Soldier Arrested After C4 Military Explosives Found At Home

An Army Special Forces soldier was arrested in Tennessee on Monday following the discovery of 100 pounds of C4 explosives outside his home. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent Eric Kehn said he expects the man will face more charges related to the discovery of the explosives according to news reports on News Channel 5. Authorities say the explosives have no known link to terrorism. Video Link

The explosives were found in crates. The material was sealed in watertight containers and partially buried.

Source

From The Leaf Chronicle

Timothy Ryan Richards of the 5th Special Forces Group, has been charged with knowingly receiving and possessing firearms not registered to him in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Federal and military officials searched Richards’ home early Monday morning after a pair of hunters found the C-4 plastic explosives in a field by the house, at 1880 Johnson Road, on Sunday at about 4:30 p.m.

Maj. April Olsen, 5th Group spokeswoman, said Richards was taken to the county jail and was transferred to federal custody. He was cooperating with authorities in the investigation, Olsen said.

Eric Kehn, special agent and public information officer with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the investigation is ongoing.

“Our explosive recovery effort investigation continues,” Kehn said. “He is appearing in court on some different charges, and that outlines what he’s currently being charged with.”

Those charges included Richards’ having a Saber, 5.56mm-caliber rifle with a barrel less than 16 inches long and a Swedish K .45-caliber machine gun, according to the criminal complaint filed by ATF Special Agent Jamie Smith.

The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court, Middle District of Tennessee, in Nashville.

Olsen said the search was conducted by agents from the ATF, the FBI and U.S. Army Criminal Investigations

via Read More -The Leaf Chronicle.

Feds Cite Racist Chatter for ‘Higher State of Alert’ in Inauguration

Federal agents are on “a higher state of alert” because of hate talk by white supremacists about Barack Obama’s Inauguration, officials told the New York Daily News on Tuesday.

“That chatter is out there, no doubt about it,” one senior FBI agent in Washington told me this afternoon, adding that no credible plots against the 56th Presidential Inauguration have been detected.

The Bureau has ordered agents in all 56 field offices to “shake the trees” in advance of the Jan. 20 swearing-in of the 44th President, who will become the first African-American to occupy the Oval Office. “They’re talking to sources to determine if there is any threat information in regard to the Inauguration,” the FBI source said.

“Everybody in law enforcement dealing with that particular white supremacist ‘clientele’ is on a higher state of alert,” a senior agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The News.

The ATF has expertise infiltrating white supremacist groups. A classified threat assessment for the Inauguration by the FBI and Homeland Security Department citing agitated hate groups was sent to police agencies this week.

Counterterrorism officials have also picked up chatter from Islamic militants, but the agitated domestic hate groups are “the big concern,” said another FBI official.

But Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan told reporters at a briefing with local officials: “We have no credible intelligence to suggest a credible threat to Obama’s Inauguration.”

During Obama’s campaign, white racists in Colorado and Tennessee were charged in separate plots against the candidat

via Counterterrorism Blog