Archive for category Threat Watch

Islamists Call For Death Of Bloggers

This was posted to Slashdot on Feb. 25th:

“Days after the killing of leftist blogger Thaba Baba, mosques throughout Bangladesh called for a popular uprising to demand the killing of other bloggers who had held a rally calling for the death of Jama’at-e-Islami leaders convicted of war crimes. This happens in an atmosphere of ongoing tension between Left and Right, with the leftist government threatening to outlaw rightist parties while the right uses violence to quiet selected enemies.”

, , , , ,

No Comments

Beretta Considering Leaving Maryland

, , , , , , ,

No Comments

China Tests Japanese and U.S. Patience

China Tests Japanese and U.S. Patience is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Rodger Baker
Vice President of East Asia Analysis

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has warned Beijing that Tokyo is losing patience with China’s assertive maritime behavior in the East and South China seas, suggesting China consider the economic and military consequences of its actions. His warning followed similar statements from Washington that its patience with China is wearing thin, in this case over continued Chinese cyberespionage and the likelihood that Beijing is developing and testing cybersabotage and cyberwarfare capabilities. Together, the warnings are meant to signal to China that the thus-far relatively passive response to China’s military actions may be nearing an end.

In an interview The Washington Post published just prior to Abe’s meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, Abe said China’s actions around the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands and its overall increasing military assertiveness have already resulted in a major increase in funding for the Japan Self-Defense Forces and coast guard. He also reiterated the centrality of the Japan-U.S. alliance for Asian security and warned that China could lose Japanese and other foreign investment if it continued to use “coercion or intimidation” toward its neighbors along the East and South China seas. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , ,

No Comments

Journalism Most Threatened In Middle East

From Al Jazeera:

Figures compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists show an increase in the deaths of reporters covering the region, with 30 journalists killed in 2012 in Syria alone.

The period between 1992 and 2012 saw the killings of 438 journalists in the Middle East and North Africa.

, , , ,

No Comments

Hellfire, Morality and Strategy

Hellfire, Morality and Strategy is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By George Friedman
Founder and Chairman

Airstrikes by unmanned aerial vehicles have become a matter of serious dispute lately. The controversy focuses on the United States, which has the biggest fleet of these weapons and which employs them more frequently than any other country. On one side of this dispute are those who regard them simply as another weapon of war whose virtue is the precision with which they strike targets. On the other side are those who argue that in general, unmanned aerial vehicles are used to kill specific individuals, frequently civilians, thus denying the targeted individuals their basic right to some form of legal due process.

Let’s begin with the weapons systems, the MQ-1 Predator and the MQ-9 Reaper. The media call them drones, but they are actually remotely piloted aircraft. Rather than being in the cockpit, the pilot is at a ground station, receiving flight data and visual images from the aircraft and sending command signals back to it via a satellite data link. Numerous advanced systems and technologies work together to make this possible, but it is important to remember that most of these technologies have been around in some form for decades, and the U.S. government first integrated them in the 1990s. The Predator carries two Hellfire missiles — precision-guided munitions that, once locked onto the target by the pilot, guide themselves to the target with a high likelihood of striking it. The larger Reaper carries an even larger payload of ordnance — up to 14 Hellfire missiles or four Hellfire missiles and two 500-pound bombs. Most airstrikes from these aircraft use Hellfire missiles, which cause less collateral damage.

Unlike a manned aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles can remain in the air for an extended period of time — an important capability for engaging targets that may only present a very narrow target window. This ability to loiter, and then strike quickly when a target presents itself, is what has made these weapons systems preferable to fixed wing aircraft and cruise missiles. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Rape Victim’s Ability To Defend Herself Was Legislated Away

I was raped, I was raped at gun-point in a gun-free zone less that 100 feet away from the police department’s office and then he when on to further rape two other women and murder his third victim.

, , , , ,

No Comments

Domestic Drone Authorization

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

As we’ve written in the past, drone use in the United States implicates serious privacy and civil liberties concerns. Although drones can be used for neutral, or even for positive purposes, drones are also capable of highly advanced and, in some cases, almost constant surveillance, and they can amass large amounts of data. Even the smallest drones can carry a host of surveillance equipment, from video cameras and thermal imaging to GPS tracking and cellphone eavesdropping tools. They can also be equipped with advanced forms of radar detection, license plate cameras, and facial recognition. And, as recent reporting from PBS and Slate shows, surveillance tools, like the military’s development of gigapixel technology capable of “tracking people and vehicles across an entire city,” are improving rapidly.

, , , ,

No Comments

Soft Targets Back in Focus

Soft Targets Back in Focus is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

From time to time, I will sit down to write a series of analyses on a particular topic, such as the fundamentals of terrorism series last February. Other times, unrelated events in different parts of the world are tied together by analytical threads, naturally becoming a series. This is what has happened with the last three weekly security analyses — a common analytical narrative has risen to connect them.

First, we discussed how the Jan. 16 attack against the Tigantourine natural gas facility near Ain Amenas, Algeria, would result in increased security at energy facilities in the region. Second, we discussed foreign interventions in Libya and Syria and how they have regional or even global consequences that can persist for years. Finally, last week we discussed how the robust, layered security at the U.S. Embassy in Ankara served to thwart a suicide bombing.

Together, these topics spotlight the heightened and persistent terrorist threat in North Africa as well as Turkey and the Levant. They also demonstrate that militants in those regions will be able to acquire weapons with ease. But perhaps the most important lesson from them is that as diplomatic missions are withdrawn or downsized and as security is increased at embassies and energy facilities, the threat is going to once again shift toward softer targets. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Cartels Offer $47,000 Bounty For Identity Of Twitter User

From La Politica Es La Politica:

Due to the self-imposed silence of the media, and even of the government and police, for many citizens to follow the Twitter account of @ValorTamaulipas is the only way for them to know if and where a shooting might be taking place, as well as what roads are secure, and in what areas people have met with violence or been “disappeared”.

, , , , ,

No Comments

Fiscal Crisis Begins to Deliver First Shocks to National Security

From: Defense Media Network

Navy Forced to Reschedule Carrier Strike Group Rotation

Fiscal crisis begins to deliver first shocks to national security

On Wednesday, Feb. 6, Pentagon Press Secretary George Little announced that the rotation schedule for USN carrier strike groups (CSGs) had been reevaluated, and all future deployments rescheduled. Previously, U.S. military policy had been to keep a pair of CSGs in the Persian Gulf at any given moment, mainly to provide deterrence against the Iranians and their growing nuclear weapons and guided missile programs. The reason given was the ongoing fiscal confusion generated by the continuing resolution (CR) that is currently funding the Department of Defense (DoD) in lieu of a finished national defense appropriations act.

more

No Comments

Missouri Introduces Bill To Ban And Confiscate “Assault” Weapons

This is starting to get ridiculous. The anti-constitutionalists around the country who are proposing these laws better be voted out next time they are up for election. If any of these laws pass one can only hope that the people will resist in mass civil disobedience.

Missouri bill full text here.

Excerpt:

4. Any person who, prior to the effective date of this law, was legally in possession of an assault weapon or large capacity magazine shall have ninety days from such effective date to do any of the following without being subject to prosecution:

(1) Remove the assault weapon or large capacity magazine from the state of Missouri;

(2) Render the assault weapon permanently inoperable; or

(3) Surrender the assault weapon or large capacity magazine to the appropriate law enforcement agency for destruction, subject to specific agency regulations.

5. Unlawful manufacture, import, possession, purchase, sale, or transfer of an assault weapon or a large capacity magazine is a class C felony.

, , , , , , , ,

No Comments

Data Mining Surveillance Software Secretly Built By Raytheon

From The Sydney Morning Herald:

Raytheon says it has not sold the software – named Riot, or Rapid Information Overlay Technology – to any clients. But the Massachusetts-based company has acknowledged the technology was shared with US government and industry as part of a joint research and development effort, in 2010, to help build a national security system capable of analysing “trillions of entities” from cyberspace.

, , , , ,

No Comments

Government Can Kill You If It Thinks You May Commit A Crime In The Future

From Time’s Battleland Blog:

For now, the only club whose membership can earn you such a “pre-crime-sentence” is al-Qaeda, but how many dangerous organizations (you tell me where to put the sarcastic quotation marks on that phrase) will be added to this list in the years and decades ahead?

Ask yourself that, Mr. Obama.

, , , , ,

No Comments

When Security Measures Work

When Security Measures Work is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Scott Stewart
Vice President of Analysis

On Feb. 1, a Turkish national named Ecevit Sanli walked up to the side entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara like many others had done that day. Dressed inconspicuously, he waved a manila envelope at the man inside the guard booth as he approached the entrance. The security guard had no reason to distrust the man approaching the checkpoint; the entrance is used to screen packages, and perhaps the guard assumed Sanli was dropping off a document or was a visa applicant at the wrong entrance. What the guard did not know, perhaps, is that Sanli was a person of interest to the Turkish police, who suspected that he was plotting an attack.

The guard opened the door of the access control building — the outermost door of the embassy compound — to speak to Sanli, who took one step inside before detonating the explosive device that was strapped to his body. The explosion killed Sanli and the security guard, seriously wounded a journalist who was visiting the embassy and left two other local guards who were manning the entrance with minor injuries.

The embassy’s local security personnel, as designed, bore the brunt of the attack. They are hired and trained to prevent threats from penetrating the embassy’s perimeter. The low casualty count of the Feb. 1 attack is a testament to the training and professionalism of the local guards and the robust, layered security measures in place at the embassy — factors for which those responsible for the attack apparently did not sufficiently plan. Read the rest of this entry »

, , , , ,

No Comments

Israeli President Pressuring U.S. to Strike Iran

From Business Insider:

Netanyahu said that Israel was simply not strong enough to force a halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. In order to halt the program, Bibi said, the U.S. would have to strike, and they must do so this year.

, , , , , , ,

No Comments