CQ Behind the Lines

From CQ Homeland Security

Behind the Lines for Thursday, July 28, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly Wish upon a star: Counterterrorists convinced bin Laden death "and the toll of seven years of CIA drone strikes have pushed al Qaeda to the brink of collapse" . . . Guest jihadi program: Somalia's al Shabaab has recruited more than 40 Americans, some 15 of whom have been killed . . . Sauce for the gander: Post-Oslo, Western cops "need to look at the new threat presented by Christian fundamentalists," Muslim journalist jabs. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage. --------------------------------- U.S. counterterrorists "are increasingly convinced that the killing of Osama bin Laden and the toll of seven years of CIA drone strikes have pushed al Qaeda to the brink of collapse," which "a relatively small number of additional blows" could render final, The Washington Post's Greg Miller leads. "Wouldn't that be nice, to think that the worst bad guys in our worst nightmares from the last decade are near extinction?" The Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm agnostically asks. Feds: The al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab has recruited more than 40 Muslim Americans to its jihad-insurgency in Somalia and at least 15 of those volunteers have been killed, Reuters' Jeremy Pelofsky quotes from a House homeland GOP report released at yesterday's radicalization hearing. FBI failure to tell a domestic terror suspect why he was arrested irks the federal judge presiding over the trial concerning a bomb planted along the route of this year's MLK Day march, The Spokane Spokesman-Review's Thomas Clouse recounts. "Terrorism is the biggest concern for Jacksonville's FBIoffice," and there are still "people of concern"on the north Florida coast, special-agent-in-charge James Casey warns WJXX 25 News' Jackelyn Barnard. Homies: A Border Patroller shot and killed near the Mexico border was lured by his killers who wanted to steal his night vision goggles, NBC Los Angeles' R. Stickney and Mari Payton report from this week's plea agreement. DHS's Nonprofit Security Grant Program "is structured to heavily favor religious institutions. That's bad news for nonprofits that aren't affiliated with a religion, but it's potentially worse for taxpayers," POGO's Andre Francisco frowns in AllGov. DHS has terminated its program to develop the next generation of radiation detection monitors, Global Security Newswire's Martin Matishak hears a senior official announcing. State and local: "No major concern seems to have resulted following a Homeland Security warning to area law enforcement officials of possible threats to privately owned utility facilities," The Morris (Ill.) Daily Herald follows up."On my typical route to work, encompassing just four blocks from my apartment to the nearest subway station, I come under the unblinking eyes of a staggering 15 surveillance cameras," a New York Daily News reporter spotlights. Since Sept. 11, DHS has given millions of dollars to the New Jersey State Police helicopter fleet, which "should be prepared for the reduction in federal dollars it currently enjoys," a Somerville Courier-News op-ed enjoins. The Mt. Pleasant (Tenn.) City Commission voted to keep that town's emergency preparedness plan inaccessible to the public, following suit with other local municipalities, The Daily Herald relates. Thinkery-tankery: A special Sept. 11 issue of the American Psychologist includes a dozen peer-reviewed articles examining the social, political and psychological impacts of the nation's worst terror assault, United Press International informs. "Less obvious but equally profound is the effect Sept. 11 had on the health care system according to two University of California studies addressing what researchers call 'collective stress,'" Salon adds — while The Associated Press spotlights RAND's: "The Long Shadow of 9/11: America's Response to Terrorism." Meanwhile, U.N. Dispatch discusses how public health departments here and abroad are being bankrupted by the requirement to focus on bioterrorism at the expense of their traditional tasks. Ivory (Watch) Towers: Area law enforcers have been conducting exercises testing "domestic terrorism response and jurisdictional interaction" at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus all this week, the Daily News-Miner mentions. The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson, which launched the first strikes against the Taliban and al Qaeda after Sept. 11, "will be the site of another first, as it hosts the opening game of the 2011 NCAA college basketball season," CNN notes. "Entire libraries' worth of books and studies have been published since Sept. 11 exploring what allows terrorist groups to take root," and now the Pentagon is "deputizing college professors to teach the military about the root causes of terrorism," Danger Room reports. At Pakistan's Punjab University, "the student wing of a powerful hard-line religious party seeks to enforce its fundamentalist agenda, intimidating and sometimes attacking students and teachers alike," the L.A. Times spotlights. Close air support: "Folks upset at [TSA's checkpoint enthusiasms] will get a chance to vent [today] when a rally protesting TSA screening tactics is held on Okaloosa Island," The Northwest Florida Daily News notifies. "There's a lesser-known security checkpoint with six lanes by the American check-in counter on the north side," CNN divulges in "Secrets of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport" — while WHAM 13 News marks the official opening of a new Emergency Operations Center at Greater Rochester International. "Glasgow airport is facing an urgent security probe after the shocking blunder [allowed] a crazed killer to flee Scotland on an international flight despite not having a passport," The Daily Record records. Sydney Airport, meantime, has hosted a demo of a new compact concealed object detection system, Aviation Business relates. Coming and going: It seems a prediction that one of the most notorious cartels operating on the Texas-Mexico border could soon meet its demise was premature, The Texas Tribune sees a new report confirming. Teamsters prez Jim Hoffa claims that opening the border to Mexican trucks "endangers U.S. highway safety, border security and warehouse and trucking jobs," IFW updates. Seoul will establish an integrated traffic information and operation system resistant to cyberterrorism to guard the city's traffic network from outside attacks, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency notes. Iraqi forces this week took charge of security at the oil export terminals at the southern port of Basra from U.S. troops, Agence France-Presse reports. Courts and rights: Three people were charged by federal prosecutors in New York with conspiring to sell heroin and buy weapons for Hezbollah, while a fourth was accused of scheming to sell drugs and guns for the Taliban, Bloomberg relates. A legal challenge to the federal law authorizing authorities to take DNA samples from those who have been arrested or detained — prior to any conviction — has been rejected by a federal court, The Christian Science Monitor mentions. Tahawwur Hussain Rana, recently convicted in Chicago on two terror-support charges, has asked the judge for a "Franks hearing," The Hindu reports. Over there: A probe finds that taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion trucking contract serving NATO forces in Afghanistan, The Washington Post reports. Posing a major challenge to counterterrorism efforts, a GAO report finds the forging of British passports to be the "most prevalent" in Pakistan, The Press Trust of India informs. The Iranian opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq tells AP that Tehran's leaders have created a new defense agency to consolidate nuclear weapons research — as Nigeria's Sunday Tribune spots counterterrorists uncovering some ofthe Boko Haram terror sect's funding secrets. Norway's heinous body count Friday has placed Oslo's police force under an unforgiving microscope, The Christian Science Monitor leads. Over here: Within the Muslim American community, there was a sigh of relief when it turned out it wasn't a Muslim behind the Oslo mass murders, "but also a sting at being initially scapegoated [as] after the Oklahoma City bombing, the L.A. Times spotlights. "The more the American people know about Islamic lawfare, shariah financing, infiltration of the Muslim Brotherhood, and shariah law being used in America, then the more dedicated will be the desire to fight against all of it," an American Thinker essayist asserts. A Florida group accuses thousands of American Muslims of being a "fifth column" via their alleged linkage to the Muslim Brotherhood, Danger Room reports. Arizonans of a particular stripe are outraged by meteorologists referencing local dust storms with the Arabic term "haboob," Salon spotlights. A Muslim group in the U.K., meanwhile, is mounting a push to turn twelve British cities — including what it calls 'Londonistan' — into independent Islamic states," Hudson New York notes. Holy Wars: In Oslo's bloody wake, "police across Europe and the USA need to look at the new threat presented by Christian fundamentalists," Muslim-convert journalist Yvonne Ridley alerts Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency. Far-right fellow-travelers are rushing to distance themselves from Anders Behring Breivik, "even as many of these groups defend their own often virulent anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant viewpoints as reasonable," The Christian Science Monitor surveys. A Norwegian terror specialist suggests that the right-wing Oslo mass murderer's 1,500-page manifesto "bears an eerie resemblance to those al Qaeda leaders, though from a Christian rather than a Muslim point of view," The New York Times tells. The killer "was deeply influenced by a small group of American bloggers and writers who have warned for years about the threat from Islam," the Times, again, spotlights — and check David Horowitz's riposte in FrontPage Magazine, as well as, again, in the Monitor: "Hey, that Norwegian terrorist has a point!" Countdown to A-Day: "With less than one week until the President and Congress run out of time to make a deal, most experts agree that the debt ceiling crisis is like Y2K all over again, only with a****s instead of computers," The Borowitz Report reports. "This grim assessment comes on the heels of a new poll showing that a majority of congressmen can no longer remember which debt deal they like," Andy Borowitz writes. "As the Aug. 2 deadline approaches, several nightmare scenarios loom, including one in which the United States would officially become a province of China and would be renamed Panda Gardens 2. In another possibility being openly discussed, the United States would cease to exist as an actual country but would continue in an online-only version. In this scenario, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, would no longer be Speaker of the House but would instead be become an angry little orange avatar." See, also, in The Onion: "Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington." Source: CQ Homeland Security --------------------------------- Other CQ Roll Call Products CQ Floor Video CQ.com CQ Weekly CQ Today CQ Amendment Text CQ BillTrack CQ Budget Tracker CQ Energy & Climate CQ HealthBeat CQ Homeland Security CQ Hot Docs CQ House Action Reports CQ LawTrack CQ MoneyLine CQ StateTrack CQ Politics Roll Call See all CQ Roll Call products Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security Editor Arwen Bicknell, Behind the Lines Editor Published by CQ Roll Call To sign up for CQ Roll Call's free newsletters, click here. Source: CQ Homeland Security Copyright © 2011 CQ Roll Call. 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