Suspicious White Powder Sent to 3 U.N. Missions

Decontamination centers have been set up outside the French And Austrian Missions, as well as the Uzbekistan Consulate near the United Nations in response to the discovery of  letters containing a suspicious white powder at each location.

Authorities are investigating some suspicious letters containing white powder that were sent to three foreign-government missions to the United Nations in Manhattan.Letters arrived at the missions of Uzbekistan, Austria, and France Monday, police said.At the Uzbekistan mission, on 2nd Avenue, two people were decontaminated as a precaution.

Eight people at the Austrian mission, on 3rd Avenue, were decontaminated. Meantime, at the French mission, on 2nd Avenue, 15 people were decontaminated, the NYPD said.Preliminary tests on the powder sent to the Uzbekistan mission came back negative for anthrax or any other dangerous substance, the NYPD said.All three envelopes had Dallas postmarks, the AP reported.No one was hurt, police said, and the missions weren’t evacuated. The NYPD and the FBI are investigating.

Source

NY, NJ and Connecticut Push For Dirty Bomb Alarms

Three states are combining forces in an effort to mount a last-ditch appeal to rescue the $40 million New York City needs to finish building a terrorism defense system. In a letter sent to House and Senate leaders, the 42 legislators from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are calling for the funds to be approved.

The government has been investing in radiation detectors and other measures for the last three years to guard the city from someone trying to sneak in a dirty or nuclear bomb. But the White House requested zero funding for the effort in next year’s budget, and left it up to Congress.

The House passed the needed cash – $40 million for the Securing the Cities anti-nuke program, and another $10 million to help protect other ports in the nation.

The Senate, though, only passed $10 million, and New York would have to compete for it. The New York region lawmakers are urging the Senate to accept the House version.

via Source.

U.S. Attorney Charges 12 In NY With Colombian Terrorism Link

Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michele M. Leonhart, the Acting Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and Michael J. Folmar, the Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Miami Division of the FBI, announced today the unsealing of two indictments charging a total of 12 members and associates of the 57th Front of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), a Colombian terrorist group, with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and taking a U.S. citizen hostage.

The first indictment unsealed today (the “material support indictment”) charges Luis Fernando Mora-Pestana, aka “Virgilio Antonio Vidal Mora,” aka “Silver” and Julio Enrique Lemos-Moreno, aka “Andres,” who are leaders of the FARC’s 57(th) Front, along with Front associates Harold Ruben Segura Alvarez, aka “John Jairo,” aka “Cientifico;” Juanito Cordoba-Bermudez, aka “Juanito,” aka “Chechere;” and Cecilio Costa, aka “Cesar Perea,” aka “Costa;” with conspiracy to provide material support to the FARC. Juanito Cordoba-Bermudez is in custody in the Southern District of New York. The material support indictment has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Denny Chin.

The second indictment (the “hostage-taking indictment”) charges Mora-Pestana, Lemos-Moreno; Carlitos Lnu; Alexis Lnu, aka “Alexi;” Fnu Lnu, aka “El Indio;” Roque Orobio Lobon, aka “Roque Orobio Tobon;” aka “Mello,” aka “Tachuela;” Edilberto Berrio Ortiz, aka “El Gavilan;” Alejandro Palacios Rengifo, aka “El Gato,” aka “Yimi;” and Anderson Chamapuro Dogirama, aka “El Tigre,” aka “Dairon;” for their roles in the kidnapping of an American citizen for ransom in April 2008. Roque Orobio Lobon is currently being held by Colombian authorities. The hostage-taking indictment has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff. Mora-Pestana and Lemos-Moreno are the only defendants charged in both indictments.

The remaining defendants in the material support and hostage-taking indictments are at large.

As alleged in the indictments, which were unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:

The FARC was formed in 1964 and is structured as a military organization, with approximately 10,000 armed guerillas organized into seven “blocs;” 68 numbered “Fronts” (including the 57th Front); nine named “Fronts” and four urban “militias.” The FARC is dedicated to the violent overthrow of Colombia’s democratically elected government and has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State. The 57th Front operates in the territory within Colombia’s Choco Department, which borders Panama. The 57th Front supports the FARC’s terrorist activities through narcotics trafficking and kidnapping for ransom, including the kidnapping of Americans and other foreign nationals.

The hostage-taking indictment relates specifically to the 57th Front’s April 4, 2008, kidnapping of an American citizen. Mora-Pestana authorized financing for the kidnapping, and Orobio-Lobon and others carried out the kidnapping in the Costa del Este neighborhood of Panama City. The defendants held the victim for ransom, which they demanded from the victim’s relatives, informing the relatives that they would never see the victim alive again if the ransom was not paid. The victim was released in February 2009, after a member of the victim’s family paid the ransom.

The material support indictment recounts multiple discussions among the defendants regarding FARC logistics, supplies and weapons, as well as the seizures by authorities of a variety of weapons and material during February through September 2008. The material support indictment also covers the aftermath of a Feb. 22, 2008, attack by five FARC guerillas on a Panamanian police patrol boat and their subsequent capture in possession of substantial FARC weaponry and material. Mora-Pestana and Cordoba-Bermudez in particular discussed the FARC’s response to the event, and on Feb. 27, 2008, a communique, purporting to be issued by a FARC element warned the government of Panama of consequences from its capture of the five attackers and that the 57th Front had been ordered to kidnap Panamanian officials to force an exchange of captives with the prisoners, if the prisoners were not released. Other defendants discussed plans to engineer the five guerillas’ escape from a Panamanian prison. (Three of the guerrillas involved in the attack on the Panamanian police boat are now in custody in the Southern District of New York on charges relating to that event. Their case is pending before U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley, III). The material support indictment also recounts discussions concerning the April 4, 2008, kidnapping in Panama and efforts to impede that investigation.

Each of the defendants in the material support indictment is charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Each of the defendants in the hostage-taking indictment is charged with two counts of hostage taking, each of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

“As alleged in the indictments, the 57th Front is one of the most violent elements of the FARC. This group of guerrillas kidnapped a United States citizen, procured weapons and explosives, and trafficked cocaine to fuel the FARC’s terrorist activities,” said U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. “The charges unsealed today mark another important step in our efforts to combat international narco-terrorism.”

“The increased cooperation between the United States, Panama and Colombia that resulted in today’s indictments signal our shared, unrelenting commitment to combat drug traffickers and those who support them,” said DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “No country can tolerate vicious terrorist organizations such as the FARC. We and our partners in Panama and Colombia will continue to pursue the remnants of FARC’s 57th Front until its members have surrendered or are captured.”

Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Michael J. Folmar stated: “The FARC is a terrorist organization that for decades has waged a brutal and inhuman campaign for its selfish aims. This case demonstrates the FBI’s firm commitment to bringing hostage takers to justice.”

Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the DEA’s New York Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force, the Narco-Terrorism Group of the DEA’s Bogota Country Office, the DEA’s Panama City Country Office, the FBI’s Extraterritorial Hostage Taking Squad in Miami, and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. Mr. Bharara also thanked the Colombian Navy, the Colombian National Police, the Colombia Attorney General’s Office and the Panamanian National Police for their assistance in the investigation.

The prosecution is being handled by the Office’s International Narcotics Trafficking Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Rebecca M. Ricigliano and Jeffrey A. Brown are in charge of the prosecution.

The charges contained in the indictments are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Chemical Purchases Investigated In New York Terror Probe

A report from the Wall Street Journal states that investigators are trying to track purchases of chemicals that could be used to make explosives, as part of the ongoing New York / Denver terror probe.

Two officials familiar with the probe said investigators were combing records on the purchases of chemicals, particularly hydrogen peroxide, that could be used to make bombs. Peroxide-based explosives were used in a deadly attack on London’s subway and bus system in July 2005, and al Qaeda’s interest in such explosives has been a top concern for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for almost two years, according to intelligence assessments made public.

The officials stressed that the potential target of any plot remained unknown. But one of the officials said that much of the evidence authorities have gathered in raids on homes in New York City and a suburb of Denver, Colo., was suggestive of a plot to attack trains or buses, although there was no specific evidence of such a plan.

Read Full Artcle – WSJ.com

Feds Investigate Failed Attempt To Rent Truck In NY Terror Probe

The New York Daily News reports today that investigators are looking into a failed attempt to rent a truck at a Queens truck rental, for ties to a possible Al Qaeda bomb plot.

The New York end of the expanding federal probe centered on seven Afghan men who tried to rent the biggest truck at a Queens U-Haul on Sept. 9, sources told the Daily News.The size of the vehicle involved, a 26-foot-long truck, suggested the conspirators may have wanted to pack it with explosives, sources said.

[..]

The truck rental bid failed when none of the men could produce a valid credit card. All refused to surrender the identification needed to pay cash, the manager of the Flushing U-Haul said.

A team of FBI agents spent 10 hours Thursday combing through the Queens truck rental business. “We all feel very lucky right now,” U-Haul manager Robert Larson told The News.

[...]

“None of them looked suspicious,” Larson said. “They looked like laborers. Not clean-cut guys, but your average Joe’s.”

Read Full Article at new York Daily Times

FBI Again Questions Colorado Man in Terror Probe

An airport shuttle driver at the center of a federal terrorism investigation returned Thursday for further questioning by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Denver, a day after federal agents searched his apartment and interviewed him for eight hours.

Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old immigrant from Afghanistan, provided a DNA swab, a handwriting sample and fingerprints during his eight-hour interrogation on Wednesday afternoon and evening, according to one of his attorneys, Armstrong Graham. “It sounds worse than it was,” Mr. Graham said. “It was very cordial, very productive.”

The agents pressed for information about Mr. Zazi’s family and friends and his travel history, Mr. Graham said. Mr. Zazi’s wife lives in Pakistan, and his lawyers say he visits her there regularly. Last week, Mr. Zazi rented a car and drove to New York. He said he had to deal with some problems involving a coffee-vending cart that he operated for years on Wall Street. Mr. Zazi stayed with an old friend in the borough of Queens; earlier this week, the friend’s apartment and two others were searched.

Mr. Zazi hasn’t been arrested or charged. Authorities haven’t released any information about the results of their searches in Queens or in the Denver area.

Both Mr. Zazi and his lawyers have repeatedly said he has no ties to terrorism.

via Read Full Article – WSJ.com.

On another note…CBS News Reports

A Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing obtained by CBS News raises more questions about the 24-year-old Afghan national now at the center of a multi-state terror investigation.
[..]
Perhaps most interesting: In the five months between April and August of 2008, Zazi opened up 15 separate revolving credit card accounts eventually racking up more than $38,000 worth of debt ($38,786) on those cards.

In the filing, Zazi also claimed he was “unmarried,” in contrast to statements that he had traveled frequently to Pakistan to visit his wife, who his attorney said he married in 2006.

Read Full Article

Trinidad Prime Minister Eager To Rebut Allegations

We have received a response with an updated news article that the Prime Minister of Trinidad, Patrick Manning strongly disputes allegations reported in a news summary that we linked to from this site. In most cases, this site simply aggregates brief summaries of stories from a variety of national and world online news sources and provides links to the actual publishers. This story appears to be related to a much older story that has resurfaced recently, amid unproven allegations. The Prime Minister has denied all allegations.

In light of this new article and our own research of several other newer articles we have removed the story summary. National Terror Alert apologizes if anyone, for any reason felt that the story or headline implied that Prime Minister Manning was involved with the group or the NYC case, in any manner. This is not the case, nor was it, or should it be inferred.

The Attorney General of Trinidad has made a statement to Parliament saying that both the Court of Appeal and Privy Council had rejected the affidavit as been scandalous, irrelevant and had ordered it be struck off the record.

In addition to the story itself, there is a separate issue of the headline, part of which was inadvertently cut off due to the structure of the blog. We are working on a solution to prevent that from being an issue in the future. The partial headline caused part of the confusion and concern.

The summary/story has been removed from our database and archives, and again we apologize.

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Report: FBI Hostage Rescue Team Prepared For Terror Raids If Needed

The New York Daily News is reporting  that the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team arrived in New York in anticipation of an offensive to thwart any terror plot related to this weeks terror raids in Queens.

The NY Daily News also reports that another source said an earlier raid uncovered nine backpacks and cell phones. We have been unable to confirm this report.

The source told The Daily news that authorities feared a potential attack on the city subway, with its 5.2 million daily riders.FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking at a Senate hearing Wednesday, said the plot posed “no imminent danger.”"New Yorkers are well benefited from the work of the NYPD and Commissioner Ray Kelly,” said Mueller, offering no other details on the HRT deployment.

Read Full Article At NY Daily News

Local and Federal Law Enforcement officials have not confirmed this report.

FBI and Homeland Security Warn NY Police Watch For Explosives Materials

The FBI and Homeland Security officials are warning local police departments to be on the look out for materials that could be used to make explosives. The warning came as officials investigate a suspected al-Qaida associate and raided three New York City apartments.

Investigators issued warrants to search the residences for explosives material but did not find any, according to a person briefed on the matter who was not authorized to discuss the case and requested anonymity.

The joint intelligence warning, issued Monday, lists indicators that could tip off police to homemade hydrogen peroxide-based explosives, such as people with burn marks on their hands, face or arms. The warning was obtained by The Associated Press.

Source

Denver Terror Cell Plotting Attack At Center of New York Probe

The New York Daily News is reporting the Queens New York terror raids yesterday, are a part of FBI probe into Denver-based cell plotting attack on 9/11 scale.

According to the report here, the FBI probe that triggered raids in Queens is now focused on a Denver-based terror cell plotting another attack said to be on the scale of 9/11.

From the NY Daily news Article

Hundreds of FBI agents are on the ground in Colorado, conducting round-the-clock surveillance on five suspects including a man who recently visited Queens, sources told The News.

New York authorities searched three Flushing apartments and detained several men – later released – after getting a warrant to look for bomb-making components, explosive powders and fuses.

“The FBI is seriously spooked about these guys planning another 9/11,” a former senior counter-terrorism official told the News. “This is not some … FBI informant-driven case. This is the real thing.”

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters it’s an ongoing investigation with plenty of “substance.”

The 24-7 counter-terror operation included Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants used to intercept calls and e-mails, as well as overseas-linked wiretaps to eavesdrop on Arabic and Pashto-speaking targets.

Read Full Article

From The Denver Post

The focus of an anti-terrorism investigation turned to Denver today, one day after federal authorities raided several New York City homes in an investigation sparked by a suspected al-Qaeda associate from Colorado.

Multiple news organizations are reporting that the suspect, a man known to friends as Najibullah, traveled to New York from Colorado, prompting the raids. The reports say agents in New York were looking for bomb-making components.

There has been no official announcement about the investigation’s details. Kathleen Wright, spokeswoman for the Denver FBI, said she could not confirm or deny that the agency is surveilling or investigating a terror suspect in Colorado.

Denver police referred calls to the FBI.

Read Full Article

Denver Man Detained And Released

A Denver man, detained and then released Monday in connection with the New York City terrorism raids, had recently traveled to Pakistan before he showed up in New York last Thursday with bomb-making documents, other law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Hundreds of FBI agents are “on the ground in Colorado, conducting round-the-clock surveillance on five suspects,” the Daily News reported.

Source

New York Subway System Still Vulnerable To Terror Attack

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to create a state-of-the-art surveillance system for New York City’s subway system, the monitoring technology is still not in place and experts say the city’s underground transportation tunnels remain a leading and unnecessarily vulnerable target to terrorism eight years after the 9/11 attacks devastated the country.

“Terrorists, if they did surveillance, would know that security hasn’t really improved since 9/11,” said former national security officer Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant.

After the terrorist attacks, a classified report for NYC’s Metropolitan Transit Authority revealed that an explosion and a breach in the many subway tunnels that run under Manhattan’s East River could shut down the tunnels for years, which former MTA security official Nick Casale said could result in the loss of thousands of lives.

Full Article and Video

LaGuardia Airport Reopens After Bomb Scare

Authorities temporarily closed one of the terminals at New York’s busy LaGuardia airport on Saturday morning and took a man into custody after discovering what turned out to be a fake bomb in his bag.

Most of the airport’s main terminal was closed at 5:30 a.m./0930 GMT and travelers were allowed to return about 3 1/2 hours later. Jack Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said the terminal’s Concourse C, where the man was taken into custody, would remain closed until a crime scene investigation had been completed.

Kelly described the suspect as emotionally disturbed and said his bag contained batteries and wires. A police bomb squad was called in and local media reports described the bag’s contents as a fake bomb that was not dangerous.

Read Article

Feds: Man Plotted Terror Attack On Mass Transit

A young man whose journey from Patchogue to Pakistan took him to an al-Qaida training camp and an attack on a U.S. military base emerged yesterday as a key player in al-Qaida plots against area mass transit systems, as he continued to cooperate in multiple investigations of international terrorism.

Bryant Neal Vinas, 26, was captured in Pakistan in November. He pleaded guilty secretly in January to aiding in a 2008 rocket attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, training with al-Qaida and supplying information on city subways and the Long Island Rail Road to the terrorist group, according to Brooklyn federal court records unsealed yesterday.

Following in the footsteps of previous American terror trainees such as John Walker Lindh and Jose Padilla, the licensed truck driver who grew up in Medford provided information after his arrest in Peshawar that led to a warning to area commuters in November about a possible attack on mass transit, law enforcement officials told Newsday.

“He . . . turned on his country,” one official said, calling Vinas “the real deal.”

Read Full Article

Feds – U.S. Man Gave Al-Qaeda NYC Subway Information

Authorities revealed Wednesday that an American — charged with providing information to al-Qaida on the New York transit system and attacking a U.S. military base in Afghanistan — has been a secret witness in the fight against terror both here and overseas.

Court papers unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn identified the defendant as Bryant Neal Vinas, also known as “Ibrahim.”

His identity had been kept secret since his indictment late last year, and federal prosecutors refused to discuss his background Wednesday.

But a law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the case, said Vinas provided critical information that led to a security alert about the New York City subway system last year.

Federal authorities issued an alert around Thanksgiving last year saying the FBI had received a “plausible but unsubstantiated” report that al-Qaida terrorists in late September may have discussed attacking the subway system around the holidays. The origin of that report, the source said, was Vinas.

Prosecutors charged Vinas in a rocket attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan in September 2008. Court papers allege he also gave “expert advice and assistance … on the New York transit system and Long Island Railroad.”

For five months last year, Vinas received “military-style training” from al-Qaida, according to court papers.

Source

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