| Behind the Lines for Wednesday, October 6, 2010 — 3 P.M. Behind the lines: In wake of Euro-plot, intel analysts poring over Osama bin Laden's latest taped screed for "coded killing instructions" . . . Killer apps: WeatherBug info to be shared with DHS to give "guidance to first responders as to where toxic clouds might be moving" . . . We're all Canadians now: "Don't walk around with the American flag on your back," ex-DHS boss Mike Chertoff advises Americans in Europe. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- “U.S. and allied intelligence agencies are on a near-global manhunt — from South Asia and the Middle East to North Africa and Europe — for teams of al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists” implicated in the alleged Euro-plot, The Washington Times’ Eli Lake relates. Against that backdrop, intel analysts are poring over Osama bin Laden’s latest communication for “coded killing instructions,” Rep. Pete King, R-N.Y., tells The New York Post’s S.A. Miller and Chuck Bennett. State’s related travel alert, incidentally, “also sent a clear message to militants: ‘We’re on to you’ [and] the repercussions could cut both ways,” Reuters’ Phil Stewart analyzes. Politricks:“How is it that the United States issues a cryptic terrorism alert about travel to Europe less than a month before the most pivotal, midterm election in years and barely a politician even twitches?” Chad Pergram questions for FOX News. “It’s well-known that terrorist threats help Republicans,” Michael Tomasky blogs in The Guardian as to the domestic political implications of this latest alarum. Post-midterms, President Obama is likely to break up his remaining priorities into smaller bites in hope of securing at least some proposals on terrorism policy, among others, The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Weisman reviews. Retaining or promoting White House counterterrorist John Brennan only affirms his “willful blindness, or worse, toward the . . . supremacist totalitarian politico-military-legal program authorities of Islam call Shariah,” Frank Gaffney growls in The Washington Times. Feds: The would-be Times Square bomber smirked yesterday when a federal judge handed him a life sentence, The Washington Post’s Jerry Markon reports — as The Christian Science Monitor’s Ron Scherer predicts the penalty will be served in a Colorado supermax alongside the “shoe bomber.” Live info from the WeatherBug network will be shared with DHS officials “to provide guidance to first responders as to where toxic clouds might be moving,” J.J. Green reports for D.C.’s WTOP 103.5 FM. DHS wants to make it easier for small businesses to certify having met voluntary preparedness standards, Washington Technology’s Alice Lipowicz relates. “Washington should give the Pentagon the resources needed to get homeland defense done right,” James Jay Carafano inveighs in The Washington Examiner. State and local: A DHSer tells CNN an intel bulletin went out to state and local law enforcers advising vigilance while traveling in Europe a day before the alert was made public. DHS warns that fraudulent text messages ostensibly from FEMA have been sent to disaster survivors in the Midwest, The Dubuque Telegraph Herald relates. “Nebraska may appear to be an unlikely setting for swelling anti-immigrant sentiment,” The New York Times leads in a look at the possible spread of Arizona-style laws. Whatever their other differences, both candidates for Texas governor “agree on one point: Someone has to secure the Texas border,” The Abilene Reporter-News notes. Follow the money: With the Afghan opium harvest dropping 48 percent this year, higher prices could draw more farmers into the dope biz, which helps fund the Taliban, The Christian Science Monitor hears U.N. experts forecasting. Saudi Arabia’s International Islamic Relief Organization has stepped up efforts to clear its name in a highly-publicized terror-funding case filed by the families of 9/11 victims, Arab News notes. “Terror financing is one of the most important factors in combating terrorism,” Dhaka’s Daily Star pronounces in praise of new steps taken by Bangladesh’s government to amend laws against money laundering to plug terror funding loopholes. Millions of U.S. tax dollars may have been paid to Afghani Taliban fighters to secure a U.S. development project, the Los Angeles Times sees a USAID audit documenting. Bugs ‘n bombs: A Decatur County (Ga.) drive-thru flu shot clinic afforded local authorities “a chance to test our ability to swiftly, efficiently dispense medicines during a mass-exposure event like a bioterrorism attack,” a health official tells The Bainbridge News — as BioPrepWatch.com sees the WMD-battling Defense Threat Reduction Agency searching “for new antibiotics at the bottom of the ocean that could be used to fight bioterrorism.” A New Jersey man accused of joining al Qaeda in Yemen spoke openly of militant views while working at U.S. nuclear plants, The New York Times hears the Nuclear Regulatory Commission I.G. reporting in a call for tighter personnel security. “A disturbing realization has emerged from the wreckage of a deadly pipeline explosion in California: There are thousands of pipes just like it across the United States,” Homeland Security Newswire leads. Perilous journeys: “Don’t walk around with the American flag on your back,” The Associated Press hears ex-DHS chief Mike Chertoff admonishing, in re: the recent Euro-travel alert — as the Post sees overseas Americans registering as instructed with their embassies in record numbers. (“Would you change your travel plans out of concern for a possible terror attack?” The Guardian polls readers.) State’s travel alert “is having little impact on U.S. airlines — at least for now,” USA Today assesses — while Cruise Critic reports that none of the luxury lines has announced itinerary changes or increased security measures, and Deutsche Welle sees German authorities downplaying the danger. “Experts whose job it is to assess risk said the threat of being killed in a terrorist attack is low compared to garden variety dangers we all face on a daily basis,” Boston’s WCVB 5 News relatedly ponders. The air up there: Bradley International security screeners stopped a “prankster” (aka a total idiot) from boarding a flight with a pellet gun, NBC Connecticut notes. Ex-Maine senator and Defense secretary William S. Cohen “has a derisive attitude toward airport security and the hardworking agents of the TSA,” The New York Post passes along. A mid-flight bomb alert that grounded a Moscow-Singapore flight was found to be a false alarm “after a bomb squad spent an entire night combing 1,200-plus pieces of luggage,” The Calcutta Telegraph recounts — as The Times of India notes that the Singapore Airlines flight had to remain airborne for three hours after the captain was alerted. Terror tech:In the latest advance for the booming science of biometrics, boffins have come up with a means for identifying ears with a success rate of 99.6 percent, Technology Review relates. DHS is fielding vans “equipped with back-scatter x-ray technology that can be used on the public street without the knowledge of those being irradiated,” AOMID News assails. “In 2010, technology has once again leaped passed the law, and it has done so in an age of global terrorism,” Emergency Management maintains in reference to the dilemmas posed by electronic communications. A new stellar “potentially hazardous object” has been discovered: an asteroid about 150 feet in diameter that will come within four million miles of Earth in mid-month, HSNW, again, relates. Cyberia: A large-scale cyberattack against the United States could impact the global economy by “an order of magnitude surpassing” the attacks of Sept. 11., The Atlantic hears ex-intel chief Mike McConnell alerting. In future wars, “nations will be brought to their knees by the press of a button. Yes, it is all but official that the era of cyberwarfare has begun,” Sri Lanka’s Daily Mirror similarly reflects — while Stars and Stripes IDs the Stuxnet worm afflicting Iran’s nuke plant as demarking a “new phase” in cyberbattle, and the L.A. Times hears Tehran saying the worm did not delay Iran’s first atom power station. “Clearly the evidence is mounting that cyberattacks are not only disruptive, but deadly,” Defense Tech notes, citing a Nigeria’s Daily Sun describing the recent “cyber-assassination” of a mob boss. CIO Magazine, meanwhile, itemizes five recent security threats that highlight the value of DHS’s National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Courts and rights:In the U.S. embassy bomber trial slated to begin today, prosecutors will omit unmirandized confessional statements the Gitmo detainee gave to military interrogators, The New York Times tells. The Fort Hood shooter’s attorney “is developing a defense strategy that boils down to one thing — trying to save his client’s life,” The San Antonio Express-News leads. The trial of an Illinois man accused of attempting to bomb a federal courthouse, meanwhile, has been delayed until next year, The Decatur Herald & Review relates. The foreign bar: Canadian prosecutors are appealing a Superior Court’s release of accused terrorist Misbahuddin Ahmed on bail, The Montreal Gazette relates — while CNN sees France requesting extradition of an al Qaeda-linked French citizen of Algerian descent arrested in Italy, and The Ottawa Citizen covers France’s continuing efforts to extradite from Canada, again, a suspect in the 1980 Paris synagogue blast. After a long-running battle, an E.U. court has annulled a European Commission decision to freeze the assets of a Saudi man suspected of al Qaeda ties, Agence France-Presse reports. French terror police have arrested 12 people and seized guns and ammo in two separate raids, Sky News notes. A Yemeni judge was threatened on Monday by al Qaeda suspects at the start of their trial, AFP also relates. The Virgin Suicides: “Future suicide bombers around the globe woke up with a jolt today, when they realized they faced a surprising religious announcement from a leading Iranian cleric,” Glossy News notes. “The Super Exclusively Grand Ayatollah in Iran acknowledged that the supposed 72 virgins waiting in heaven for any departed suicide bomber who has chosen the path of martyrdom are not always young. He also added with a grimace that they also aren’t always girls. He backed up his claim by showing a photo of Nori, a 78-year old certified virgin who recently passed away. ‘Look, someone’s going to get Nori. There’s a severe shortage in heaven now,’ the imam said. He also elaborated that some of the Soldiers of Islam that had met their end in martyrdom will have to compromise their sexuality once in heaven, since there is a surplus of virgin men there, too.” |
CQ Behind the Lines
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