| Behind the Lines for Monday, Oct. 18, 2010 — 3 P.M. If at first: Intel indicates Times Square car bomb-attempting Taliban cell may have another operative inside the United States preparing a second attack . . . Seal of approval: Napolitano boasts "a fine record" on deporting illegals and is ejecting just the right ones, Patrick Buchanan praises . . . A dish best eaten cold: Terror suspect from Germany killed by a U.S. drone in Pakistan was in contact with 9/11 collaborators just days before they struck. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- New intel indicates that the Pakistani Taliban plotters behind the failed Times Square bombing may have another operative situated inside the United States preparing a second attack, FOX News’ Mike Levine and Jennifer Griffin reveal. (A NYC man was held Friday for falsely claiming in a May e-mail to the FBI that Taliban terrorists, again, are plotting an attack on Times Square and other Gotham targets, NBC New York’s Jonathan Dienst adds.) Mexican cartels are dispatching “sicarios” into Arizona to kill bandits stealing drug loads, The Washington Times’ Jerry Seper belatedly hears DHS warning in May — while The Christian Science Monitor’s Patrik Jonsson suggests a U.S. jet-skier murdered on a Texas-Mexico border lake was mistaken as a drug cartel spy by “pirates” linked to a rival clan. Alien shores: Janet Napolitano boasts a fine record on deporting aliens “compared with the Bush administration, [and her] priorities, criminals out first, are what immigration reformers have demanded for decades,” The American Conservative’s Patrick Buchanan praises. DHS’s crowing over expulsions should prompt a look at “the huge political, financial, and human costs associated with this administration’s unapologetic and tough approach,” rabble.ca’s Catherine A. Traywick reproves. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., meantime, wants ICE to redact and release docs related to a drunken-driving illegal accused of killing a nun, WTOP 103.5 FM’s Hank Silverberg relates. In the month after ICE attorneys began reviewing Houston’s immigration court docket, judges dismissed more than 200 cases, a sevenfold leap, the Chronicle’s Susan Carroll recounts. Feds: Three years before the 2008 Mumbai assault, federal agents in NYC investigated a tip that a U.S. businessman was training in Pakistan with the group that later executed the attack, ProPublica’s Sebastian Rotella reveals. A terror suspect from Germany killed last week by a U.S. drone in the Pakistani borderlands was in contact with 9/11 collaborators just days before they struck, The Wall Street Journal’s David Crawford learns. The NSA and DHS “have breathed the same air on cybersecurity for seven years, but it’s taken until [now] for the two executive branch departments to make their union official,” The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder analyzes. DHS’s Napolitano went to Baltimore on Friday to “check on the readiness of the region’s first responders,” WBAL 11 News notes — while the Los Angeles Times sees her slated to hit San Diego on a similar mission today. State and local: A Grand Junction, Colo., billboard depicting President Obama as a terrorist, among other unadmirable qualities, is being taken down, NBC 11 News notes. Major concerns about DHS-state intel fusion centers “include the actual or potential involvement of the military in domestic policing,” the rightist American Free Press frets. Undergoing a $2.5 million renovation, New York’s State Preparedness Training Center is being redesigned as a “simulations complex” that will create settings mimicking actual terrorist events for responder practice exercises, The Utica Observer-Dispatch describes. Louisiana corrections officials are appealing to their congressional delegation to have a Somali prisoner deemed too violent for the low-security federal facility he currently inhabits shifted to a maximum-security prison, The Alexandria Town Talk tells. Bugs ‘n bombs: Federal agencies are working with first responders on the first nationwide standard for minimum bomb suit performance standards, TechNewsDaily tells. Two contrarian mathematicians now argue that an examination of how the network actually functions would show that the U.S. electrical grid is probably more secure than many realize, Homeland Security News Wire notes — or, as io9 indelicately phrases it: “The U.S. electrical grid is too crappy to be vulnerable to terrorist attack.” Cold war doctrines on responding to nuclear attack need to be applied to the 21st century cyberthreats, The Register hears ex-DHS chief Michael Chertoff urging in London. An article by a top Iranian defense ministry adviser calling on Tehran to prepare for nuclear war is “likely a preparation for the day when Iran declares that escalating threats require it to build nuclear weapons,” FrontPage Magazine muses. Close air support: White powder released by a broken packet inside a suitcase caused a security stir at Tulsa International Airport Friday morning, KTUL 8 News notes. The Port Authority and TSA mounted an emergency response exercise at Newark airport’s Terminal B on Saturday, The Asbury Park Press reports — as The Newark Star-Ledger sees that and other New York area air hubs still awaiting their promised full-body scanners. Airport security may soon start paying a lot more attention to your ears, found to have one-of-a-kind features unique to each person, much like fingerprints, Discovery News updates. “Ask airport security workers who runs [TSA] and the ‘good old boys’ club’ comes up a lot,” Labor Notes leads in re: the unionization struggle. Security-focused New Zealand airports are critical to the success of next year’s Rugby World Cup, The Queenstown News hears a transportation ministry big asserting — while Agence France-Presse has Nigeria tightening airport security Saturday after the militant group threatened an imminent attack in the nation’s capital. Coming and going: A Saturday drill at Manhattan’s Grand Central Station was Metro-North’s 28th terror/disaster exercise since 9/11, NBC New York notes — while NY1 describes the event as a TSA requirement aimed at testing emergency communication and coordination. Mumbai railway police have “launched a drive to train passengers to prevent or combat untoward situations, including a terror strike,” The Press Trust of India informs. Utah police have released onboard security camera shots of the man who stole and crashed a school bus before fleeing, The Salt Lake Tribune tells — and see The National Terror Alert for a reminder on the alleged school bus-terror nexus. CBP could improve its ability to screen high-risk cargo coming into the United States by updating its security targeting criteria with more data on shipments, Homeland Security Today sees a GAO report advising. Courts and rights: As 10 more soldiers testified at his probable cause hearing Friday, Fort Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan “gave them all the same impassive look that he has maintained during three previous days,” The Dallas Morning News updates. The Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality calls Justice’s recent finding of no civil rights violations in the FBI shooting death of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah “disingenuous and insincere,” The Detroit Free Press reports — as another Free Press item sees a Syrian singer pleading guilty Friday to lying in naturalization proceedings about his ties to a suspected terrorist organization. An Oregon CBP officer, finally, has been arrested for possession of heroin within 1,000 feet of a school, The Clackamas Review relates. Child’s play: Washington and Ottawa officials are negotiating toward a plea deal for Omar Khadr that would terminate his interrupted military trial and return Guantanamo’s youngest detainee to his native Canada, The Toronto Star says. “The real problem is not the political embarrassment generated by the trial of this one alleged child soldier [but] with the military commissions themselves, and the shaky legal framework that created them,” Daphne Eviatar posits for Politico. Any U.S. request that Canada allow Khadr to serve part of his sentence there “would present Prime Minister Stephen Harper with an exquisite political dilemma,” The Toronto Globe and Mail adds. Over there: A prominent Dutch terror suspect serving 15 years for wounding four police officers with a hand grenade has renounced his Islamic radicalism, NewsTime notes. A top Pakistan Taliban leader who recently warned that terrorists would launch U.S. and European attacks “very soon” has reportedly been killed in a U.S. drone attack, The Washington Times tells — as AFP sees at least four Pakistani militants killed by a drone-fired missile Friday, hours after a similar strike nearby killed three insurgents. Warning of terror attack, Australia has raised its travel warning for Yemen to its highest possible level, The Dawn records — as The Associated Press sees the U.S. terror war there foiled by politics. “There are a lot of different ways of promoting the terrorist message, but few people have been as successful at doing so as Americans Adam Gadahn and Anwar al-Awlaki,” NPR leads. Qaeda Qorner: Saudi intel yesterday warned of a new al Qaeda terror threat in Europe, “notably France,” AP reports. Hundreds of Iraqi Sunni fighters boasting extensive knowledge about the U.S. military from membership in the Awakening Councils appear to have rejoined al-Qaeda-in-Mesopotamia, The New York Times tells. The State Department has dropped its foreign terrorism designation of Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group, rendered moot by the departure of most of its leaders for al-Qaeda-in-the-Islamic-Maghreb, The Wall Street Journal relates. A man arrested in Norway on suspicion of plotting attacks and having links to al Qaeda was released from custody Friday proclaiming his innocence, Reuters reports. A former Guantanamo detainee who rejoined al Qaeda in Yemen after graduating from Saudi Arabia’s rehab program has turned himself in to Saudi authorities, AFP, again, recounts. Bad demagogue, no Doritos: “Following a tumultuous visit from Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad comes word from Washington that President Obama is weighing tough sanctions if that country does not back off its nuclear program, CAP News recounts. “That could include halting Doritos imports to Iran, blocking Facebook friend requests and eliminating Christmas gifts this holiday season. ‘I will not hesitate to tell President Ahmadinejad that, uhh, he’s not invited to the grab this year,’ Obama said of the annual world leaders holiday gift exchange. ‘No doubt it will hurt because we know how much he loves doing that every year.’ Despite the tough stance by the president, he may not have the backing of the United Nations, many members of which are upset that Obama is poised to implement something that affects the entire governing body without consulting them first. U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon, for one, said if Ahmadinejad cannot attend, the holiday party ‘just won’t be the same.’” |
CQ Behind the Lines
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