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Fight the Terrorists, Not the Bombs

May 16, 2012 in 2012, America, Bin Laden, Bomb, Explosive, explosive detection, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Middle East, Muslims, Terrorism

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Good news for those of you who enjoy taking your shoes off in airports. Al-Qaeda’s chief bombmaker, a cheerful fellow named Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, who sent his younger brother off on a suicide bombing mission with a bomb up his rectum, has been working on turning everything into a bomb. Cameras, printer cartridges and even pets.

The good news is that al-Asiri isn’t very good at it. His bomb did a good job of killing his brother, but not much else. The original underwear bomb worn by the Christmas bomber didn’t work out. The bad news is that with enough cannon fodder and enough attempts, sooner or later al-Asri or another college dropout will get it right. But even if he doesn’t, the force multiplier of the threat alone will do the job.

All it took was one shoe bomber to get us to take off our shoes. A failed plan to blow up airliners with liquid explosives led to the liquid ban. In the age of underwear bombs we have naked scanners. What is going to happen when the next plot involves explosives surgically implanted in the human body or in a pet?

A bomb anywhere is a bomb everywhere. When the bombs are everywhere, then so are the security measures taken against them until life is one big bomb and one giant security measure.

We may sooner or later hunt down al-Asiri and blow him away, but taking out a twenty-something graduate of a Saudi university after a long manhunt at a cost of countless millions of dollars will not be some grand achievement. There are plenty of Saudi, Kuwaiti and Pakistani chemistry students who can step into his exploding shoes.

We are not fighting a war against toothpaste, shoes or underwear. Nor against bombs. Bombs after all don’t make themselves or detonate themselves. That’s what people are for and until we come to grips with the people making and detonating the bombs, then we will go on living in a world of bombs, where every item, no matter how innocuous, is treated as a potential explosive device, and every person in line as a potential explosive weapon.

The formula for fighting a War on Terror without defining a vector for that terror has led to a state of terror, in which everyone is either terrified or terrorized. The official word is that anyone and everyone can be a terrorist, and even though they all seem to be Muslim, the official position is that this is a complete coincidence, a misunderstanding of the religion of peace or a result of our foreign policy.

To believe any of these things is to also believe that history is bunk. Al-Asiri’s last name indicates that he comes from the Asir province, the heartland of fanaticism in Saudi Arabia. Asir means “difficult” in Arabic. Six of the 9/11 hijackers came from Asir and Bin Laden praised its tribes as “forming the lion’s share.” Asir had been a source of violence and Islamic fanaticism long before American foreign policy mattered to anyone outside the hemisphere. The Asiri Wahhabis had fought the Ottoman Empire in Asir going back to the early 1800s and then they fought the House of Saud. With global access, Asiris are able to extend their wars deep into our territory. To launch attacks well beyond their desert home.

The sword has given way to the bomb, though it is still used occasionally on hostages, and by importing Islam we have imported the way of the sword and the rule of the bomb. When the followers of the sword take the plane, then sooner or later they will bomb the plane or use the plane as a guided missile. There is no avoiding that.

The other meaning of “Asir” is prisoner. Without transportation, Asiri Muslims were imprisoned in their barren unwelcoming land. Given transportation we have all become their prisoners. Terrorist threats are enough to turn us into prisoners being herded into lines waiting for the next bomb to go off.

When we finally hunt down Ibrahim al-Asiri somewhere in Yemen, which once laid claim to Asir and has a history of contending with the House of Saud, among the tribes who have feuds and grudges as old as the desert sands, we will be nowhere closer to winning the War on Terror. Not so long as we have our heads stuck in those same sands.

Demographics alone dictate that there will be more young men to replace al-Asiri than there will be to replace the American men going off to war against his cronies. And in a polygamous society, even upper class young Saudi men are not only replaceable, they are competition for the harems of the Bin Ladens, the elderly men trying to make their paradise on earth with the help of Viagra and wealth. Many of these young men will have university educations and ample encouragement to join the Jihad to carve out more territory for the Dar-al-Islam.

Some will emigrate to London or New York and carve out professional roles for themselves while participating in Muslim political groups to build their influence. Others will make bombs or blow them up. Either way they will be doing what young men in the Arabian Desert have always done, raiding to expand the territory of Islam, and the prestige of their families and tribes.

It’s easy to snicker at the discrepancy of force between al-Asiri, embedding his bombs in underwear, but the bomb can bring down the jet. And the Sons of Asir can bring down the West. All it takes is enough time and effort.

The demographic bomb is the most explosive of all the devices and it doesn’t show up on even the most intrusive airport scanners. Arafat called the womb of the Arab woman his strongest weapon. The House of Saud liked to say that they had built their nation with a sword of steel and a sword of flesh. These two quotes explain the miserable state of the Muslim woman and the quiet ticking of the demographic clock, the bomb whose components are veiled women, trundling in groups behind a single man, the girls exploited by Muslim ‘Asian’ sex gangs and the rising number of female converts.

The biggest component of the bomb by far is still the jet plane, the passing shape that can either be a direct weapon or an indirect one. Before the 9/11 hijackers could hijack domestic flights, they had to obtain permission to arrive here on international ones. As the domestic population increases, the next wave of terrorists, men like Nidal Malik Hasan, Tariq Menhanna and Anwar Al-Awlaki, don’t even need the planes.

As Islam proliferates so does the number of bombs; the kind that al-Asiri makes and the kind that Arafat and the House of Saud made. The kind that blow up right away and the kind that tick slowly away from generation to generation, embedding themselves into a society, undermining it, chipping away at its roots, until it is time for them to go off. But whatever kind of bombs they are, when they go off they destroy our lives and our freedoms. And when enough of them go off, then life is a bomb.

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Mr. President, please don’t kill this terrorist

May 15, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Aviation, Bin Laden, Bomb, Explosive, explosive detection, Homeland Security, Middle East, Military, New York, Obama, Terrorism

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The United States is on the hunt for Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the al-Qaeda master bombmaker behind the just-thwarted plotto bring down a U.S.-bound jetliner. If previous patterns hold, at some point in the coming weeks or months a drone launched from a secret CIA base will take al-Asiri out — and we will celebrate another “success” in what was once called the war on terror.

Mr. President, don’t do it.

A drone strike would vaporize this ingenious terrorist intent on attacking the United States. But it would also vaporize all the intelligence inside his brain. Our national security would be better served if the United States captured al-Asiri and kept him alive for questioning, so we can find out what he knows.

What would be lost if President Obama chose to kill, rather than capture, al-Asiri? According to former senior intelligence officials involved in terrorist captures, a high-ranking terrorist leader such as al-Asiri could provide us with treasure trove of information on al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula — the terror network that poses the greatest threat to the homeland today.

Al-Asiri could tell us “who’s who” in the AQAP network — identifying the couriers, financiers, operators, commanders, supporters and facilitators who make the network run, as well as the phone numbers, e-mail addresses and kunyas (or code names) they use so that we can track them down.

Al-Asiri could also tell us “what’s where” — the locations of AQAP safe houses, arms caches and training camps, as well as the ports of entry the terrorists use to move in and out of Yemen.

He could tell us “what’s what” — AQAP’s organizational structure, its hierarchy, its personnel strength, its view of how the battle is going and the state of the organization’s morale.

And, most importantly, he could tell us “what’s next” — the plots AQAP has set in motion and the operatives he has trained and deployed to carry them out.

This is information we can get nowhere else. The double agent we deployed was able to thwart al-Asiri’s most recent attempted attack, but he likely wouldn’t know if other operations are underway or who is carrying them out. Al-Asiri would.

Not only would taking al-Asiri in alive provide us with vital intelligence, it would help preserve the valuable “pocket litter” he possesses that could provide key leads. According to former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez, author of the new book “Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,” “Al-Asiri’s capture could yield intelligence from phones, computers, paper records and fingerprints, which would help locate bombs he has created, bombers he has dispatched, new bombmakers he has trained and potential targets he had identified.” By contrast, Rodriguez says, “current tactics will leave the place he is standing a smoking hole, killing al-Asiri and whomever else might be nearby, but yield little else of value.”

We saw just how important such intelligence is following the operation against Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. In that instance, President Obama made a rare decision against a drone strike and put boots on the ground. While bin Laden was killed in the raid, we recovered a massive cache of computers and hard drives containing hundreds of thousands of pages of al-Qaeda documents that were taken back to CIA headquarters for exploitation. It is no coincidence that the recent uptick in operations targeting al-Qaeda leaders in Yemen began soon after the bin Laden raid. All of that vital intelligence would have been destroyed had the president opted for a drone strike instead of a special operations raid.

Unfortunately, in virtually every case where the Obama administration has located senior al-Qaeda leaders in the past three years, the president has chosen targeted killings over live captures. Killing these terrorists has allowed Obama to avoid confronting the question of what to do with them once they are captured. But there is a lone exception to this rule. In April 2011, the United States captured a senior leader of al-Qaeda’s East African affiliate al-Shabab, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame. He was questioned for more than two monthsaboard a U.S. Navy ship before being flown to New York for trial on terrorism charges. If Obama is not willing to bring al-Asiri to Guantanamo, there is no reason the United States could not question him aboard a Navy ship as well..

A U.S. official told The Post last week, “The unfortunate reality is that Asiri is not the only one to worry about in AQAP. He appears to be training others so that, if he is taken off the battlefield, his expertise won’t be lost.” That is why it is critical to capture al-Asiri. Taking him alive would be difficult but worth great effort. We need to know who he has trained, where they are and what they are planning.

Killing al-Asiri would take down one dangerous terrorist. Capturing him could help us take down his entire network.

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AP source: Feds investigate leak in terrorism case

May 10, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, Aviation, Bomb, Explosive, explosive detection, FBI, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Middle East, Security, Terrorism

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WASHINGTON — Federal investigators are conducting a probe into who leaked information about an al-Qaida plot in which an explosive device was to have been detonated on a U.S.-bound airline flight, a law enforcement official said Wednesday.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity about the leak investigation, which is just getting under way.

The federal investigation is the latest move in an aggressive campaign by the Obama administration to crack down on leaks, even as it has supported proposed legislation that would shield reporters from having to identify their sources. The administration has already brought at least six criminal cases against people for discussing government secrets with reporters, more than under any previous presidency.

The investigation follows stories by The Associated Press and other news organizations disclosing the terrorist operation by the group known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula.

The reports said that al-Qaida had completed a sophisticated new, nonmetallic underwear bomb last month and that the would-be suicide bomber actually was a double agent working with the CIA and Saudi intelligence agencies.

The would-be suicide bomber secretly turned over the group’s most up-to-date underwear bomb to Saudi Arabia, which gave it to the CIA. Before he was whisked to safety, the spy provided intelligence that helped the CIA kill al-Qaida’s senior operations leader, Fahd al-Quso, who died in a drone strike last weekend.

In an appearance Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the FBI is examining the explosive device. He said the scheme hatched in Yemen demonstrates that it’s essential for Congress to reauthorize counterterrorism tools enacted in 2008. Some of these programs expire at year’s end.

A spokesman for the AP, Paul Colford, said in a statement that the news organization “acted carefully and with extreme deliberation in its reporting on the underwear bomb plot and its subsequent decision to publish.”

“As the AP has reported, we distributed our exclusive report on the underwear bomb only after officials assured us — on Monday — that their security concerns had been satisfied and we learned that the White House would announce the news the next day,” Colford said.

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Double agent led CIA, allies to terrorists, underwear bomb

May 10, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Aviation, Bomb, explosive detection, FBI, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Middle East, Security, Terrorism

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WASHINGTON — The latest al-Qaida bomb plot targeting U.S. aircraft was unraveled from inside the terrorist group by operatives — including a double agent — working on behalf of the CIA and its counterparts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, according to U.S. and Middle Eastern officials.

The Saudi intelligence service played a particularly important role in penetrating al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen and recovering the explosive device, according to officials who described an elaborate espionage operation in which the CIA tracked the bomb’s movements for weeks and then killed suspected plotters in a drone strike after the device was seized.

Senior U.S. officials continued to withhold certain details, including the location and status of the individual — described by officials as a Saudi informant — who penetrated the terrorist group posing as a willing suicide bomber and then turned over the device to authorities after leaving Yemen.

The bomb arrived at an FBI laboratory in Quantico, Va., about a week ago and is being examined by explosives technicians, law-enforcement officials said. One said the explosive was made from a chemical compound that was “built to get around U.S. security and had the potential to do that.”

The plot shows al-Qaida’s franchise in Yemen remains committed to mounting attacks against Western targets even after its most prominent advocate of such strikes, U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, was killed in a drone strike last year.

The disruption of the threat also indicates the CIA and other agencies have gained significant traction on their target two years after President Obama began deploying more spies, eavesdropping equipment and armed drones to the Arabian Peninsula.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said spy agencies were able to keep tabs on the location of the bomb, as well as those involved in plotting how it would be used, before it was intercepted in another country in the Middle East, believed to be Saudi Arabia.

The device was described as an updated version of a design that al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has used in a series of plots, including an attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009.

The U.S. intelligence official declined to discuss what he described as “the disposition of the individual involved” in transporting the bomb before it was seized. Other officials indicated the bomb handler was cooperating with the CIA and the Saudi spy service and is in protective custody.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official familiar with recent operations against AQAP said the Saudi spy service has furnished a steady stream of intelligence to the CIA.

“They’ve had someone on the inside of (AQAP) for some time,” the former official said. The Saudi source has provided intelligence on previous plots, including the tip that enabled authorities to disrupt al-Qaida’s attempt to mail parcels packed with explosives to addresses in Chicago in 2010.

Efforts by the CIA and the Saudi intelligence service to protect that source and enable him to remain in place make it unlikely that he was used to deliver the bomb, according to former officials who said it is more likely that a lower-ranking operative was used in that role.

As part of an expanding collaboration with the CIA, the Saudi spy service has taken advantage of long-standing informant networks and tribal relationships in Yemen, exploiting them for intelligence on an al-Qaida franchise that has many Saudis in its ranks. Among them is Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri, the bomb maker suspected of designing the latest device.

Of dozens of AQAP fighters with Saudi backgrounds, “at least five or eight of them are under cover” working for the Saudi service at any point, a Middle Eastern official said. “The Saudis have always had a network” of sources in Yemen, the official said. “Now they are expanding its objectives.”

The deepening cooperation reflects the extent to which Saudi Arabia regards AQAP as a security threat. The country’s chief counterterrorism official, Mohammed bin Nayef, narrowly survived a 2009 attempt on his life by an AQAP operative.

The CIA established a drone base on the Arabian Peninsula last year, and the National Security Agency has deployed officers and equipment to monitor AQAP cellphone and email communications.

Both agencies work alongside the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, an elite military force that operates a fleet of armed drones and recently resumed providing trainers to Yemen’s counterterrorism units.

The pace of U.S. airstrikes has quickened dramatically this year, according to data compiled by the Long War Journal website. Of 31 U.S. airstrikes in Yemen since 2002, 14 were in the past five months.

The most recent killed an alleged operations planner wanted in connection with the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

U.S. officials said that Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso probably was involved in directing the plot but that the drone strike was ordered because of his larger role in AQAP.

By Greg Miller

The Washington Post

Washington Post staff writers Karen DeYoung and Sari Horwitz

and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

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Clinton presses Pakistan on terrorism

May 8, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Bomb, Homeland Security, India, Iran, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Military, Security, Terrorism

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NEW DELHI — The latest foiled terrorism plot in Yemen is a sign that terrorists “keep trying to devise more and more diverse and terrible ways to kill people,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said here Tuesday.

Wrapping up her eight-day trip to China, India and Bangladesh, Clinton also pressed Pakistan “to do more” to root out terrorists on its soil, including the alleged mastermind of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, for whom she has approved a $10 million reward.

She earlier said al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was most likely residing in Pakistan.

“We look to the government of Pakistan to do more,” Clinton said. “It needs to make sure that its territory is not used for launching pads for terrorist attacks anywhere.”

The Yemen plot was designed to create a more sophisticated version of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

U.S. intelligence officials interrupted the effort before it threatened the U.S. flying public, Clinton confirmed.

The secretary used news of the plot to reiterate U.S. efforts not only to prevent acts of terrorism from being carried out but to convince potential recruits not to join terrorist networks in the first place.

Appearing with her Indian counterpart, External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna, Clinton also addressed two other hot spots: Iran and Afghanistan.

•She said India must do more to reduce oil exports from Iran, as it has begun to do. The world’s second most populous nation relies on imports for most of its oil — and 10 million additional tons each year. Iran was its second largest supplier but has dropped below Iraq and Kuwait.

“There’s no doubt that India and the United States are after the same goal,” Clinton said. Without tightening the noose on sanctions, she said, “Iran will have less incentive to negotiate in good faith.”

•She reaffirmed the U.S. and NATO support for Afghanistan as the combat mission winds down toward its completion in 2014.

“We intend to remain an active presence in Afghanistan. We will support Afghanistan’s security and stability,” she said.

By Richard Wolf, USA TODAY

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US: CIA thwarts new al-Qaida underwear bomb plot

May 7, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Aviation, Bin Laden, Bomb, Explosive, explosive detection, FBI, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Middle East, Security, Terrorism

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WASHINGTON (AP) – The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Associated Press has learned.

The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said.

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It’s not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

The operation unfolded even as the White House and Department of Homeland Security assured the American public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the U.S. around the anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

“We have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaida, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden’s death,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said on April 26.

On May 1, the Department of Homeland Security said, “We have no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the U.S. tied to the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s death.”

The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.

U.S. officials, who were briefed on the operation, insisted on anonymity to discuss the case, which the U.S. has never officially acknowledged.

It’s not clear who built the bomb, but, because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Christmas bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010.

Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.

The operation is an intelligence victory for the United States and a reminder of al-Qaida’s ambitions, despite the death of bin Laden and other senior leaders. Because of instability in the Yemeni government, the terrorist group’s branch there has gained territory and strength. It has set up terrorist camps and, in some areas, even operates as a de facto government.

But along with the gains there also have been losses. The group has suffered significant setbacks as the CIA and the U.S. military focus more on Yemen. On Sunday, Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaida leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern Shabwa province of Yemen.

Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI’s most wanted list, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.

Al-Quso was believed to have replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as the group’s head of external operations. Al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. airstrike last year.

ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO
Associated Press writers Kimberly Dozier and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.

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5 arrested in alleged terrorist plot to blow up Cleveland-area bridge

May 2, 2012 in 2012, Bomb, Explosive, FBI, Law Enforcement, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Security, Terrorism

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Five men, including three “self-proclaimed” anarchists, have been arrested in connection with a plot to blow up a bridge over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park south of downtown Cleveland, federal officials said Tuesday.

The men were arrested Monday and charged with conspiracy and the attempted use of explosive materials to damage physical property affecting interstate commerce, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ohio. All are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Cleveland on Tuesday.

“The complaint in this case alleges that the defendants took specific and defined actions to further a terrorist plot,” U.S. Atty. Steven M. Dettelbach said in a prepared statement. “The defendants stand charged based not upon any words or beliefs they might espouse, but based upon their own plans and actions.”

Federal officials in Cleveland said the public was never in danger because the explosives were under the control of an FBIemployee. There does not appear to be any connection with any international terrorist group or the first anniversary of the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in a raid in Pakistan.

But the arrests came just before the annual celebration of May Day, the day of international demonstrations in honor of workers and left-wing movements.

According to federal officials’ announcement, Douglas L. Wright, 26, Brandon L. Baxter, 20, and Anthony Hayne, 35, were arrested Monday evening by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. The three are “self-proclaimed anarchists who formed into a small group and considered a series of evolving plots over several months,” the complaint alleges.

Also arrested were Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, the government said.

Originally, the group had planned to use smoke grenades to distract law enforcement in order for the co-conspirators to topple signs for financial institutions atop high-rise buildings in downtown Cleveland, according to the complaint.

But the plot escalated to include explosive materials, the government alleges. The defendants conspired to obtain C-4 explosives for use in two improvised explosive devices, according to investigators.

The group discussed various targets in the Cleveland metropolitan area before targeting the Route 82 Brecksville-Northfield High Level Bridge. The bridge goes from Brecksville, Ohio, to Sagamore Hills, Ohio, over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, according to the complaint.

By Michael Muskal

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Feds Warn of Terrorists with Body Bombs on U.S. Flights

May 1, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Aviation, Bin Laden, Bomb, European, Explosive, explosive detection, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Security, Terrorism

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LOS ANGELES (KTLA) — Steps were being taken to guard against a new threat of “body bombs” planted inside passengers aboard flights heading to the United States from overseas, a government official with knowledge of the threat said Tuesday.

Authorities have increased aviation security, especially on air carriers heading to the United States from the United Kingdom, other parts of Europe and the Middle East in the days surrounding the one-year anniversary of the death of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said the official, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the information and to protect the specifics of how the risk came to light.

ABC reported on Monday officials fear al Qaeda may soon attempt to explode United States-bound aircraft with the body bombs.

The body bomb threat has surfaced before, but the renewed concern is based on new information originating overseas, the official said.

Details of the threat have been shared among intelligence agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom within the past two weeks, the official said.

An FBI official declined comment on the information, but said, “the FBI takes all threat stream information seriously and runs it down to the best of our ability with all available resources.”

Department of Homeland Security spokesman Peter Boogaard said Monday authorities have “no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the United States tied to the bin Laden anniversary.”

Navy SEALs killed bin Laden during a raid on a Pakistani compound on May 2, 2011.

“DHS will continue to monitor intelligence reporting and respond appropriately to protect the American people from an ever-evolving threat picture, and as always, encourage the public and our partners in law enforcement and the private sector to remain vigilant in promptly reporting any suspicious activities,” he added, declining comment on the ABC report.

Speaking before the ABC story was published, a separate law enforcement official claimed not to know of any security increases but said each locality makes its own decision.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, similarly said that there is “no intelligence to indicate a credible threat” of attack to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

Body bombs gained worldwide attention in 2009 when al Qaeda’s chief bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Asiri, built a device containing around 100 grams of PETN, a difficult-to-detect powdery explosive, that was designed to be inserted inside the rectum of a suicide bomber.

The suicide bomber was his younger brother, Abdullah al-Asiri.

Their target was Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the head of Saudicounterterrorism, whose security services had driven them out of Saudi Arabia two years earlier.

Their group, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was determined to show that even well-protected targets outside Yemen were not beyond their reach.

In the end, the attack failed. Despite gaining entry to bin Nayef’s residence by claiming to be defecting, Abdullah al-Asiri killed only himself; the head of Saudi counterterrorism was just slightly injured.

But even in failure, his brother and comrades were emboldened. Never had al Qaeda come so close to killing a member of the Saudi royal family.

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Terrorist Says Bin Laden Spoke of Mission to Destroy U.S.

April 24, 2012 in 2012, 9/11, Al Qaeda, America, Bin Laden, Bomb, Explosive, High Alert on 9/11, Homeland Security, Jihad, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Middle East, Muslims, NYPD, Pakistan, Terrorism

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(Updates with Badat testimony starting in ninth paragraph.)

Saajid Muhammad Badat, convicted in the U.K. in 2005 of plotting to explode an airplane, testified that Osama Bin Laden told him his mission would help bring down the U.S. economy.

“He said that the American economy is like a chain. If you break one — one link of the chain — the whole economy will be brought down,” Badat said the now-deceased leader of the terrorist group al-Qaeda told him in a one-on-one meeting in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Badat testified today at the trial of a New York man, Adis Medunjanin, accused of plotting to blow up New York subways in 2009 on behalf of al-Qaeda.

Jurors heard Badat’s recorded testimony in federal court in Brooklyn, New York. Badat, 33, is the first terrorist convicted in the U.K. to present evidence in a U.S. trial, the Crown Prosecution Service said in an April 16 statement.

Medunjanin, 28, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay were recruited by al-Qaeda to bomb subway lines in Manhattan around the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the indictment. The plot was stopped within days of its happening in 2009, prosecutors said. Zazi, 26, and Ahmedzay, 27, who pleaded guilty in 2010, are cooperating with the government and testified at the trial.

 

Military Training

 

In August 2008, the three men went to join the Taliban in Pakistan where they were recruited by al-Qaeda, which gave them military training and encouraged them to conduct suicide attacks in the U.S., Ahmedzay and Zazi said. The plan was for an attack during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The three men lived in the New York borough of Queens and went to Flushing High School.

Badat pleaded guilty to plotting to bring a shoe bomb on an airplane and was sentenced to 13 years, later lowered to 11 because of his cooperation. He abandoned the al-Qaeda plot. His co-conspirator was Richard Reid, who was flying to Miami from Paris in December 2001 when he was found trying to light his shoe. Reid pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence in the U.S.

Badat said he backed out of the plan because of reluctance, fear and concern for his family.

“You’ll have to tell Van Damme that he could be on his own,” Badat, by then in the U.K., e-mailed to his al-Qaeda handler, referring to Reid.

 

War Crimes

 

Badat said one reason he agreed to cooperate in terrorism trials was that he wanted to testify against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks who was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and is charged with war crimes.

Badat said he has come to believe that Mohammed’s views are wrong and that he and others in al-Qaeda manipulate people, including young people. He told U.K. authorities that the Sept. 11 terrorists were victims — “to a lesser extent, a much lesser extent” — as were those who died in the attacks, he testified.

He went to Afghanistan in 1999 to be trained in weapons, explosives, navigation and intelligence, to fight “oppressors of Muslims.” As with the accused subway bombers, he was then recruited by al-Qaeda for a suicide mission.

 

Pending Charges

 

In his April 16 opening statement, Robert Gottlieb, one of Medunjanin’s lawyers, said Badat’s testimony will show that the three subway-plot suspects received much less extensive training in Pakistan. Badat testified that he received about six to eight months of training in Afghanistan over three years.

Badat, who was arrested in November 2003, said he couldn’t travel to New York to testify because U.S. charges are pending against him stemming from the same incident and he would be arrested. He was released after six years in prison in the U.K. in March 2010.

The Medunjanin jury began hearing live testimony today of Bryant Neal Vinas, a 29-year-old man from Long Island, New York, who also traveled to Pakistan to fight in Afghanistan and then joined al-Qaeda. He participated in two efforts to attack U.S. forces near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan in September 2008, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in the U.S. in 2009.

 

Suicide Mission

 

Vinas, a graduate of Longwood High School in Middle Island, previously said he provided information to al-Qaeda leaders about New York City’s transit system for a bomb attack, according to court records.

He testified today that he suggested to al-Qaeda that it bomb Wal-Mart and the Long Island Rail Road in the U.S.

He also agreed to conduct a suicide mission, Vinas testified.

“I was having a difficult time with the altitude, I was feeling very sick, so I thought it would be easier,” he said. Such a “martyrdom operation” is “the highest, most honorable death in jihad,” he said.

Ultimately, he was told he didn’t have enough religious knowledge to carry out a mission, he said.

Medunjanin is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Bosnia. Ahmedzay immigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan. Zazi was born in Pakistan. He testified that he had falsely written on immigration forms and told authorities that he was from Afghanistan. The three have been in custody since their arrests.

U.S. District Judge John Gleeson is presiding over the trial, which may last about three weeks.

The case is U.S. v. Medunjanin, 1:10-cr-00019, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

–With assistance from Chris Dolmetsch and Patricia Hurtado in New York. Editors: Mary Romano, Charles Carter

 

reporter on this story: Thom Weidlich in Brooklyn, New York, at tweidlich@bloomberg.net.

 

editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.

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by rony

US Warns of Terrorist Attacks in Kenya

April 23, 2012 in 2012, Al Qaeda, America, Bomb, Law Enforcement / Terrorism, Security, Terrorism

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www.homelandsecuritynet.com

The U.S. embassy in Kenya is warning of possible terrorist attacks in the capital, Nairobi, and is telling Americans in the city to stay alert.

The embassy issued a message Monday saying it has credible information about a possible attack on Nairobi hotels and prominent Kenyan government buildings.

The statement says the timing of the attack is not known, but that the embassy has “reason to believe the potential attack is in the last stages of planning.”

There was no immediate comment from the Kenyan government.

Britain issued a similar warning about possible attacks in January.

There have been a number of small-scale attacks in Nairobi and in northeastern Kenya since last October, when Kenya sent troops into Somalia to fight the militant group al-Shabab.

Militants linked to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden bombed the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in August 1998, killing more than 200 people.

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