Behind the Lines for Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012 — 3 P.M.
In This Issue: Sweeping with a
very broad broom: Premier U.S. terror database classifies Ford Motor Co.,
2-year-old as terrorist threats . . . Quis custodiet ipsos custodet: TSA should
be screening its own screeners to weed out thieves who rip off flyers’ expensive
electronics, senator suggests . . . Life imitating fiction: Iranian actor who
plays terrorist Abu Nazir on “Homeland” typically gets a puzzled going-over at
airport checkpoints. These and other stories lead today’s homeland security
coverage.
“There aren't many people who would consider the Ford Motor Co. or a 2-year-old to be terrorist threats, but the United States’ premier database for classifying such dangers includes both,” The Huffington Post’s Michael McAuliff mentions. Janet Napolitano repeatedly mislead lawmakers about the status of DHS’s 77 intelligence fusion centers, the Republican co-author of a stinging Senate report complains to The Washington Times’ Shaun Waterman. Before 9/11, the FBI had created 32 Joint Terrorism Task Forces in major urban areas, adding since another 71 JTTFs, Michael P. Downing and Matt A. Mayer detail in a Heritage Issue Brief urging streamlining of the “domestic counterterrorism enterprise.”
Homies: In a surprise turn, the FBI is terming the death of a Border Patrol agent and the wounding of another a “friendly fire” incident in which three officers responding to a border alarm mistakenly fired upon one another, The Arizona Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez relates. Five months after more than a dozen agents were accused of drunken partying with Colombian prostitutes, DHS’s Secret Service has adopted new policies limiting the use of alcohol and social media, The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig learns. While TSA has made headway in defending against insider attacks, the agency lacks specific policies and procedures to mitigate those threats, Federal Times’ Nicole Johnson sees an IG report finding.
The Benghazi Blues Again: A leaked memo shows that State rejected a request to retain a plane for its Libyan security team, sharpening questions about the protection afforded the Benghazi consulate lethally sacked on Sept. 11, The Daily Telegraph’s Raf Sanchez reports — and check CBS News’ John Miller for more. Though GOP Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa have hammered on those questions, they also both voted to cut State’s embassy security budget, The Christian Science Monitor’s Dan Murphy reminds. New details are emerging, meantime, of the discord amongst agencies that has tangled administration response to the deadly attack, The Wall Street Journal’s Adam Entous adds. If it hadn’t been for this incident, Mitt Romney probably wouldn’t have been delivering a foreign policy address yesterday in the election season’s waning weeks, Danielle Pletka assesses in a New York Times op-ed.
State and local: The NYPD’s Intel Division “appears to have assembled a kind of municipal CIA ... The full extent of its activities, and the cost to civil liberties, will probably not be revealed for many years, if they are ever fully known at all,” a New York Review profile concludes. The LAPD has announced that illegal immigrants arrested for low-level offenses will no longer be handed to ICE for deportation, the Los Angeles Times tells. The Senate’s fusion center report singles out the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center for its spending on SUVs and to outfit a surveillance “wire room,” Cronkite News recounts. Two officers with the North Vernon (Ind.) P.D. participated in the state DHS’ full-scale response exercise, “Without Warning,” Columbus’ Talk 1010 WCSI Radio follows up.
Bugs ’n’ bombs: A homeless arsonist who told investigators he burned down a reproductive health clinic out of a “strong disbelief in abortion,” has been given 10 years behind federal bars, The Pensacola (Fla.) News Journal notes — while The Daily Oklahoman sees an Illinois man with a history of mental illness charged with plotting to attack dozens of churches in Oklahoma after notes and the makings of a Molotov cocktail were found. A U.S. chemical warfare battalion is relocating from stateside to South Korea, “beefing up capabilities in a region menaced by the threat of North Korean nuclear, chemical and biological weapons,” Stars and Stripes updates — while The Korean Herald sees South Korean soldiers using aging and out-of-date materials for chemical and biological warfare exercises, raising concerns over their health and drill practicality.”
Know Nukes: Entergy Corp. and locked-out union security guards are squabbling over mandatory overtime at Mississippi’s Grand Gulf nuke plant, The Associated Press follows up — while Government Security News sees Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration opening a new “live fire shoothouse” to train nuclear arms site guards. An “enemy drone” downed by Israel may have been steering for the nuclear reactor in Dimona, Arutz Sheva suggests. Currency crisis-inspired protests in Iran bolster Israeli hopes that sanctions may obviate a military strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, The Wall Street Journal relates — as Space War sees the U.S. pressing its fractious Arab allies to accelerate work on a missile defense network to counter Iran's ballistic missile arsenal. “The global effects of a regional war between nuclear-armed adversaries would wield an enormous impact, potentially involving radioactive fallout at large distances caused by a limited number of nuclear explosions,” a Policy Review piece posits.
Close air support: In a letter to John Pistole, obtained by The New York Post, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says TSA should be screening its own screeners to weed out thieves who rip off passengers’ expensive electronics — while the L.A. Times sees a TSA screener arrested Friday on suspicion of stealing $100 from a passenger who was going through a security checkpoint at LAX. Newark Liberty screeners properly execute pat-downs only 16.7 percent of the time and ID prohibited items in only a quarter of all cases, the Star-Ledger sees a secret internal report finding — as KOB 4 News has Albuquerque International probing “whether anyone got into the aviation police evidence room who wasn't supposed to.” As often as not, Navid Negahban, who plays terrorist Abu Nazir on Showtime’s “Homeland,” gets the hairy eyeball at airport checkpoints, the Iranian-born actor informs CNN.
Courts and rights: A trio of al Qaeda-linked terrorists, including radical imam Abu Hamza and two men accused in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings, were finally extradited this weekend from a British prison to face justice in lower Manhattan, The New York Daily News notes — while The Hartford Courant sees another two Brit nationals pleading innocent to various terror charges in New Haven. New York’s highest court today will reconsider the 2007 conviction of a Gotham gang member under the state’s anti-terrorism statute, the first case of its kind in New York, AP reports. The court-ordered shrink who found the Texan Mansour J. Arbabsiar fit for trial also offers “rich new detail” about the Iranian-American charged with conspiring to kill the Saudi ambassador, The New York Times spotlights. “Four days into the prosecution's case against a man who allegedly helped finance the Somali group Al Shabaab, at least one thing has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt: The investigation was huge,” The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports. A Palestinian-born U.S. citizen convicted of helping finance and execute al Qaeda “terrorist operations” inside Iraq has been sentenced to life behind bars in Baghdad, Reuters reports.
Over there: Arrested trying to enter Turkey, two Tunisians believed involved in last month’s lethal Libyan consulate assault are being questioned at America’s behest, CNN says. In raids across France on Saturday, police arrested 11 terror suspects and killed another who reportedly first opened fire on police, NBC News notes. Ten years after a series of bombs in Bali left more than 200 people dead, Indonesia is an anti-terrorism success story [and] things are more peaceful than many could have expected,” Asia Times assesses. The Philippines announced a deal Sunday with a Muslim rebel group to end a decades-long separatist insurgency that has killed more than 150,000 people, Agence France-Presse reports. In recent months, there have been noticeable shifts in the rhetoric of U.S.-born Al Shabaab propagandist Omar Shafik Hammami, “from defiance to fear to a quest for survival and relevance,” The Washington Post profiles.
Qaeda Qorner: At the forefront of the salafist surge in Tunisia, Libya and Yemen are groups rallying under the banner of “Ansar al-Sharia,” Sabahi leads — while The Wall Street Journal sees State designating that group as simply a rebranding of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. The attacks on the Benghazi consulate and three other U.S. embassies “show that al Qaeda is not just alive and kicking but that our current strategy for dealing with the group is failing,” a Foreign Policy contributor contends. Terrorist groups in Mali and Yemen affiliated with al Qaeda are “gaining strength,” in large part by taking hostages for ransom, Bloomberg quotes a Treasury official. After decades fighting Algerian authorities, a leading al Qaeda figure has surrendered to Algerian security forces, Magharebia mentions. Iraq’s al Qaeda franchise has claimed responsibility for last week's jail break in Tikrit as well as a Baghdad mosque bombing and other attacks, Al Jazeera relates — as CNN sees Iraqi authorities executing 11 convicted terrorists Sunday.
Actuarially speaking: “An estimated 150,000 people are presumed to have died yesterday in the wake of what experts described as ‘a fairly typical day’ on the planet,” Glossy News reveals. “If confirmed, the expected number of fatalities during the latest in a string of typical days would raise the death toll since the dawn of human existence to approximately 108 billion. Experts also noted that the typical day’s lethality was relatively normal, unmarked by any major life-extinguishing events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, or airplane crashes . . . Estimates of the number of those injured during the typical day were not yet available, but it is expected that upwards of tens of millions sustained a variety of wounds ranging from paper cuts to muscle sprains to having their limbs blown off by exploding mines. Finally, in a related story, an estimated 220,000 new human beings were born during the typical day, thus tragically setting the stage — barring any medical breakthrough in longevity — for a nearly equivalent number of deaths sometime within the next century.” Check also, from the Onion Weather Center: “Bostonians Urged To Speak Like Normal Human Beings When Communicating With Flood Rescue Personnel.”
No comments:
Post a Comment