threatening and nonthreatening material. Radioactive material can be found naturally in ceramics and kitty litter, but would be of no use in making a bomb, for instance.

The Department of Homeland Security has said the new machines it is developing can distinguish between kitty litter and dangerous radioactive material and produce fewer false alarms than the current ones.

The new one are also better at detecting lightly shielded material. But the machines perform at about the same level when detecting radiological and nuclear materials hidden in a lead box or casing, the most likely way a terrorist would try to sneak the materials into this country, the Government Accountability Office said in a report to be released Monday.

Source – Read Full Article

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.

Source

Iowa Man Charged With Terrorism

A Rock Rapids man is under arrest after a tip from the F.B.I.’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Lyon County Sheriff’s officers say 19-year-old Michael Edward Bauman was arrested Thursday after a search of his home on Thursday. Agents from the F.B.I. and the Iowa Intelligence Fusion Center as well as local deputies conducted the search.

Authorities seized a number of computers and guns. Bauman is accused of threatening to blow up a television relay tower, burn down a business and kill law enforcement officers.

Bauman is charged with a “Class D” threat of terrorism and is being held in jail on a $10,000 bond.

FBI Director Warns of Terror Attacks on U.S. Cities

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III today warned that extremists “with large agendas and little money can use rudimentary weapons” to sow terror, raising the specter that recent attacks in Mumbai that killed 170 people last year could embolden terrorists seeking to attack U.S. cities.

At a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, Mueller said that the bureau is expanding its focus beyond al-Qaeda and into splinter groups, radicals who try to enter the country through the visa waiver program and “home-grown terrorists.”

“The universe of crime and terrorism stretches out infinitely before us, and we too are working to find what we believe to be out there but cannot always see,” Mueller said.

One particular concern, the FBI director said, springs from the country’s background as a “nation of immigrants.” Federal officials worry about pockets of possible radicals among melting-pot communities in the United States such as Seattle, San Diego, Miami or New York.

A Joint Terrorism Task Force led by the FBI, for instance, continues to investigate a group in Minneapolis after one young man last fall flew to Somalia and became what authorities believe to be the first U.S. citizen to carry out a suicide bombing. As many as a half-dozen other youths from that community in Minnesota have vanished, alarming their parents and raising concerns among law enforcement officials that a dangerous recruiting network has operated under the radar.

“The prospect of young men, indoctrinated and radicalized in their own communities . . . is a perversion of the immigrant story,” Mueller said.
via Source washingtonpost.com.

Animal Rights Activists Arrested For Terrorst Acts Against UC Scientists

Federal authorities have arrested four suspected animal rights activists in connection with violent protests in Santa Cruz and Alameda County, police reported Friday.

Three of the four were linked to the Riverside Avenue home police raided after the home invasion attack of a UC Santa Cruz researcher a year ago, according to Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend.

Nathan Pope, 26, of Oceanside and Adriana Stumpo, 23, of Long Beach were arrested by the FBI and the Charlotte Joint Terrorism Task Force at an airport in Charlotte, N.C., Thursday when they returned to the U.S. from Costa Rica, police reported. They appeared in federal court in Charlotte on Friday.

The two other suspects – Joseph Buddenberg, 25, of Berkeley and Maryam Khejavi, 20, of Pinole – were arrested by the FBI, the San Francisco Joint Terrorism Task Force and UC Berkeley police Friday afternoon. Khejavi was arrested in Oakland and Buddenberg, the only one of the four not tied to the Riverside Avenue house, was arrested at the Alameda County Courthouse, according to authorities.

Santa Cruz Police Chief Howard Skerry said the arrests came “due to the tenacity of investigators,” but declined to speak specifically about the probe, evidence collected or any future arrests. Santa Cruz police were involved in the investigation, but the FBI was the lead law enforcement agency handling the case.

Still, he said he was pleased with the progress made in the past year.

“A lot of cases are very complex,” Skerry said. “We don’t give up on the cases. If it takes years, it takes years.”

Pope, Stumpo, Buddenberg and Khejavi will be charged at least in part under the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, police said. The act carries a penalty of up to five years for each violation. It wasn’t immediately clear how many counts the suspected animal activists face. They are expected to appear in U.S. District Court later this month.

via Source

Afghan National Indicted for Alleged Ties To Terrorists – Los Angeles

Federal officials said this morning they have indicted an Afghan national for lying about his alleged ties to terrorists in a bid to fraudulently obtain a U.S. passport.

Ahmadullah Sais Niazi, 34, who was arrested without incident this morning at his Tustin residence by members of the joint terrorism task force, was named in a five-count indictment returned Feb. 11 by a federal grand jury.

The indictment, unsealed this morning, alleges Niazi hid associations with “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” groups including Al Qaeda, Hizb-i-Islami and the Taliban, when he completed nationalization papers five years ago. During one visit, the government alleges Niazi visited Dr. Amin al-Haq, the security coordinator for Osama bin Laden.

Charges against Niazi include perjury, naturalization fraud, misuse of a passport obtained by fraud and making a false statement to a federal agency. He is scheduled to make a court appearance this afternoon at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

The indictment alleges that Niazi lied on his naturalization application when he failed to disclose a 2004 trip to Pakistan and made false statements by denying he had any association with a terrorist organization, the indictment states. If indicted on all counts, Niazi faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in federal prison and a $1.25-million fine.

Niazi then used the fraudulently obtained passport to travel to Pakistan in 2005, according to the unsealed indictment. When he returned to Los Angeles Airport, the government alleges, Niazi lied to customs officials, telling them he had been visiting family in Qatar when he had instead traveled to Pakistan.

UPDATED at 1 p.m. The suspect and his wife have lived for at [...]

Source – Read Updates Here

e-Guardian – FBI Shares Threat Info With Local Police Agencies

The FBI has launched a system to share tips about possible terror threats with local police agencies just in time for the presidential inauguration.

The program aims to get law enforcement at all levels sharing data quickly about suspicious activity and people, particularly in and around the nation’s capital in the week leading up to the historic ceremony.

Officials say they are getting as many as 1,000 tips a day from the public.

Called e-Guardian, the program had been delayed and underwent a smaller pilot project before launching New Year’s Eve as a system available to law enforcement agencies around the country.

Federal authorities hope the new system overcomes a drawback of another version, which lets police report their suspicions to the FBI but doesn’t allow officers to search the system for similar patterns in other jurisdictions.

The program “will allow all law enforcement to share threats and suspicious activity and hopefully prevent a terrorist attack,” said FBI supervisor Gerald Rogero, in Washington.

Of the 1,000 tips, a dozen might be worth noting in the new system.

With e-Guardian, Rogero said, those specific reports can be quickly checked by police in far-flung jurisdictions in case they have noticed something similar, such as a wave of uniform thefts or stolen military equipment.

Any law enforcement officer with an Internet connection and an account on the system can access e-Guardian.

via The Associated Press: FBI shares threat-tips with local police agencies.

An NYPD detective is e-mailed a photograph of two suspicious men who appear to be casing the Brooklyn Bridge. Her department uploads the picture and inputs details about the pair into a computerized, Internet-based system called eGuardian, looking for similar incidents. Lo and behold, there’s a match. Two men fitting the description had been spotted 48 hours earlier photographing the Washington Monument and are being sought for questioning. The NYPD report is sent via eGuardian to the state’s fusion center, which reviews it and then passes it along to our New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, which will in turn share it with D.C. investigators.

It’s purely a hypothetical, but it’s exactly the kind of dot-collecting and dot-connecting that will soon be possible between law enforcement and intelligence players at every level of government across the country—thanks to FBI technology.

The eGuardian system—which is being piloted by several agencies and will start being rolled out in phases nationwide by year’s end, complete with training—will enable near real-time sharing and tracking of terror information and suspicious activities with our local, state, tribal, and federal partners. It’s actually a spin-off of a similar but classified tool called Guardian that we’ve been using inside the Bureau—and sharing with vetted partners—for the past four years.

How Guardian works. FBI field offices and Legal Attaché offices overseas input suspicious activity reports, potential terrorism threats (like a phoned-in bomb threat), and terrorist incidents (like actual bombings). This information is tracked, triaged, searched, and analyzed by agents and analysts at FBI Headquarters, and—if appropriate—submitted to one of our 106 Joint Terrorism Task Forces around the country for further action.

How eGuardian works. In a very similar way, except it will be available through our secure Law Enforcement Online Internet portal to more than 18,000 agencies, which will be able to run searches and input their own reports. Their entries will be automatically sent to a state “fusion center” (or a similar intelligence-based hub) for vetting, where trained personnel will evaluate it and then either monitor it, close it, or refer it to the appropriate FBI terror task force. Ultimately, eGuardian will add additional capabilities like geo-spatial mapping, live chats, and link analysis.

Guardian and eGuardian will work together, feeding each other. eGuardian entries with a possible terrorism nexus will be pushed to Guardian and out to our task forces, and unclassified threat and suspicious activity information from the FBI housed in Guardian will be pushed to eGuardian and out to the entire law enforcement community. It’s an effective one-two punch.

Urgent matters and investigative issues, however, will continue to be worked with state and local law enforcement through existing FBI channels.

What happens if an incident has no probable link to terrorism? The report is deleted to ensure personal data is not being needlessly stored. If the information is deemed “inconclusive,” it will remain in eGuardian for up to five years, in accordance with federal regulations.

eGuardian is yet another FBI technology that is enabling information to flow and dots to be connected in powerful new ways. By making the jobs of law enforcement easier, it will help make our communities safer.
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Joint Terrorism Task Force To Open Office At Logan Airport

A joint terrorism task force will get dedicated space at Logan International Airport under an agreement signed yesterday with the FBI that marks a first for U.S. airports.

The 2,700 square feet of office space on the sixth floor of Logan’s old air traffic control tower will be used by the force, which may include personnel from the Secret Service, Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Transportation Security Administration, Federal Air Marshal program, Massachusetts State Police, and Customs and Border Protection.

“Our No. 1priority is preventing terrorism attacks,” FBI Special Agent Gail Marcinkiewicz said. “Considering we have jurisdiction over crimes committed aboard aircraft, this would enable us to have a better response time at the airport.”

Representatives from the FBI, Customs, TSA, the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines and other law enforcement agencies already attend daily 8:30 a.m. security briefings at Logan with Massport’s aviation operations staff, a practice that started after the 9/11 terrorism attacks.

“The idea of having the JTTF space on the airport is to improve communications in a secure environment,” Massport spokesman Matt Brelis said.

In lieu of paying for rent, utilities and maintenance, the FBI will cover the estimated $750,000 design and renovation of the facility, which should be ready next year.

Source

FBI Terrorism Unit To Investigate Palm Desert Theater Threat

An FBI terrorism division is investigating as a credible threat a letter that contained a suspicious substance found at a Palm Desert theater.

Initial analysis by the FBI tested negative for biological or chemical hazards. Tests also indicated that the substance was not harmful.

The discovery of the substance at about 2 p.m. prompted authorities to evacuate about 20 employees of the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert after a theater worker opened the envelope. The theater was then sealed, Riverside County Fire Capt. Fernando Herrera said.

Four employees came in contact with the substance and were quarantined for decontamination, Riverside County sheriff’s Deputy Herlinda Valenzuela said. The employees were treated by the Riverside County Fire Department’s Hazardous Material team, where they were stripped and cleansed with water and their clothes bagged and confiscated.

No injuries or illnesses were reported. It’s not clear what the substance was or who the letter was addressed to, but the envelope did contain a letter, Valenzuela said.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the substance after it was packaged and sent to the FBI’s crime analysis lab, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

Source