Homeland Security Network Blog

The Hill Sailors didn't know what to do in USS Bonhomme Richard fire, Navy probe finds By Ellen Mitchell When a fire broke out aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard in July 2020, its sailors did not know how to react and its leaders didn't take control, a Navy investigation found.The 400-page report, officially released on Wednesday, found that 36 individuals, including the ship's commander and five admirals, were responsible for numerous errors and breakdowns that followed after the vessel was purposely set on fire while it sat pier-side in San Diego.“Although the fire was started by an act of arson, the ship was lost due to an inability to extinguish the fire,” the report said.Once the blaze started, “the response effort was placed in the hands of inadequately trained and drilled personnel from a disparate set of uncoordinated organizations that had not fully exercised together and were unfamiliar...

What is China’s new hypersonic glide vehicle? The country appears to have combined orbiting nukes with long-range gliders IN AUGUST a Chinese “Long March” rocket streaked into space. That is hardly unusual; there were nearly three dozen such launches last year. But having begun to orbit the Earth, the rocket’s payload then swung back down, glided through the upper atmosphere and crashed into the ground, missing a target by about 40km. According to the Financial Times, which first reported the news, this was a test of a new, nuclear-capable hypersonic glide vehicle. China has insisted that it merely conducted a “routine test of a space vehicle to verify technology of spacecraft's reusability”. Yet the demonstration reportedly stunned American officials. “We have no idea how they did this,” one of them told the newspaper. What are hypersonic gliders and why do they matter?Conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) follow a parabolic trajectory, like...

Bloomberg U.K. Politician’s Murder Puts Focus on Anti-Terrorism Program By Irene Garcia Perez and Kitty Donaldson The murder of a U.K. lawmaker has focused attention on “Prevent,” a program designed to identify people at risk of becoming radicalized, as well as on how to combat “corrosive” online discourse.U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel said Sunday the counter-terrorism program is undergoing an independent review. The suspect in the deadly stabbing of Conservative MP David Amess had reportedly been referred to “Prevent” several years ago -- as had at least two others in the past few years who went on to commit violent or deadly acts.    “It’s timely to do that, we have to learn, not just from incidents that have taken place, but how we can strengthen our programs,” Patel said on Sky News’s “Trevor Philipps Show.” The suspect in custody was identified by a U.K. government official as Ali Harbi Ali, a...

  The New York Times Bow-and-Arrow Attack in Norway Treated As Apparent Terrorist Attack The police said that they had previously contacted the suspect, a 37-year-old Danish citizen who is believed to have killed five people, over concerns that he had been radicalized. By Henrik Pryser Libell and Marc Santora A 37-year-old man was charged on Thursday in connection with a bow-and-arrow rampage in a small town in Norway that killed five people and wounded three others, in what the authorities said was an apparent act of terrorism.In a statement, the police identified the suspect as Espen Andersen Brathen. The Norwegian security agency, known by its acronym, PST, said investigators were still trying to determine what motivated the attacker to carry out his grisly assault in the town of Kongsberg, about 50 miles southwest of Oslo.The statement said that Mr. Brathren had been apprehended in  Kongsberg.Earlier, the regional police chief said...

  The National UK trustees 'recklessly sent cash to charity linked to Al Qaeda' by Nicky Harley Five trustees of Syria and Gaza relief group Human Aid mismanaged cash sent abroad to a charity linked to Al Qaeda, a UK watchdog has found.The Charity Commission has described the trustees as "reckless" after the aid group sent more than £250,000 to a Turkish non-profit organisation, which UK police say had links to Al Qaeda.In its report, the Commission laid out its concerns about the group it referred to as "NPO".“The Commission’s concerns in relation to the NPO followed a disclosure to the Commission, from the police, which stated in its assessment the NPO was being used to provide support to Al-Qaeda aligned individuals in Syria,” it said.However the body upgraded its investigation to a statutory inquiry after UK counterterrorism police seized $9,774 and £9,200 in cash from Human Aid officials at Heathrow...

Student taken into custody hours after Texas school shooting By JAMIE STENGLE and JILL BLEED ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — An 18-year-old student opened fire during a fight at his Dallas-area high school on Wednesday, injuring four people and then fleeing before being taken into custody hours later, authorities said.Timothy George Simpkins was taken into custody without incident, the Arlington Police Department tweeted. He was booked in the Arlington jail on three counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and was being held on $75,000 bail.One person was in critical condition, another was in good condition and a third person was treated for minor abrasions and was scheduled to be released from the hospital later Wednesday, police said. A fourth person was hurt but did not require treatment at a hospital. Police said earlier that three of the four injured were students.The shooting at Timberview High School, which is in Arlington...

The Washington Times Iran Smuggling High-Tech Drones To Militant Allies, Opposition Group Says  By Guy Taylor Iran’s theocratic regime has ramped up its drone manufacturing operation in recent years and is now smuggling an increasingly sophisticated slate of the weaponized remote control aircraft to allied militant groups around the Middle East, according to intelligence gathered by a leading Iranian dissident group.The Iranian military’s embrace of drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), has given Tehran an expanding edge in asymmetric warfare across the region while U.S. sanctions have otherwise crippled the capabilities of its conventional air forces, the National Council of Resistance of Iran said Wednesday.The dissident group gave a presentation to journalists at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, revealing what it characterized as “newly disclosed information” about the scope and nature of the Iranian program, including a matrix of eight drone development complexes. “The UAV program of the Iranian regime is...

Premium Times Nigeria: Troops Repel Attack On Repentant Terrorist Camp - Army The army says the terrorists made attempt to access the camp in Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State but were resisted by superior gun power. by Nasir Ayitogo    Troops of Operation Hadin Kai have foiled an attack by members of the Islamic State West Africa (ISWAP) on a camp housing repentant members of Boko Haram.Spokesperson of the Army, Onyema Nwachukwu, made this known in a statement on Sunday.According to him, the terrorists made attempt to access the camp in Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State but were resisted by superior gun power.The attack is coming on the heels of reported massive surrendering by members of the terrorist group.Thousands of terrorists alongside their family members have recently repented and handed over themselves to authorities.President Muhammudu Buhari had , on Friday, during a nationwide address commemorating Nigeria’s 61st anniversary,...

The Washington Post For Years, The Voice Behind ISIS Propaganda Was A Mystery. Now A Canadian Faces Criminal Charges. By Rachel WeinerA Canadian who U.S. prosecutors allege is behind influential English-language propaganda videos for the Islamic State has been brought to Virginia to be prosecuted.Mohammed Khalifa, 38, was captured by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019. At that point, according to prosecutors, he had been with the Islamic State for six years. He started as a fighter, according to court documents, before becoming involved in the translation and dissemination of English-language propaganda.He ultimately led ISIS’s English-language media arm, prosecutors allege, whose output included videos, audio statements and an online magazine. Prosecutors say Khalifa narrated over a dozen ISIS recruitment videos, including two of the group’s most influential efforts at luring Westerners: “Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun,” in 2014, and “Flames of War II: Until the Final Hour,” in 2017....

Reuters New Zealand Tightens Terror Law After Recent IS-Linked Attack By Colin Packham Sept 30 (Reuters) - New Zealand passed a new security law on Thursday that outlaws preparations for terror attacks, closing a loophole exposed after seven people were stabbed and wounded this month in a supermarket in the most populous city of Auckland.Amid heightened fears of "lone wolf" terror attacks, New Zealand has worked to beef up its laws, but rushed the new law through parliament after the Auckland attack, unleashed by an assailant authorities said had been inspired by Islamic State. "The nature of terrorism has changed," Justice Minister Kris Faafoi said in an email. "Across the world there are more lone actors, rather than larger organised groups."The measure pulls New Zealand's security laws in line with most other countries, he added.It gives police the power of entry, search and surveillance without warrants in their efforts to prevent...

RFI Bombs, Bodies And Islamic State Propaganda Shock Paris Terror Trial The third week of the trial of those accused of involvement in the November 2015 massacre of 130 people in Paris came to an end with three very different reports from expert witnesses. The themes were DNA, explosions and Islamic State propaganda.A police officer showed the court how to make a bomb.It's not difficult, all the ingredients and equipment are easily available. "Anyone can do it," the tribunal was told. That information was greeted with nervous laughter.It is extremely risky. So risky, in fact, that the experts at the French police explosives lab have done very little research into TATP or triacetone triperoxide, the explosive used by the November 2015 killers. It is simply too dangerous.The police bomb squad systematically refuse to transport any object suspected of containing TATP, preferring to neutralise the notoriously unstable mixture on the spot. The...

  Bloomberg Mali Tells UN France Is Abandoning It In Fight Against Terrorism By Katarina Hoije Mali Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga accused France at the United Nations of abandoning the West African country to the unfinished job of fighting a deadly Islamist insurgency.“The armed terrorist groups that invaded almost two-thirds of our territory in 2012 have dispersed and spread without ever being wiped out,” Maiga said in a UN General Assembly speech on Saturday. “It was against this backdrop that France deployed in Mali and it’s also against this backdrop that France has suddenly decided to withdraw.” France has said it will eventually reduce its military presence in West Africa’s Sahel region from slightly more than 5,000 troops to 2,500 to 3,000 troops. While three military bases in northern Mali will be closed by early 2022, French President Emmanuel Macron plans to back up Sahel countries’ security forces with a...

The Wall Street Journal U.S., Russian Military Officials Meet Amid Concerns About Terrorism Fight by Gordon Lubold Discussions between military leaders come amid growing concerns that Afghanistan can provide a base for terrorist groups The Pentagon’s top officer met with his Russian counterpart in the Finnish capital Wednesday amid American and allied efforts to find ways to fight terrorism after the departure of U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan last month. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley met here with Chief of Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov, officials said. U.S. military officials declined to provide any details of the meeting, except to issue a brief statement saying the two discussed “risk reduction and operational deconfliction.” The U.S. and Russia have in the past discussed how to avoid conflict in Syria, where both countries maintain troops, and in the Black Sea, where both militaries conduct naval...

Kurdistan 24 SDF-Coalition Raids Lead To Decrease In ISIS Attacks In Northeast Syria: Report by Wladimir van Wilgenburg ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The number of attacks claimed by the Islamic State (ISIS) group in Syria hit a record low in recent weeks, new data from the Syria-based Rojava Information Center (RIC) shows. A total of 12 sleeper attacks were carried out in that region recently, approximately the same number carried out in July. However, only two of these latest attacks were claimed by ISIS, which is a record low, the RIC report said."The attacks resulted in 12 deaths, including a child in Al-Ahmar in Deir ez-Zor who was shot by a gunman," the RIC said.Six of the attacks were carried out in the notorious al-Hol camp, killing eight people. Al-Hol also saw four raids that resulted in eight arrests."Across Northeast Syria, the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) Asayish conducted 17 raids (including...

The Epoch Times ISIS-K Claims Responsibility For Bombings Targeting Taliban Vehicles Over The Weekend By Katabella Roberts ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for several bombings in Afghanistan over the weekend that targeted the Taliban and killed several people, while dozens more were injured.In two statements, the terrorist group claimed three separate bomb attacks targeting three Taliban vehicles in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province, on Saturday and another bomb attack on Sunday on a Taliban vehicle.Referring to the blasts, ISIS-K said, “More than 35 Taliban militia members were killed or wounded, in a series of explosions that took place.” The terrorist group did not comment on the death toll.Reuters reported Saturday that at least three people were killed and about 20 were wounded in blasts in Jalalabad. The official death toll is still unclear.Bilal Karimi, a Taliban spokesman, said Sunday’s bombing had killed one child and injured two people, one of which...

Deutsche Well Living In Fear Of Terrorists In Niger Thousands of people have died and tens of thousands have fled their homes in Niger's Tillaberi region, which is being ravaged by terrorist attacks. Now, the attackers are increasingly targeting children. "They have killed our husbands, the other men have fled, our storehouses have been burned down," said Hajiya Sibti Mouhamadou, who lives in the small village of Sara Koira in Niger's volatile Tillaberi region. "Today, it's the females who have to take on the role of both the men and the mothers ... and take care of the children and the old people," Mouhamadou says in a DW interview. "How should we manage to do all of this?"Tillaberi is a vast arid area of 100,000 square kilometers (39,000 square miles) in Niger's southwest where people primarily live from livestock herding and subsistence farming.The situation in Tillaberi, which forms part of the...

Bloomberg U.S. Spy Chief Sees Top Terror Risks From Yemen, Iraq—Not Afghanistan by Chris Strohm The greatest threat to the U.S. from international terrorists comes from nations such as Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Iraq, with Afghanistan further down the priority list after the two-decade American troop presence ended, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said. Although U.S. intelligence officials are closely watching whether terrorist groups re-emerge inside Afghanistan, the country is no longer the prime concern when it comes to harboring terrorists who could carry out an attack inside America, Haines said Monday at a national security conference in the Washington suburbs. “We don’t prioritize -- at the top of the list -- Afghanistan,” Haines said. “What we’re looking at is Yemen and Somalia, Syria and Iraq. That’s where we see the greatest threat.” Nonetheless, a “big focus” for U.S. intelligence agencies is monitoring the possible reconstruction of terrorist groups in...

NBC News Are We Safer Now Than We Were On 9/11? Many national security experts say the U.S. is now much less vulnerable to international terrorism than it was when New York and the Pentagon were struck. By Ken DilanianGUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Two decades after the 9/11 attacks put terrorism at the center of American foreign policy, some of the same Taliban figures who harbored the planners of that operation in Afghanistan are back in power, including an interior minister with a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.But despite the collapse of the American-backed government in Kabul, many national security experts say the U.S. remains much less vulnerable to international terrorism than it was when New York and the Pentagon were struck.“Absolutely, we're safer,” Michael Leiter, former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell.“We're safer here at home, because we’ve got an integrated intelligence community...

Fox News House Homeland GOP 'urgently concerned' with terrorist wanted by FBI in Taliban government Haqqani leads the Haqqani network, which the US designated a terrorist organization in 2012By Brooke Singman FIRST ON FOX: Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee are warning that the safety of Americans who remain in Afghanistan is "in the hands" of the Taliban’s new interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of a designated terror organization and one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorist operatives. The top Republican on the committee, Rep. John Katko, and the top Republican on the House Subcommittee on Intelligence & Counterterrorism, Rep. August Pfluger, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, first obtained by Fox News, laying out their concerns after the Taliban announced the formation of its new government in Afghanistan – including Haqqani as interior minister. "As you are aware, the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan continues to pose...

The National War Of Ideas: US Middle East Envoy Recalls The Day Terrorism Came To America Even the most seasoned Middle East negotiator was affected by 9/11, as an adviser and a father by Holly Aguirre Ambassador Dennis Ross began his White House tenure with Jimmy Carter and ended it with Barack Obama, and has remained a consistent shaper of America's Middle East peace process under Democratic and Republican administrations.Mr Ross's reputation as a skilled negotiator allowed him to transition from the administration of George HW Bush to that of Bill Clinton, where he was appointed special Middle East envoy reporting directly to the Oval Office.The signing of the 1993 Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles, known as the Oslo agreement, solidified his standing among world leaders. As the Clinton years were winding down, Mr Ross says that no other president was more dedicated to Middle East peace, a bold statement given his...