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Archive for category Threat Watch
Home of Swedish cartoonist attacked
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Opinion, Threat Watch on 16/May/2010 02:53
“The home of a Swedish artist who once drew a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog has been hit by a suspected arson attack, police said Saturday.
Lars Vilks, who lives in Nyhamnslage in southern Sweden, was not at home during the attack late Friday night and no one was reported injured.
It was the latest in a week of attacks on the 53-year-old cartoonist, who was assaulted Tuesday by a man while he lectured at a university and saw his Web site apparently attacked by hacker on Wednesday.”
My favorite comment on this story: “If you think that tea baggers and religious conservatives are the enemy, but come up with excuses why muslims are justified in their rage over cartoons, you have no ability to think rationally.”
I’m not making any judgment on tea baggers or religious conservatives, but I find it curious how selective humans can be with their outrage.
And so, now, everyone will be afraid to express anything that might upset these people?
Army Exercise Targets Tea Party as Terrorists
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Opinion, Threat Watch on 29/Apr/2010 13:14
From: The Patriot Post
This week, I was contacted by a number of military personnel, enlisted and officer ranks, who expressed concern about a military exercise underway at Ft. Knox, the U.S. Bullion Depository. As with most such exercises, the Ft. Knox alert occurred in stages, as if real time intelligence was being provided at various intervals.
The first intel advisory was issued on Friday, 23 April 2010, and identifies the terrorist threat adversaries as “Local Militia Groups / Anti-Government Protesters / TEA Party.”
You read that right: “TEA Party”!
Tea Party Terrorist?
The alert states that plans for the demonstration may have been interrupted by “Federal and local law enforcement” raids on a “White Supremacists Organization,” but “TEA Party organizers have stated that they will protest at the Gold Vault at a future date.”
… Further, the intel advisory states, “Anti-Government – Health Care Protesters have stated that they would join the TEA Party as a sign of solidarity.”
… As one put it, the exercise “misrepresents freedom loving Americans as drunken, violent racists — the opponents of Obama’s policies have been made the enemy of the U.S. Army.”
They were equally concerned that command staff at Ft. Knox had signed off on this exercise, noting, “it has been issued and owned by field grade officers who lead our battalions and brigades,” which is to say many Lieutenant Colonels saw this order before it was implemented.
… One officer insisted, “The American people should require greater accountability of their commissioned officers, that they abide by their oath and never allow politically motivated propaganda like this exercise on any post or base again.”
Another observed, “Whether this is complacency by officers who do not see such orders as a problem, or worse, officers who recognize the problem but do not insist the orders are changed, this is a serious problem. We are discussing the training of American citizen soldiers in the use of potentially deadly force against a specific group of political dissenters. There is never a time in an officer’s career in which he does not have a duty to apply critical thought to the orders he is given and asked to give. It is my opinion that any officer that has allowed these orders to persist, to reach the level of junior officers and soldiers, has demonstrated a lack of judgment or apathy towards what his duty requires of him. Either way, we should demand more of the commissioned officers, who we as a nation empower to lead our sons and daughters into battle.”
Dirty Bombs Revisited: Combating the Hype
Posted by Brian in Threat Watch on 22/Apr/2010 14:13
This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR
By Scott Stewart
As STRATFOR has noted for several years now, media coverage of the threat posed by dirty bombs runs in a perceptible cycle with distinct spikes and lulls. We are currently in one of the periods of heightened awareness and media coverage. A number of factors appear to have sparked the current interest, including the recently concluded Nuclear Security Summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama. Other factors include the resurfacing rumors that al Qaeda militant Adnan El Shukrijumah may have returned to the United States and is planning to conduct an attack, as well as recent statements by members of the Obama administration regarding the threat of jihadist militants using weapons of mass destruction (WMD). A recent incident in India in which a number of people were sickened by radioactive metal at a scrap yard in a New Delhi slum also has received a great deal of media coverage.
In spite of the fact that dirty bombs have been discussed widely in the press for many years now — especially since the highly publicized arrest of Jose Padilla in May 2002 — much misinformation and disinformation continues to circulate regarding dirty bombs. The misinformation stems from long-held misconceptions and ignorance, while the disinformation comes from scaremongers hyping the threat for financial or political reasons. Frankly, many people have made a lot of money by promoting fear since 9/11.
Just last week, we read a newspaper article in which a purported expert interviewed by the reporter discussed how a dirty bomb would “immediately cause hundreds or even thousands of deaths.†This is simply not true. A number of radiological accidents have demonstrated that a dirty bomb will not cause this type of death toll. Indeed, the panic generated by a dirty bomb attack could very well result in more immediate deaths than the detonation of the device itself. Unfortunately, media stories hyping the threat of these devices may foster such panic, thus increasing the death toll. To counter this irrational fear, we feel it is time once again to discuss dirty bombs in detail and provide our readers with a realistic assessment of the threat they pose. Read the rest of this entry »
If you look around you can see it already happening.
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Threat Watch on 21/Apr/2010 19:38
“The new technique is to undermine the West from within, like termites, with the host society never knowing what hit it until it is too late.”
“Sheik Qaradawi published a call to Muslim Canadians … to convert non-Muslims to Islam…
“The sheikh [Qaradawi] advised his brothers and followers to set up a “Dawa†campaign [to convert non-Muslims to Islam]. He added that the path of “Dawa†is not strewn with flowers and perfumes, but sometimes with corpses and blood.â€
http://www.themarknews.com/articles/1361-an-islamist-in-sheep-s-clothing
U.S. Muslim group warns South Park creators that they may be killed
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Threat Watch on 21/Apr/2010 19:23
“A U.S. Muslim group has issued a dire Internet “warning” to creators of the satirical animated TV show “South Park” over a depiction of the Prophet Mohammad in a bear outfit.
“We have to warn Matt (Stone) and Trey (Parker) that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show,” said a posting on website RevolutionMuslim.com.
The website posted a graphic photo of slain Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was killed in 2004 by an Islamic militant over a movie he made that accused Islam of condoning violence against women.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100421/en_nm/us_southpark_muslims;_ylt=AoBEHrOGxMf7BhDdOs1rG.R0fNdF
Question: do we need to tolerate this? Do we need to tolerate people threatening to kill someone for creating and showing something they don’t like? Where is the outcry over “hate mongering?†Where is the outrage?
CAIR = Front group for Hamas?
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Threat Watch on 17/Apr/2010 23:14
“The Department of Justice has presented evidence to four inquiring Congress members to support the agency’s belief that the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations was founded as a front group in the U.S. for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.”
Kyrgyzstan and the Russian Resurgence
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 14/Apr/2010 21:14
This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR
By Lauren Goodrich
This past week saw another key success in Russia’s resurgence in former Soviet territory when pro-Russian forces took control of Kyrgyzstan.
The Kyrgyz revolution was quick and intense. Within 24 hours, protests that had been simmering for months spun into countrywide riots as the president fled and a replacement government took control. The manner in which every piece necessary to exchange one government for another fell into place in such a short period discredits arguments that this was a spontaneous uprising of the people in response to unsatisfactory economic conditions. Instead, this revolution appears prearranged.
A Prearranged Revolution
Opposition forces in Kyrgyzstan have long held protests, especially since the Tulip Revolution in 2005 that brought recently ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to power. But various opposition groupings never were capable of pulling off such a full revolution — until Russia became involved.
In the weeks before the revolution, select Kyrgyz opposition members visited Moscow to meet with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. STRATFOR sources in Kyrgyzstan reported the pervasive, noticeable presence of Russia’s Federal Security Service on the ground during the crisis, and Moscow readied 150 elite Russian paratroopers the day after the revolution to fly into Russian bases in Kyrgyzstan. As the dust began to settle, Russia endorsed the still-coalescing government.
There are quite a few reasons why Russia would target a country nearly 600 miles from its borders (and nearly 1,900 miles from capital to capital), though Kyrgyzstan itself is not much of a prize. The country has no economy or strategic resources to speak of and is highly dependent on all its neighbors for foodstuffs and energy. But it does have a valuable geographic location.
Central Asia largely comprises a massive steppe of more than a million square miles, making the region easy to invade. The one major geographic feature other than the steppe are the Tien Shan mountains, a range that divides Central Asia from South Asia and China. Nestled within these mountains is the Fergana Valley, home to most of Central Asia’s population due to its arable land and the protection afforded by the mountains. The Fergana Valley is the core of Central Asia. Read the rest of this entry »
Mexico and the Failed State Revisited
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 6/Apr/2010 14:38
This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR
By George Friedman
STRATFOR argued March 13, 2008, that Mexico was nearing the status of a failed state. A failed state is one in which the central government has lost control over significant areas of the country and the state is unable to function. In revisiting this issue, it seems to us that the Mexican government has lost control of the northern tier of Mexico to drug-smuggling organizations, which have significantly greater power in that region than government forces. Moreover, the ability of the central government to assert its will against these organizations has weakened to the point that decisions made by the state against the cartels are not being implemented or are being implemented in a way that would guarantee failure.
Despite these facts, it is not clear to STRATFOR that Mexico is becoming a failed state. Instead, it appears the Mexican state has accommodated itself to the situation. Rather than failing, it has developed strategies designed both to ride out the storm and to maximize the benefits of that storm for Mexico.
First, while the Mexican government has lost control over matters having to do with drugs and with the borderlands of the United States, Mexico City’s control over other regions — and over areas other than drug enforcement — has not collapsed (though its lack of control over drugs could well extend to other areas eventually). Second, while drugs reshape Mexican institutions dramatically, they also, paradoxically, stabilize Mexico. We need to examine these crosscurrents to understand the status of Mexico. Read the rest of this entry »
Jihadism and the Importance of Place
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 29/Mar/2010 16:34
This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR
By Scott Stewart
One of the basic tenets of STRATFOR’s analytical model is that place matters. A country’s physical and cultural geography will force the government of that country to confront certain strategic imperatives no matter what form the government takes. For example, Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia all have faced the same set of strategic imperatives. Similarly, place can also have a dramatic impact on the formation and operation of a militant group, though obviously not in quite the same way that it affects a government, since militant groups, especially transnational ones, tend to be itinerant and can move from place to place.
From the perspective of a militant group, geography is important but there are other critical factors involved in establishing the suitability of a place. While it is useful to have access to wide swaths of rugged terrain that can provide sanctuary such as mountains, jungles or swamps, for a militant group to conduct large-scale operations, the country in which it is based must have a weak central government — or a government that is cooperative or at least willing to turn a blind eye to the group. A sympathetic population is also a critical factor in whether an area can serve as a sanctuary for a militant group. In places without a favorable mixture of these elements, militants tend to operate more like terrorists, in small urban-based cells.
For example, although Egypt was one of the ideological cradles of jihadism, jihadist militants have never been able to gain a solid foothold in Egypt (as they have been able to do in Algeria, Yemen and Pakistan). This is because the combination of geography and government are not favorable to them even in areas of the country where there is a sympathetic population. When jihadist organizations have become active in Egypt, the Egyptian government has been able to quickly hunt them down. Having no place to hide, those militants who are not immediately arrested or killed frequently leave the country and end up in places like Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan (and sometimes Jersey City). Over the past three decades, many of these itinerant Egyptian militants, such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, have gone on to play significant roles in the formation and evolution of al Qaeda — a stateless, transnational jihadist organization.
Even though al Qaeda and the broader jihadist movement it has sought to foster are transnational, they are still affected by the unique dynamics of place, and it is worth examining how these dynamics will likely affect the movement’s future. Read the rest of this entry »
Jihadism: The Grassroots Paradox
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 25/Mar/2010 16:14
“This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR”
By Scott Stewart
Last week, rumors that Adam Gadahn had been arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, quickly swept through the global media. When the dust settled, it turned out that the rumors were incorrect; the person arrested was not the American-born al Qaeda spokesman. The excitement generated by the rumors overshadowed a message from Gadahn that the al Qaeda media arm as Sahab had released on March 7, the same day as the reported arrest. While many of the messages from al Qaeda figures that as Sahab has released over the past several years have been repetitive and quite unremarkable, after watching Gadahn’s March 7 message, we believe that it is a message too interesting to ignore.
The Message
In the message, which was titled “A Call to Arms,†Gadahn starts by telling jihadists to strike targets that are close to them. He repeats the al Qaeda doctrinal position that jihad is a personal, religiously mandated duty for every able-bodied Muslim. He then tells his audience that “it is for you, like your heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, to decide how, when and where you discharge this duty. But whatever you do, don’t wait for tomorrow to do what can be done today, and don’t wait for others to do what you can do yourself.â€
As the message progresses, Gadahn’s praise of Fort Hood shooter Hasan continues. Gadahn lifts up Hasan as an example for other Muslims to emulate: “the Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers and yearns to discharge his duty to Allah.†He adds that Hasan was the “ideal role model†for Muslims serving in the armed forces of Western countries and of their Muslim allies. Gadahn’s message is clearly intended to encourage more jihadists to emulate Hasan and conduct lone wolf terrorist attacks. Read the rest of this entry »
UK: Two brothers filmed Al Qaeda-style propaganda, stockpiled weapons, convicted of terrorist offences.
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 20/Mar/2010 13:32
Jailed: Abbas Iqbal, who gathered a stockpile of weapons at his family home in Blackburn, was found guilty of dissemination of terrorist publications and preparing for acts of terrorism
“Two brothers who filmed Al Qaeda-style propaganda in a park and dubbed themselves ‘The Blackburn Resistance’ were yesterday convicted of terrorist offenses.
Abbas Iqbal, 24, gathered a stockpile of weapons at the family home in Blackburn, while his brother, Ilyas, 23, studied and compiled information on guerrilla warfare.
During the four-week trial, the jury was shown mobile phone footage off all three men dressed in camouflage and crawling across a town centre park in broad daylight.”
Terrorism: Defining a Tactic
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 16/Mar/2010 18:05
This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR
By Fred Burton and Ben West
In the evening of March 4, as U.S. Department of Defense workers were wrapping up their day, a man wearing a suit and displaying what guards later referred to as a “nervous intensity†approached the entrance to the Pentagon. As he walked up to the guard booth, he reached into his pocket and took out a semi-automatic 9 mm pistol and began firing at the two security personnel stationed at the entrance. The guards retreated behind ballistic glass and returned fire at the man, who rushed the entrance. Seconds later, a third guard armed with a .40-caliber submachine gun confronted and shot the gunman, delivering a fatal head wound that ended the incident.
The gunman in this case was John Patrick Bedell, a native Californian who had driven from California to Washington to carry out his one-man attack on the Pentagon. Given the available details (e.g., a cross-country trek, business attire), it appears that Bedell had planned his attack well ahead of time. He had a history of mental illness as well as minor criminal offenses, such as growing marijuana and resisting arrest. More notable, though, is a series of recordings and writings he posted on the Internet in November 2006 in which he criticized the federal government and said the 9/11 attacks were a government-led conspiracy.
The March 4 shooting came right on the heels of another attack against the U.S. government, this one in Austin, Texas, where software engineer and pilot Joseph Stack crashed his single-engine Piper Cherokee into a building Feb. 18 that housed offices of the Internal Revenue Service. In another previous attack, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, opened fire at a troop processing facility at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people. While many government officials are denying that these incidents were terrorist acts, we at STRATFOR disagree. Arguments used to not classify these attacks as terrorism include the failure to generate large numbers of casualties, a lack of foreign ties and the absence of a larger conspiracy. This dismissal of terrorism as a factor in these attacks ultimately has a long-term impact on past and future investigations, and it also seems to ignore the legal definition, as set out in Title VIII, Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act:
[An] act of terrorism means any activity that (A) involves a violent act or an act dangerous to human life that is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or any State, or that would be a criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States or of any State; and (B) appears to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by assassination or kidnapping.
How to Disarm America
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Opinion, Threat Watch on 16/Mar/2010 13:26
This from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette is an oldie but goody. I like to trot this one out from time to time when people ask me “why so much politics”, “Why do you feel the need to post and re-post every little political blurb about guns and the Constitution“? There is even a pretty good gun website where right on the home page banner it says ” No Politics, Just Guns”. Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to worry about our freedoms? But if that was the case we wouldn’t need Sheepdogs or Warriors. I could spend a lot more time drinking Scotch and smoking cigars and less time scouring the Internet and Old Media looking for the next threat vector. Until that day, we remain as always. Now here from 2007:
Disarm America? Here’s howWe’re swamped with guns, but if we want to get rid of them, there is a way to do itSunday, April 29, 2007The tragedy at Virginia Tech, with a mentally disturbed person gunning down 32 of America’s finest — intelligent working people with futures ahead of them — puts once again into focus for Americans the phenomenon of an armed society.
Dan Simpson, a retired U.S. ambassador, is a Post-Gazette associate editor (dsimpson@post-gazette.com). The likely underestimate of how many guns are wandering around America runs at 240 million in a population of about 300 million. What was clear at Virginia Tech is that at least two of those guns were in the wrong hands.When people talk about doing something about guns in America, one of the points that comes to the fore is, “How could America disarm even if it wanted to? There are so many guns out there.” Today I want to address the question of “how” — if we decided to. Since I have little or no power to influence the “if” part of the issue, I will stick with “how.” Read the rest of this entry »
IANSA Anti-Gun Propaganda Machine
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Opinion, Threat Watch on 15/Mar/2010 17:01
The 
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) is a global propaganda machine that uses violence against women and children, and public health as focal points for it’s anti-gun rhetoric.
IANSA works closely with with United Nations in their effort to eliminate small arms throughout the globe. IANSA provides media, resources and “tool-kits” in several languages and supports anti- gun efforts in over 100 countries.
IANSA Banners.
CrimeWeb.net
Posted by Brian in Threat Watch on 9/Mar/2010 15:42
CrimeWeb.net is a website dedicated to alerting users to recent crimes in their area. The website requires that users register with the site to receive updates and alerts using an email and a password. One reason for the registration is the site needs a place to send the alert. While the site may be good for alerting citizens of recent crimes the site itself is not very easy to use. Searching the site for specific crimes in an area is made tedious because they use text fields and drop down menus. An overhaul of the user interface is needed to keep pace with modern websites. The information I did find was very detailed, including pictures of suspects, incident information and phone numbers of local law enforcement to call in tips. A link to FBI data is provided on the site, however it is a direct link to the FBI’s website and not FBI data provided on the CrimeWeb site itself. The information on CrimeWeb is excellent, finding what you are looking for is difficult.