SWAT Options For Multiple Shooter Terrorist Attacks

Excellent Article by Lt.Andrew Esposito details how police officers need to prepare to tactically resolve a mass hostage terror siege. Important read for those in the law enforcement community.

The threat of an international terrorist attack against our country is not to be taken lightly by emergency responders. In fact, I see it being taken very seriously in the New York Metropolitan area; agencies are meeting, communicating and taking proactive steps to counter potential terrorist efforts.

As professional police officers we are all aware of the threat. The training is out there to provide information and resources on how to deal with terrorism, whether it is domestic or foreign. In this article I would like to address one area that I feel we in law enforcement need to take action on immediately. The immediate employment of police officers to a terrorist attack as first responders is inevitable; I believe that the one thing that is not being addressed is what is going to happen to those first responding officers.

Read Full Article at Police1

NYTOA – The New York Tactical Officers Association

Gunman Opens Fire At ABB Power Company – St. Louis

A gunman armed with an assault rifle stormed a power company this morning in north St. Louis, shooting at least three people. At least one shooting victim is presumed dead. Some employees at the business ran to the rooftop to escape the gunfire. At least one man barricaded himself in a maintenance room.

The shots erupted at 6:30 a.m. at ABB Power, at 4350 Semple Avenue. The gunman was apparently still in the building as of 8:30 a.m. A company supervisor told police that the gunman was a disgruntled worker who may have recently lost his job.

Police and ambulances were coodinating efforts at a staging area at Bircher and Semple. SWAT team members were called out. Details provided by police spokeswoman Schron Jackson were sketchy. But conversations between dispatchers and police on the scene paint a horrific scene — where bleeding victims are hiding, afraid to come out, and commanding officers early on were even getting conflicting reports about the race of the elusive gunman.

About 6:30 a.m. today, police got a call from a woman, very upset, who said that someone came in to the east side of the building and started shooting. “They are still shooting,” a dispatcher told police officers rushing to the scene at 6:34 a.m.

via STLtoday.com.

News Video – Fox 2

Pakistani Police – 13 Militants Arrested, Terror Plots Foiled

Pakistani police say they thwarted multiple terror plots by arresting 13 militants with links to al-Qaida or the Taliban during raids in southern and eastern Pakistan.

Police said Monday they seized seven men, suicide vests and explosives during a raid in the southern city of Karachi. Authorities said the men belong to the banned al-Qaida-linked Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

The group has previously been suspected of plotting to assassinate government officials, as well as masterminding last year's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in 2003.

And police in eastern Pakistan say they captured six suspected Taliban militants in Punjab province. Senior police officer Usman Anwar says the suspected militants had planned to attack foreign targets and places of worship.

Authorities in both cases say the arrests foiled militants' plans to stage terror attacks.

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How Safe Is Pakistan’s Nuclear Arsenal

The safety of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is a cause for international concern. Even as the Zardari regime is waging a war against Taliban in the Swat valley with support of the US, Taliban has made known its resolve to seize control of the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan and use it to fight the US. The US won’t allow Pakistan’s nuclear arms to pass into the hands of Taliban.

To checkmate that possibility, US has enough safeguards in place to take over Pak’s nuclear weapons in  case Islamist fighters came close to doing so. US President Barack Obama recently expressed the confidence that Pakistani government has safeguarded its nuclear arsenal. However, no one has been able to ascertain the validity of Pakistan’s assurances about their nuclear weapons security.

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Pakistans Nuclear Nightmare

Al-Qaida says it will use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons against the U.S. if it ever gets the chance. We’re not surprised. Nor would we be surprised if it eventually got the opportunity.

‘God willing, the (Pakistani) nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans, and the mujahedeen would take them and use them against the Americans.” So says Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, al-Qaida’s top commander in Afghanistan, where the terror group has found a friend and ally in the Taliban.

If you think 9/11 was bad, just wait until al-Qaida gets a nuke, which is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Based both in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s untamed northwest frontier, al-Qaida in April launched a major offensive into Pakistan’s Swat Valley, engaging in fierce fighting with Pakistani army forces.

Swat is just 60 miles from Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad. If al-Qaida beats the Pakistan army in Swat, what will keep it from marching on Islamabad and gaining control of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal — said to number as many as 55 warheads? If you said Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, guess again. It’s riddled with fundamentalist al-Qaida sympathizers.

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Al Qaeda Says They Would Use Pakistani Nuclear Weapons

If it were in a position to do so, Al Qaeda would use Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in its fight against the United States, a top leader of the group said in remarks aired on Sunday.

Pakistan has been battling al Qaeda’s Taliban allies in the Swat Valley since April after their thrust into a district 100 km 60 miles northwest of the capital raised fears the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands.

“God willing, the nuclear weapons will not fall into the hands of the Americans and the mujahideen would take them and use them against the Americans,” Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the leader of al Qaeda’s in Afghanistan, said in an interview with Al Jazeera television.

Abu al-Yazid was responding to a question about U.S. safeguards to seize control over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in case Islamist fighters came close to doing so.

“We expect that the Pakistani army would be defeated in Swat … and that would be its end everywhere, God willing.”

Why You Should Worry About Pakistans Nukes

Few who lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 will forget the fear and apprehension they felt. The world stood on the brink of a nuclear holocaust as U.S. ships imposed a blockade to force Soviet missiles out of Cuba. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief as the Soviets agreed to remove their missiles in exchange for an American pledge not to invade Cuba, but all agreed a cataclysmic nuclear war had been only narrowly averted. Of the lessons that came from this episode, the one that stands out is that never again should the United States be put in a position where its cities are so close to nuclear destruction. Many assumed that lesson had been learned as decades of arms control, détente, and the end of the Cold War seemingly removed the specter of nuclear attack from our collective consciousness.

Well, just when you thought it was safe not to worry about nuclear annihilation, a new crisis has emerged that actually poses a greater threat of an American city being obliterated by a nuclear weapon than anything that occurred during the Cold War: As Pakistan becomes engulfed in chaos, there is a real chance that its nuclear weapons will fall into the hands of extremists determined to kill as many Americans as they can. Although the public has yet to pay much attention to what is happening in Pakistan and there is nowhere near the level of hysteria that gripped the United States nearly 50 years ago, the prospect of a nuclear weapon from Pakistan exploding on American soil is much higher than a Soviet attack from Cuba ever was. If anything can make one nostalgic for the bad old days of the Cold War, what is happening in Pakistan today is surely it.

It helps to first look back at the Cold War to see why the current nuclear threat from Pakistan is so much worse. To be sure, during the Cold War the United States and the Soviet Union each had some 10,000 nuclear warheads ready to strike each other. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could prevent the other from launching a devastating attack, nor could either country defend itself once a strike had been launched. The conflict between communism and capitalism, a series of regional confrontations, and the natural competition between the two strongest states in a bipolar system all threatened to turn the Cold War hot. And yet, a superpower nuclear war never happened. The reason the Soviet Union and the United States never came to nuclear blows is crystal clear: Deterrence worked. The leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States recognized that launching a nuclear attack would be suicidal, and neither leadership embraced death for their countries or themselves.

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Pakistan to Attack Taliban in Bin Laden’s Lair

Pakistan is to extend its war on the Taliban beyond Swat into the fiercely independent tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where Usama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda leadership are believed to be hiding.

“We’re going to go into Waziristan, all these regions, with army operations,” President Asif Ali Zardari told The Sunday Times in an interview. “Swat is just the start. It’s a larger war to fight.”

He said Pakistan would need billions of pounds in military assistance and aid for up to 1.7m refugees, the biggest movement of people since the country’s split from India in 1947.

To help take on the militants, the Pakistan army is for the first time to accept counterinsurgency training from British and American troops on its own soil.

“We need to develop our capability and we need much more support,” said Zardari. “We need much, much more than the $1 billion [military aid] we’ve been getting, which is nothing. We’ve got 150,000 troops in [the tribal areas] — just the movement of that number would cost $1 billion.”

Pakistan’s army is geared towards conventional warfare against its old enemy India. There have long been concerns in Whitehall and Washington at its ineffectiveness and lack of commitment against militants.

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U.S. Has Plan to Secure Pakistan Nukes if Country Falls to Taliban

The United States has a detailed plan for infiltrating Pakistan and securing its mobile arsenal of nuclear warheads if it appears the country is about to fall under the control of the Taliban, Al Qaeda or other Islamic extremists.

American intelligence sources say the operation would be conducted by Joint Special Operations Command, the super-secret commando unit headquartered at Fort Bragg, N.C.

JSOC is the military’s chief terrorists hunting squad and has units now operating in Afghanistan on Pakistan’s western border. But a secondary mission is to secure foreign nuclear arsenals — a role for which JSOC operatives have trained in Nevada.

The mission has taken on added importance in recent months, as Islamic extremists have taken territory close to the capital of Islamabad and could destabilize Pakistan’s shaky democracy.

“We have plans to secure them ourselves if things get out of hand,” said a U.S. intelligence source who has deployed to Afghanistan. “That is a big secondary mission for JSOC in Afghanistan.”

The source said JSOC has been updating its mission plan for the day President Obama gives the order to infiltrate Pakistan.

“Small units could seize them, disable them and then centralize them in a secure location,” the source said.

A secret Defense Intelligence Agency document first disclosed in 2004 said Pakistan has a nuclear arsenal of 35 weapons. The document said it plans to more than double the arsenal by 2020.

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Pakistan Most Dangerous Country In The World

Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have made it “the most dangerous country in the world,” Canada’s Defense Minister Peter MacKay said Monday.

“I’m extremely concerned,” MacKay told a press conference. “The instability in Pakistan in my view makes Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world.”

Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling Islamist fighters in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants — branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.

Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.

MacKay said the Taliban’s recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, where Canada has deployed some 2,800 troops.

“As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan, the problem remains very real, very difficult,” he said.

via AFP: Pakistan ‘most dangerous country in the world’.

Pakistan Won’t Disclose Location of Nuclear Weapons To US

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said his country isn’t adding to its nuclear arsenal and doesn’t have to disclose the location of its weapons to the U.S.

Pakistan is “not adding to our stockpile as such,” Zardari said today on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “Why do we need more?”

Asked whether Pakistan would tell U.S. intelligence officials where all its nuclear weapons are located, to allow for a joint strategy to keep them secure, Zardari said Pakistan is a sovereign country.

“Why don’t you do the same with other countries yourself?” Zardari said in the interview taped May 7. “I think this is a sovereignty issue, and we have a right to our own sovereignty.”

President Barack Obama said last month that, while Pakistan’s civilian government is “very fragile,” he is confident that the country’s nuclear arsenal is secure. He also said that Pakistan’s military is taking the threat of internal enemies seriously and recognizes the hazard of nuclear weapons “falling into the wrong hands.”

“We have confidence in their security procedures and elements and believe that the security of those sites is adequate,” General David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, said today on “Fox News Sunday

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Pakistan’s Vows To Eliminate Taliban

Pakistan’s Prime Minister used a late-night, nationally televised address to officially announce a military operation to “eliminate” the Taliban in the country’s volatile northwest, where the largest human exodus in South Asia since the partition of India and Pakistan continued for the twelfth straight day.

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And in response…

Angered by Pakistan government’s decision to launch an all out war against them, the Taliban has vowed to “eliminate” country’s top leadership including President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and their close family members.

“We thought that being a member of a religious family, Gilani will support our demand of implementing Sharia in the Malakand division but instead he has announced an all-out war against us, which has angered our commanders as well as fighters,” an unnamed Taliban commander told The News daily.

The militant commander, who spoke to the newspaper by phone, said after Gilani declared during an address to the nation on Thursday that the Taliban would be wiped out from the Swat Valley and adjoining areas, the militants had started planning to “eliminate the top leaders of the ruling alliance, including President, Prime Minister and their close family members and aides”.

The commander said Gilani’s hometown of Multan and tomb of former premier Benazir Bhutto might also be targeted by the militants.

“Besides, the personnel and installations of security forces, we have now also included civilian rulers in our hit list. We will definitely need some time to plan our actions but it is not impossible for us and we have all the means to implement our plan of attack anywhere in Pakistan,” he claimed.

The militant commander confirmed that the chief of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, was advising militants in Swat in their fight against the security forces. He said Mehsud had advised the Swat chapter of his group to plan attacks on civilian leaders.

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Pakistan Troops Bomb Taliban, Govt Says No More Dialogue

Unleashing an all-out war on the Taliban, Pakistani fighter jets today pounded militant positions in the restive tribal belt, where a son of a pro-Taliban cleric who negotiated a controversial peace deal in Swat was killed in shelling by troops.

As the government said there will be no more negotiations with the Taliban in Swat and they will be dealt with sternly, security forces targeted militants holed up in Malam Jabba, Matta and Khawaza Khela of the valley.

Thousands of panic-stricken civilians streamed out of the area as fighting intensified. Pakistan government estimates that about 500,000 people could be displaced due to the escalating military operations in the troubled region. About 40,000 people have already fled the valley.

Chairing a meeting of his cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani sent out a “clear message” that the militants will be “crushed with full force” and not given any relaxation as peace had not been restored even after the government implemented Shariah or Islamic law in Swat.

“The writ of the government will be established without listening to these elements from now onwards,” he said.

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Taliban Islamists Nearing Pakistani Nukes

Israel and the US should be focusing more on the Taliban’s rise in nuclear Pakistan than on Iran’s nuclear aims, more and more experts are saying.

“Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda,” writes former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton. Similarly, “Nuclear Taliban/Al Qaida is a far more ominous threat than nuclear Iran could ever be,” writes Byron Ellis, who heads the international Jethro Project consulting company.

Bolton, writing in The Wall Street Journal on Monday, warns that the U.S. must take “hard steps” to prevent Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal from falling into the hands of Taliban. U.S. President Barack Obama’s statement of confidence last week that the nuclear arsenal will not fall to the terrorists is “not reassuring,” Bolton writes, “in light of the Taliban’s military and political gains throughout Pakistan.”

There is a “tangible risk that several weapons could slip out of military control,” Bolton warns. “Such weapons could then find their way to Al Qaeda or other terrorists, with obvious global implications.”

Even graver is the possibility that Pakistan’s government could collapse entirely, enabling “a well-organized, tightly disciplined group to seize control of the entire Pakistani government.”

“To prevent either scenario, Pakistan must move to the top of our strategic agenda, albeit closely related to Afghanistan,” he wrote. “Neither greater economic assistance, nor more civilian advisers upcountry, nor stronger democratic institutions will eliminate the strategic threat nearly soon enough… We must strengthen pro-American elements in Pakistan’s military so they can purge dangerous Islamicists from their ranks; roll back Taliban advances; and, together with our increased efforts in Afghanistan, decisively defeat the militants on either side of the border.”

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