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From LA Times

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Immigration agents arrest nearly 300 foreigners with criminal records during three-day sweep

Immigration agents arrested more than 286 foreigners with criminal records during a three-day sweep in California, officials announced today.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John Morton said the operation was the largest of its kind and resulted in the arrests of illegal immigrants convicted of robbery, assault and rape.

About 96 of the arrests took place in Los Angeles County and included people from Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Among those arrested in the county were a suspected gang member from El Salvador who had a 2004 robbery conviction and a Guatemalan man with a 1993 conviction for lewd acts with a child under 14.

"These are not the kind of people we want walking our streets," Morton said.

The arrests were conducted as part of a controversial program designed to arrest and deport immigrants who have criminal records, who have ignored deportation orders or who have been deported and illegally reentered the United States. About 400 officers and agents took part in the operation, which ended late Thursday night.

Critics have said the program, which started in 2003 and has rapidly expanded since then, has created fear in immigrant communities by sending armed agents into neighborhoods and pulling parents away from their children.

In addition, immigration agents often arrested people without criminal records to fill quotas, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute earlier this year.

During a visit to Los Angeles over the summer, Morton announced that he would end the quotas.

More than 35,000 people were arrested nationwide by fugitive operations teams in fiscal year 2009, according to ICE. Of those, nearly 89% either had criminal records or outstanding deportation orders.

In Los Angeles, there were 3,039 arrests, including 1,466 criminals. Of those arrested, 247 – or 8% -- did not have criminal records or outstanding deportation orders.

Many of those arrested this week had previously been deported, officials said, and at least 17 will face further federal prosecution.

For example, Ulises Vazuiz Arucha, 37, was convicted of first-degree robbery in 2004 and deported to El Salvador in 2007. The suspected gang member was arrested in Reseda on Dec. 8.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/immigration-agents-arrests-nearly-300-foreigners-with-criminal-records-in-sweep.html#more

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Arizona sheriff ups the ante against his foes

Joe Arpaio has escalated his tactics, not only defying the federal government on immigration but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him.

by Nicholas Riccardi

December 12, 2009

Reporting from Phoenix

The day after the federal government told Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio that he could no longer use his deputies to round up suspected illegal immigrants on the street, the combative Arizona sheriff did just that.

He launched one of his notorious "sweeps," in which his officers descend on heavily Latino neighborhoods, arrest hundreds of people for violations as minor as a busted headlight and ask them whether they are in the country legally.

"I wanted to show everybody it didn't make a difference," Arpaio said of the Obama administration's order.

Arpaio calls himself "America's toughest sheriff" and remains widely popular across the state. For two decades, he has basked in publicity over his colorful tactics, such as dressing jail inmates in pink underwear and housing them in outdoor tents during the brutal Phoenix summers.

But he has escalated his tactics in recent months, not only defying the federal government but launching repeated investigations of those who criticize him. He recently filed a racketeering lawsuit against the entire Maricopa County power structure. On Thursday night, the Arizona Court of Appeals issued an emergency order forbidding the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office from searching the home or chambers of a Superior Court judge who was named in the racketeering case.

Last year, when Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon called for a federal investigation of Arpaio's immigration enforcement, the Sheriff's Office demanded to see Gordon's e-mails, phone logs and appointment calendars.

When the police chief in one suburb complained about the sweeps, Arpaio's deputies raided that town's City Hall.

A local television station, KPHO, in a 10-minute-long segment last month, documented two dozen instances of the sheriff launching investigations of critics, none of which led to convictions.

The most notorious case involves county Supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican who has sometimes disagreed with Arpaio's immigration tactics. Last December, deputies arrested Stapley on charges of failing to disclose business interests properly on his statement of economic interest.

Stapley's alarmed supervisor colleagues had their offices swept for listening devices. Arpaio contended the search was illegal and sent investigators to the homes of dozens of county staffers to grill them about the sweep.

A judge in September dismissed several of the allegations against Stapley, and prosecutors dropped the case. Three days later, Arpaio's deputies arrested Stapley again after he parked his car in a downtown parking structure near his office.

No charges were filed until County Atty. Andrew Thomas -- Arpaio's ally in his fights with the supervisor -- charged Stapley this week with misusing money he raised to run for president of the National Assn. of Counties.

"It's just extraordinary, the kind of thing that takes place in Third World dictatorships," said Paul Charlton, a former U.S. attorney who is representing Stapley. He predicted the latest charges would also be dismissed. "So many people are of one mind on a single issue -- illegal immigration -- that they are willing to ignore these misdeeds."

Arpaio brushes off suggestions that he's used his office to go after critics. Many of the complaints, as in the Stapley case, come from targets of anti-corruption probes that started with tips rather than the sheriff's personal intercession.

"We don't abuse our power," Arpaio said in an interview. "We do what we have to do."

Arpaio, a Republican, is highly popular in Arizona. He won reelection last year with 55% of the vote in the state's most populous county. Though he has said he's not interested in running for governor, a recent poll showed him crushing the presumptive Democratic nominee, state Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard, 51% to 39%.

The sheriff was not always at war with much of the region's political establishment. A former official with the Drug Enforcement Administration who was first elected sheriff in 1992, Arpaio had support from the majority-Republican county Board of Supervisors and from local Latino leaders.

"He had a very good relationship with the Hispanic community," said Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, the lone Democrat and lone Latina on the board.

But by 2005, central Arizona was seething over illegal immigration. Crime was rising in Phoenix, a key smuggling hub that was becoming the kidnapping capital of the country.

Arpaio received a federal waiver, known as a 287(g), that allowed his deputies to enforce federal immigration laws. He said he had identified more than 30,000 illegal immigrants through his sweeps and interrogations in the county jail.

In October, the federal Department of Homeland Security revoked the 287(g) for Arpaio's street operations, though he could continue to question jail inmates about their immigration status.

Arpaio, however, said state law permitted him to continue his street operations and is awaiting a legal opinion from Thomas, the county attorney.

Latino community leaders say Arpaio has become more aggressive since he was stripped of some authority in the 287(g) program.

"It's actually gotten worse rather than better," said Salvador Reza, an activist who added that some immigrants don't dare turn the lights on in their homes at night for fear that Arpaio's deputies would knock at their doors.

A Homeland Security spokesman declined to comment, referring a reporter to statements Secretary Janet Napolitano gave to a liberal advocacy group in Washington.

Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, said Arpaio "was unwilling to accept that there were standards that needed to be met. He wanted to go off on his own. And so that's where we had a parting of ways." She acknowledged, however, that state law would allow him to continue making his arrests.

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics. The sheriff has refused to cooperate and has called for an investigation of the investigators.

As Arpaio has fenced with the Obama administration, he has become embroiled in a sometimes-surreal battle with the five county supervisors who oversee his budget. Amid the recession, they have cut the sheriff's budget by 12.2%.

Arpaio and Thomas filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against the county supervisors, administrators and several judges who have ruled against the two in prior cases.

Arpaio and Thomas contended there was a conspiracy to assign the Stapley prosecution to an anti-Thomas judge, part of an effort to cover up what they call a wasteful county effort to build a new courthouse.

County officials noted that Arpaio and Thomas have sued them six times in efforts to regain power over their budgets -- and they lost every time.

Tensions escalated this week when the county attorney filed criminal charges against the presiding judge of the county's criminal courts, alleging bribery and obstruction of justice for ruling against Arpaio and prosecutors in some of those previous legal battles.

Wilcox, whom Thomas charged this week with violating state laws by voting on government contracts for a charitable organization that gave one of her businesses a loan, said she had been stunned by the sheriff's conduct.

"They have made life hell on everybody," she said of Arpaio and Thomas. "Every time you speak out, they investigate you."

"Racketeering? That's just crazy," she added. "We're becoming the laughingstock of America."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-joe-arpaio12-2009dec12,0,971729,print.story

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Virginia mosque grapples with young members' arrest in Pakistan

The five young Americans from immigrant families reportedly 'never talked about politics' or violence. FBI and Pakistani officials are still investigating whether they sought to join a militant group.

by Bob Drogin and Sebastian Rotella

December 12, 2009

Reporting from Washington and Alexandria, Va.

The bungalow-turned-mosque has no sign out front. It sits behind a Firestone tire store and across from a busy Dunkin' Donuts in a working-class neighborhood in suburban Virginia.

Members of the mosque struggled Friday to understand how and why five well-liked members of its youth group went to Pakistan and were arrested on suspicion of seeking to join terrorist groups.

"Those are our children," Essam Tellawi, the imam, said in an emotional sermon to about 30 worshipers after noontime prayers at the ICNA Center -- which is affiliated with the Islamic Circle of North America. "I could never describe the difficulties and hardships that our five families have been afflicted with."

The young men belonged to a group of 12 to 15 who often went camping, played basketball and performed community service projects.

"Our group never talked about politics" or waging war, said Mustafa Maryam, the youth leader, who has known the five since 2006.

In Pakistan, the Americans -- ages 18 to 25, the sons of immigrant families from Pakistan, Egypt and East Africa -- spent another day behind bars.

A State Department spokesman said Friday that no charges were pending. Pakistani and U.S. officials suggested that deportation was likely, rather than prosecution in Pakistan, because, they said, the men had not gone far with their aspirations when police arrested them at a house in the city of Sargodha.

But FBI agents and Pakistani officers still were investigating the men on suspicion that they had contacted militant leaders and planned to join an extremist group in the Al Qaeda stronghold of northwest Pakistan. Interior Minister Rehman Malik cautioned that deportation would not occur until the government was certain that the men had not committed crimes.

If deported, the five could face prosecution in the U.S. on charges such as conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists -- often used against militants who try to join foreign networks, U.S. officials said.

The families of the men, who all lived near the mosque, pleaded for privacy Friday and did not talk to reporters.

"They are extremely worried about the safety of their sons and do not believe that they could have been involved in the kind of activities currently being reported by Pakistani officials," Nina Ginsberg, their lawyer, said in an e-mail.

She added: "Their only concern is that their sons be safely returned . . . and they continue to look to the FBI and the State Department for assistance in securing their release."

U.S. officials have praised the young men's parents for making the agonizing decision to alert the FBI -- an effort that distinguishes the case from other recent cases of suspected home-grown extremism.

The five families expressed their anguish to the imam two weeks ago, after the youths disappeared. Their worries deepened when they discovered a video message left behind, according to a U.S. anti-terrorism official, by dental student Ramy Zamzam, 22. The Egyptian American is thought to be the leader of the group.

In the video, Zamzam declared his plans to fight on behalf of Muslims, said the official, who requested anonymity when discussing the ongoing case. The video also showed images of American casualties, according to U.S. officials.

"I would call it jihadist propaganda: He talks about the struggle, fighting for Allah," the anti-terrorism official said.

Members of the mosque contacted a national Muslim group based in Washington, which helped them secure lawyers and contact the FBI. The imam broke the news at Friday prayers last week, urging the congregation to pray for the youths and to cooperate with federal investigators.

"Even if people think this community is naive, we still hope for the safe return of these young men to their families," said Ashraf Nubani, the mosque's lawyer. He called them "wholesome, regular kids" who were "very polite."

Umer Farooq Chaudhry, 25, lived next to the mosque with his parents, who run a computer business. A hand-scrawled "no trespassing" sign leaned against their white fence Friday. Farooq Chaudhry's parents had spent time in Pakistan in recent months and were at the house in Sargodha where the group was arrested, officials said. Police also detained Farooq Chaudhry's father, Pakistani officials said Friday.

Ahmed Abdullah Minni, 20, lived down the street from the Alexandria mosque. His parents run a day-care center out of their home. Aman Hassan Yemer, 18, is of Ethiopian descent, as is Minni, U.S. and Pakistani officials said.

Waqar Khan, 22, another Pakistani American, had a minor criminal record for offenses including misdemeanor embezzlement, U.S. officials said.

The mosque plans an internal inquiry to see whether the young men were recruited by outsiders or had followed firebrand sheiks or extremist videos on websites.

"We want to know: What did we miss?" said Mahdi Bray, head of the Muslim American Society, an advocacy group based in nearby Falls Church, Va. "We saw these kids every day. In hindsight, what could we have done?"

The suburbs of northern Virginia have experienced previous cases of Islamic extremism. Anwar al Awlaki, the Yemeni American radical ideologue seen as an influence on militants -- including the accused gunman charged with killing 13 people at Ft. Hood, Texas, last month -- had served as an imam in the area.

A dozen local extremists were convicted in Alexandria in recent years of terrorism-related offenses, such as training at militant camps in Pakistan.

As they filed out of the mosque Friday, some worshipers spoke of the most recent incident in personal terms.

"It's very disturbing," Elmar Chakhtakhtinski said as he huddled in the cold. "It's frightening to think that maybe the man praying next to you could be planning something truly terrible."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-pakistan-americans12-2009dec12,0,4709481,print.story

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1 million California children who qualify for free breakfast at school go without

More than 1 million low-income California children who receive for free or reduced-price school lunches do not get breakfast at school even though they would qualify, and about a fifth of the schools in the state do not even offer breakfast, according to two reports from the Food Research and Action Center.

California ranked 33rd in low-income-student participation in the School Breakfast Program for 2008-09, the same ranking it received a year earlier. In terms of the number of schools that offer breakfast, California's ranking fell from 35th to 40th, the Washington-based group said.

In the 2008-09 school year, 8,756 schools that took part in the National School Lunch Program also offered breakfast, compared with 8,922 schools the previous year. Nationally, fewer than half of the eligible children receive breakfast at school, according to the reports released Monday.

In 2008-09, 8.8 million children took part in the breakfast program on an average day; the lunch program served 18.9 million children.

“The program is seriously underutilized,” center president James Weill said Monday.

Children have consistently increased their participation since the early 1990s, but “it's not across the board, and it's not fast enough,” Weill said.

“We really think of the School Breakfast Program as a modest miracle of good public policy,” he said.

The program, which began as a pilot project in 1966 and became permanent in 1975, helps alleviate hunger, improves student achievement and reduces levels of absenteeism, the group said. One way to improve participation is to “fit the program to the actual lives of children in schools," Weill said.

"When you serve breakfast only in the cafeteria, 30 to 40 to 50 minutes before school starts, too many kids don't get there on their school bus or public transportation or they understandably want” to be with their friends rather than in the cafeteria, he said.

Solutions include serving breakfast in class and providing carts from which students can grab a bagged or boxed meal. About 1 million low-income California children took advantage of the breakfast program in 2008-09, compared with 2.4 million for the lunch program, according to the center's research.

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, all schools serve breakfast, and all but 250 of the 711 schools offer a “second-chance” breakfast, which is served during a break, said Laura Benavidez, deputy director in charge of operations for the district's food services.

The portion of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches is on the rise in this difficult economy, from about 76% a few years ago to 80% to 82% this year, Benavidez said.

In one report, the research group looked at 25 urban school districts. The San Diego Unified School District increased the share of low-income students participating in school breakfast and lunch in 2008-09 to 51.2% from 38.4% the previous year.

L.A. Unified's gain was 0.9 percentage points, while the Oakland Unified School District's participation fell by 1.5 percentage points.

In addition to nutrition and hunger issues, the lack of participation in the breakfast program represented a lost opportunity to bring in more federal dollars — because the federal government reimburses the state for meals eaten under the programs, advocates said.

For California, if 60 of every 100 children who ate free or reduced-price lunch also had breakfast, the state would receive nearly $98 million more in federal reimbursements, the food research center said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/1-million-california-children-who-qualify-for-free-breakfast-at-school-go-without.html#more

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EDITORIAL

A bad bioweapons decision

The Obama administration needs to take another look at how to curb biological weapons.

December 12, 2009

The Obama administration has embraced many troubling national security policies adopted by the Bush administration, but in most of these cases -- such as the regrettable decision to continue the "rendition" of captured terrorism suspects to foreign countries -- it at least had a reasonable-sounding explanation. When it comes to this week's misguided ruling on biological weapons, though, administration officials couldn't even dream up a good excuse.

The Biological Weapons Convention outlaws the production and use of deadly bioweapons such as anthrax and smallpox. The United States is one of 162 nations that have signed on to the 1972 convention, which isn't particularly effective because it has no teeth. Unlike the treaties that govern nuclear arms or chemical weapons, it contains no mechanism for monitoring or enforcement. A 2001 conference aimed to change that, but the Bush administration refused to go along and the initiative collapsed.

Meet the new boss: Same as the old boss. On Wednesday, Ellen Tauscher, the U.S. undersecretary of State for arms control, announced that the Obama administration too had no interest in strengthening the convention. Although the end result is the same, the reasons differ. Bush officials, under pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby, said that allowing international inspectors to monitor commercial or military research facilities could compromise corporate or defense secrets. This made little sense. Safeguards could be put in place to protect secrecy; moreover, international monitoring of nuclear and chemical weapons has not resulted in such security leaks.

Tauscher's explanation makes even less sense. She claims that monitoring doesn't work. "The ease with which a biological weapons program could be disguised within legitimate activities, and the rapid advances in biological research, make it very difficult to detect violations," she said. Huh?

Just because it's difficult doesn't make it impossible. Monitoring programs exist in order to discourage regimes from building illegal weapons by providing a credible threat that they might get caught. A dedicated team of U.N. inspectors could stay abreast of technological advances and provide that threat. It wouldn't be 100% effective, but no monitoring program is. What's more, even if one accepts the dubious notion that it's pointless to try to prevent countries from developing bioweapons, that's no excuse for failing to probe those suspected of using them. The Biological Weapons Convention gives the United Nations secretary-general that power, but there is no existing team of U.N. investigators nor funding to create one. With the United States ducking the issue, there won't be one any time soon, either.

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in part because of his strong efforts to combat nuclear proliferation -- yet biological weapons are potentially as serious a danger. He should put his prize-winning brain to use developing a smarter strategy.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bioweapons12-2009dec12,0,4479616,print.story

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From ABC News

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Mystery Surrounds Missing Utah Mom

Mother of Two Last Seen Sunday, Husband Questioned and House Searched

Dec. 11, 2009 —

Five days after a Utah mother's disappearance , puzzled police are calling the case suspicious and plan to question the woman's husband a second time.

Susan Powell, 28, was last seen Sunday at her home in West Valley City and was reported missing by relatives the next day.

Powell's husband, Joshua Powell, and two children were also believed to be missing but returned home Monday afternoon. Joshua Powell said he decided Sunday night to take the children on a late-night camping trip.

"Lots of times I just go camping with my boys," Powell told a local CBS News' affiliate. "Just overnight. We do s'mores and stuff."

But after not hearing from her for five days, Susan Powell's family has become worried.

"I don't think she's OK. No one has heard from her," Susan Powell's father, Charles Cox, said. "Josh and the boys are back, and she wouldn't leave her children."

The West Valley City Police found her purse and keys in her bedroom.

"The suspicious nature of this is that no one can tell us, or is [willing to tell] us her whereabouts, and she has not contacted us or anyone we know about," Capt. Tom McLachlan told the Salt Lake Tribune .

Police officials interviewed Joshua Powell, as well as the couple's 4-year-old child, but walked away with more questions than answers, they told ABC News.

"He did give us a statement, and we're following up on all aspects of that statement," McLachlan said.

Joshua Powell is not a suspect, police said. Powell declined to comment to ABC News.

Police said neither Susan nor Joshua Powell called into work Monday to explain their absences. The husband later said he had been confused about what day it was, according to a CBS News report.

Susan Powell's Father: Couple Had Marital Problems

Cox, Susan Powell's father, said he still has a lot of questions, including why his son-in-law would take his two young children, ages 4 and 1, camping in a snowstorm.

There are no reports of domestic violence, but, Cox said, the couple had marital problems and were trying to work them out.

"They have had issues in the past & but they had been talking to each other and, according to my daughter, things were getting better," Cox said.

Police urge anyone with information regarding the case to call West Valley City Police at (801) 840-4000.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9307164

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From the Washington Times

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Muslims: Youth arrests are wake-up call

by Joseph Weber

Area Muslim leaders on Friday said the five American men arrested in Pakistan for purportedly attempting to join al Qaeda were lured into embracing the terrorist ideology via the Internet. The leaders said they now will wage a cyber counterattack. wire

"This is a wake-up call involving our youths - Muslims and Catholics," Imam Mahdi Bray said outside the Islamic Circle of North America's mosque in Alexandria, where the men worshipped and participated in youth-group activities.

"They see great injustices, and their emotions and passions are stirred as they should be. ... But we are determined not to let religious extremists exploit the vulnerability of our youth through slick, seductive and destructive propaganda on the Internet. We will respond in kind on the Internet. Silence in cyberspace is not an option," Mr. Bray said.

The men - all U.S. citizens - have been identified as Eman Yasir, Waqar Hasan, Umer Farooq, Ahmed Mimi and Ramy Zamzam, a dental student at Howard University and the group's purported ringleader.

Pakistani officials said the men asked an al Qaeda-linked group for training but were rejected because the men lacked credentials from trusted militants.

The men reportedly tried first to contact jihadist groups in August via e-mails, then Facebook and YouTube. The men, who are between the ages of 19 and 25, then went to Pakistan to set up meetings.

The men disappeared last month from the Washington, D.C., area. One left behind a militaristic video that prompted family members to contact the FBI.

Pakistanis became suspicious of the young men and alerted police, who arrested them Tuesday at a residence belonging to an uncle of one of the men.

On Friday, people with knowledge of the case told the Associated Press that FBI agents questioned some of the young men in Pakistan as they gathered evidence that could lead to a conspiracy charge against the men.

Two people familiar with the case told the AP that FBI agents are gathering evidence to see whether there is enough to charge them with conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation.

Officials in both countries expect the five to be deported back home, but Pakistan may hold them long enough for U.S. prosecutors to prepare charges, the AP reported.

Meanwhile, at Mr. Zamzam's dental school, Sultan Chaudhry, a speaker at Friday prayer services, stressed to worshippers that Islam is a religion of moderation, the AP reported.

In a brief sermon, Mr. Chaudhry, who serves as president of the dentistry school's student council, said: "Muslims have to follow the middle path with no extremes on either side."

Mr. Chaudhry also said Islam promotes "human dignity and honor" and has a set of universal values that are "positive and life-affirming."

Mr. Bray, executive director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said the young men had been taught lawfulness and dignity, which he called the "core values of our faith," at the mosque.

Mr. Bray and other religious leaders praised family members for taking swift action when their sons disappeared. "This could have been much worse," he said.

Essam Tellawi, a spokesman for the mosque, said the mosque emphasizes the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, including "moderation, tolerance and peaceful interactions with neighbors."

"Pray for the five families," Mr. Tellawi said. "They are going through severe hardship. Pray [the men] get back safely and for a speedy resolution to this matter."

He declined to discuss specifics about the case, saying the matter remains under investigation.

Mustafa Abu Maryam, the mosque's youth coordinator, said he never suspected the young men for "bad behavior." He called them "fun-loving" and said they have a "bright future."

"I hope all of this is not what it seems to be," he said.

Mr. Maryam said group activities are focused on community events and sports, which are meant to be "positive forces in the young men's lives."

"We never talked about politics or fighting - directly or indirectly," Mr. Maryam said. "Our focus was community, community, community."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/12/youth-arrests-a-wake-up-call-muslims-say//print/

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Gun laws loosening across much of U.S.

by Erik Schelzig ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It's been the year of the gun in Tennessee. In a flurry of legislative action, handgun owners won the right to take their weapons onto sports fields and playgrounds and, at least briefly, into bars.

A change in leadership at the state Capitol helped open the doors to the gun-related bills and put Tennessee at the forefront of a largely unnoticed trend: In much of the country, it is getting easier to carry guns.

A nationwide review by Associated Press found that over the last two years, 24 states, mostly in the South and West, have passed 47 new laws loosening gun restrictions.

Among other things, legislatures have allowed firearms to be carried in cars, made it illegal to ask job candidates whether they own a gun, and expanded agreements that make permits to carry handguns in one state valid in another.

The trend is attributed in large part to a push by the National Rifle Association. The NRA, which for years has blocked attempts in Washington to tighten firearms laws, has ramped up its efforts at the state level to chip away at gun restrictions.

"This is all a coordinated approach to respect that human, God-given right of self defense by law-abiding Americans," says Chris W. Cox, the NRA's chief lobbyist. "We'll rest when all 50 states allow and respect the right of law-abiding people to defend themselves from criminal attack."

Among the recent gun-friendly laws:

— Arizona, Florida, Louisiana and Utah have made it illegal for businesses to bar their employees from storing guns in cars parked on company lots.

— Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia have made some or all handgun permit information confidential.

— Montana, Arizona and Kansas have allowed handgun permits to be issued to people who have had their felony convictions expunged or their full civil rights restored.

— Tennessee and Montana have passed laws that exempt weapons made and owned in-state from federal restrictions. Tennessee is the home to Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, the maker of a .50-caliber shoulder-fired rifle that the company says can shoot bullets up to five miles and is banned in California.

The AP compiled the data on new laws from groups ranging from the Legal Community Against Violence, which advocates gun control, to the NRA.

Public attitudes toward gun control have shifted strongly over the past 50 years, according to Gallup polling. In 1959, 60 percent of respondents said they favored a ban on handguns except for "police and other authorized persons." Gallup's most recent annual crime survey in October found 71 percent opposed such a ban.

The NRA boasts that almost all states grant handgun permits to people with clean criminal and psychological records. In 1987, only 10 states did. Only Wisconsin, Illinois and the District of Columbia now prohibit the practice entirely.

"The NRA has a stranglehold on a lot of state legislatures," said Kristin Rand, legislative director the Violence Policy Center, a gun control group in Washington. "They basically have convinced lawmakers they can cost them their seats, even though there's no real evidence to back that up."

Tennessee's new laws came after the Republican takeover of the General Assembly this year, but most other states that loosened restrictions didn't experience major partisan shifts. Most of the states where the new laws were enacted have large rural populations, where support for gun rights tends to cross party lines.

While some states have tightened gun laws during the same period, the list of new restrictive laws is much shorter. In 2009 alone, more than three times as many laws were passed to make it easier on gun owners.

New Jersey's 2009 law limiting people to one handgun purchase per month is the most notable of the more restrictive laws. Other examples this year include Maryland's ban on concealed weapons on public transit and Maine's vote to give public universities and colleges the power to regulate firearms on campus.

The most contentious of Tennessee's new gun laws was one allowing handguns in bars and restaurants that serve alcohol. It took effect in July after lawmakers overrode a veto by the governor. Last month, a Nashville judge struck down the law as unconstitutionally vague, but supporters have vowed to pass it again.

A similar Arizona law that took effect in September allows people with concealed-weapons permits to bring their guns into bars and restaurants that haven't posted signs banning them.

While Tennessee's law was in place, many bars chose not to let customers bring guns in. Likewise, more than 70 communities have opted out of allowing guns in parks.

"People go in there and start drinking and then they want to start a fight. What are they going to do if they got a gun in their hand?" said Larry Speck, 69, who works at an auto repair shop in Memphis. "I've got a gun permit and I'm not carrying mine in there even if they have a law."

Chattanooga retiree Ken Hasse, 71, said he worries about the possible consequences of allowing people to carry their guns in places like parks. "It's going to tempt somebody to use one," he said.

Supporters of expanding handgun rights argue that people with state-issued permits are far less likely to commit crimes, and that more lawfully armed people cause a reduction in crime. Opponents fear that more guns could lead to more crime.

Academics are divided on the effects of liberalized handgun laws, and determining the impact is complicated by the move in several states to close handgun permit records.

A Violence Policy Center project has mined news reports to find that more than 100 people have been killed by holders of handgun-carry permits since 2007, including nine law enforcement officers. The project originally intended to list all gun crimes by permit holders, but there were too many to keep track of, Rand said.

"They shoot each other over parking spaces, at football games and at family events," Rand said. "The idea that you're making any place safer by injecting more guns is just completely contradicted by the facts."

The flood of legislative victories in Tennessee after many years of frustration now has some gun backers aiming for a whole new level of freedom: No permits at all.

The permit laws "are an extra burden on people to exercise essentially a constitutional right," said John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/11/gun-laws-loosening-across-much-us//print/

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Why we fight

by Victor Davis Hanson

Has war been reinvented in Iraq and Afghanistan? Sometimes it seems so, with the confusion that has come with the instant communication offered by the Internet, YouTube and satellite television - along with the new arts of precision destruction via high-tech weapons like drones and GPS-guided weapons.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, soldiers don't quite disappear into distant theaters abroad. Instead, they can e-mail or call their spouses from halfway across the world - often minutes before and after battle.

A phony Internet rumor, like the supposed flushing of a Koran at Guantanamo Bay, can incite thousands in mere minutes.

As those in the West become ever more affluent and leisured, it is harder for us to ask our children to risk the good life in often distant, controversial wars. Who wants to leave our comfy suburbs to fight in forlorn places like the Hindu Kush or Fallujah - against those for whom violence and poverty are accustomed experiences?

The West still has the technological edge in warfare. But thanks to globalization, the Internet and billions of petrodollars, terrorists can get their hands on weapons (or the instructions on how to build them) that often prove as lethal as those used by American or NATO troops.

That Osama bin Laden did not have anything like the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz did not prevent him from taking down the World Trade Center.

Nonetheless, many of the old rules still apply amid the modern fog of war. Human nature, after all, does not change. And since the beginning of civilization, the point of war has always been for one side through the use of force to make the other accept its political will.

We should remember that and get back to basics in Afghanistan. Our leaders must remind us that war always offers only two choices - bad and worse.

We certainly could leave Afghanistan. That would allow the Taliban to return to power and host more radical Islamic terrorists.

Or we can persist in a dirty business of trying to stabilize a consensual government that will fight terrorism. Both are dangerous enterprises: Withdrawal has long-term risks; staying may become hellish in the short term.

We should also carefully define the enemy. Who exactly are we ultimately fighting in Afghanistan? Afghans? Arabs? Radical Muslims? Terrorists? Most of the public is still unsure after eight years of war.

There are certainly plenty of horrific thugs like those in the Taliban throughout the world whom we often ignore. But what made radical Afghans of vital interest to the United States was their willingness to help radical Arab Muslims kill Americans on a wide scale.

What unites al Qaeda and the Taliban is a shared murderous radical Islamic ideology, one antithetical to our own. Americans should hear that without politically correct euphemisms.

The president must explain what victory in Afghanistan means. Are we there until we destroy the viability of the Taliban and their terrorist allies - by fostering an elected government that will eventually secure the country? If so, we need to hear exactly that.

If not, the president can instead talk of deadlines, troop withdrawals, cruise-missile attacks and Predator-drone bombings - all efforts to now and then bother, but not end, the Taliban and al Qaeda.

War typically concludes when one side cannot fulfill its political objectives. Sometimes both sides quit, as in the Korean War. But usually, as in Vietnam or the Balkans, violence ceases when one side is tired of losing more than it hopes to gain - and admits defeat.

If our leaders today could consult great generals like the Roman Scipio Africanus or William Tecumseh Sherman - who won what were once near-hopeless wars - they might receive the following advice:

• Prepare the public to shoulder human and financial costs.

• Be candid about why enduring the horrors of war now is preferable to risking even costlier violence later.

• Talk always of winning, never leaving or quitting a war.

• Have no apologies for crushing the enemy. The quicker the enemy loses, the fewer get killed on both sides.

• Inform the public of the other side's losses just as you do your own.

• And be magnanimous to the defeated - after the war, not during the fighting.

Nation building may be fine and even necessary. But war always involves "a military solution." How can there be economic prosperity or political stability if civilians are afraid of getting killed by enemy terrorists?

President Obama talked of many things in his recent Afghanistan speech. But he never once mentioned the words "victory" and "win." All that may seem like an out-of-date idea to postmodern Americans. But it is still a very real one to the premodern Taliban, who seem to understand the ageless nature of war far better than we do.

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/12/why-we-fight//print/

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Arrests Raise Fears of American Jihad

U.S. counterterrorism officials say 2009 has turned into the year of homegrown jihad, with the unmasking of the most serious suspected terror plots involving Americans in about five years.

U.S. investigators are still trying to determine what drew five young Americans to travel last month to Pakistan, where local authorities allege they had sought to join extremist groups that have attacked U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. U.S. investigators have interviewed some of the men, but haven't verified the information Pakistani officials have released on the case.

The surge in alleged terror cases has raised concerns among counterterrorism officials. Some officials say young men have been swayed by the escalating war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as intensifying Internet recruiting of Westerners by extremist groups.

At a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing last month, experts on terrorism cited the recent cases as evidence that the threat of radicalization, long an issue in Europe, has become a major concern in the U.S.

In September, terrorism investigators trailed Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Afghan-born U.S. resident, as he made his way from Denver to New York City in what they later alleged was an aborted plot to carry out attacks using explosives made from beauty supplies.

A month later, investigators arrested David Headley, a U.S.-born son of a Pakistani father and American mother, and charged him with plotting with al Qaeda-linked Pakistani militants to attack a newspaper in Denmark that printed satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. In recent weeks, investigators alleged that Mr. Headley told them he helped a Pakistani group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, scout locations for the deadly 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

Last month, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan was arrested and charged with killing 13 people in a shooting spree at Fort Hood Army base in Texas. Prior to the attack, Maj. Hasan was in touch with an extremist Muslim cleric in Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, investigators say.

Also last month, the U.S. unveiled charges against several men who allegedly recruited about 20 young men of Somali descent to join an Islamist insurgent group, al Shabaab, which is fighting Somalia's U.S.-backed government.

All of the men who have been charged have pleaded not guilty.

A common thread in these and other cases, terrorism officials say, is that they involve immigrants and second-generation Americans, who traditionally have been viewed as more resistant to extremist ideology. Many cases uncovered in past years have involved American converts to Islam, and officials say religious converts often are more zealous in their beliefs.

"We're not just talking about converts anymore," said Juan Zarate, senior adviser to the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former White House national-security official under President George W. Bush. "To have first- and second-generation immigrants who are born into Islam falling prey to extremist ideology, that's more worrisome."

The spate of U.S. cases has emerged as alleged plots appear to have declined in Europe and elsewhere, some officials say. The cases also come as the Obama administration attempts to repackage many counterterrorism policies enacted under Mr. Bush, but hasn't yet ended the wars that began during Mr. Bush's tenure.

"Despite the change of administrations, you still have the perception of war in Muslim lands, as the extremists see it," Mr. Zarate said. "It's like moths to fire. Individuals seduced by these extremist messages are motivated by these conflicts."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126058036714988243.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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Homeland Insecurity

The U.S. is facing rising terror threats from its own citizens. What made the country safer after 9/11 is changing, and not for the better, argues Daniel Byman

Ramy Zamzam and four friends from the Washington, D.C., suburbs were detained in Pakistan in a police raid on a house allegedly tied to a militant group earlier this week. One of the men had recorded a video filled with images of war and declarations that young Muslims must act. The five Americans, students in their 20s, are now being questioned by U.S. and Pakistani authorities.

The revelations about the Alexandria, Va., five come just more than a month after Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. The alleged massacre in turn followed revelations that Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan resident of the U.S., who is accused of planning to blow up several targets in New York. Mr. Zazi pleaded not guilty in September. Mr. Zazi's arrest had followed yet another disturbing, if seemingly more-distant report: America had produced its first suicide bomber, who had blown himself up in Somalia in 2008.

This grim catalogue of plots and attacks suggests that the American homeland's holiday from terrorism is ending.

I explained America's good fortune by a combination of several factors. Perhaps most important, after 9/11 the United States and its allies hammered al Qaeda. U.S. military and intelligence forces threw Mr. bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and other al Qaeda leaders out of Afghanistan, shutting down the training camps there and forcing the leaders to find new homes. Less noticed, but no less important, intelligence and security services around the globe hunted down recruiters, planners, financiers, and other key parts of the network. At home, the FBI and other organizations focused intensely on al Qaeda, making it harder for the terrorists to pass unnoticed.

I also took comfort when I looked across the ocean to Europe, where al Qaeda had cells and networks in several countries. In Europe, a mix of discrimination, suspicion, and alienation have created a subculture where terrorists can thrive. Many European countries have Muslim communities that are large and geographically concentrated (Pakistanis cluster in the U.K., Algerians are mainly in France, and Turks are found in Germany), making them less likely to assimilate and more tied to the politics of their native lands. Making these ties even stronger, the trip home is shorter for Muslim immigrants in Europe than in the United States. Most important, Muslim immigrants are often at best tolerated in their new lands, despite their contributions as soldiers fighting on behalf of colonial powers, or later as workers rebuilding Europe. Many Europeans see immigrants and their descendants as eternal outsiders and oppose granting them citizenship.

Even, or perhaps especially, the second and third generations are at risk, as they are often betwixt their ancestral and new homes but accepted by neither. Frenchmen may reject a Muslim who wears a scarf to assert her religiosity, but when she goes to Algeria she is seen as alien and Western, often not speaking Arabic. At times these second and third generations interact with more recent immigrants from Muslim countries, being energized by the disputes in the Muslim world yet keeping their familiarity with the West and European passports, making them potentially dangerous operatives.

Many European Muslims are poor, alienated and angry, while their American counterparts seem wealthy, educated and integrated. While U.S. support for Israel and intervention in Iraq provoked anger about U.S. policies among some American Muslims, they did not display the raw hatred of the U.S. government or embrace of violence as did some among their religious brethren across the Atlantic. Non-Muslim Americans, for the most part, accept Muslim immigrants as a welcome addition to our country, the current incarnation of their Anglo, Irish, Italian or other immigrant ancestors. Minarets may trouble the Swiss, but in America they would never be banned. In July 2005, al Qaeda proved it could tap into jihadist networks in Europe, killing 56 people, including the four suicide bombers, in attacks on London's public transportation system.

Ironically, the terrorism charges levied against various Americans in the years after 9/11 seemed to confirm how much safer our country was. The FBI would often announce arrests of suspects with sound and fury, but in practice they signified how limited the threat was. Those charged were often common criminals or unskilled dreamers, talking big but with little ability to carry out their schemes. Iyman Faris, convicted of providing material support to al Qaeda, initially sought to cut through the many mammoth cables of the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch, an almost impossible scheme.

Others charged had little or no training, and—just as importantly—they did not seem to know how to get in touch with the al Qaeda core. In the end, the government would often charge them with minor, non-terrorism related, crimes such as fraud or violating their immigration status. I am glad the FBI aggressively went after these individuals, some of whom had quite bloody plans, but the suspects were a far cry from steely professionals like Mohammad Atta, the 9/11 team leader. Indeed, the most deadly post-9/11 plot against the United States—the plot to blow up airplanes en route from the U.K. to the United States, which was disrupted in August 2006—was organized and launched from Europe, suggesting much better al Qaeda's networks are in Europe than in the United States.

Today all these factors are changing, and none for the better.

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Puzzling Arrest of 5 Americans in Pakistan

The arrest in Pakistan of five U.S. citizens on suspicion of terror links is part of a new and disturbing trend: the threat posed by homegrown terror activity.

WSJ's Neil King Jr. reports.

On Oct. 28, 2008, Shirwa Ahmed became the first American suicide bomber. Mr. Ahmed killed himself in Somalia's civil war on behalf of the Islamist group al Shabaab, elements of which have links to al Qaeda in Pakistan. In 2009, al Qaeda's No. 2 Mr. al-Zawahiri called Shabaab advances in Somalia "a step on the path of victory of Islam, while Shabaab would pledge allegiance to Mr. bin Laden. The group even used Alabama native Omar Hammani, who spoke under the name Abu Mansoor al-Amriki ("the American"), to do a video critique of President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo earlier in the year.

Ahmed was part of two groups of perhaps 20 Somali-Americans who grew up in Minneapolis and became radicalized after the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. The Somali-American community from which he came has more in common with the Algerians in the banlieues in Paris than the affluent Arab Muslim community of the U.S. By one estimate 60% of the Somalis in the U.S., a community estimated as high as 200,000 people, live in poverty, and many young men drop out of school and turn to crime.

While the conflict in Somalia may seem distant to most Americans, the U.S. role there is real and growing—and Somali-Americans know it well. The 2008 U.S. airstrike that killed Aden Hashi Ayro, a Shabaab leader, joined Somalia's enemy Ethiopia and the United States in the minds of many Somalis. The result, in Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus' words, was that "fierce levels of anti-Americanism took root among many Somalis at home and abroad." In September 2009, the United States struck again, killing another al Qaeda figure there, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. So far, none of the Somali-Americans who went overseas have planned to return home and attack, but the Shabaab's move toward al Qaeda and the anger at U.S. policy are a disturbing combination.

The Fort Hood shootings, the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11, are also troubling, as they may show that an unstable American Muslim might express his anger through political violence. As killing sprees from Virginia Tech to Columbine High School show, it is easy for a disturbed individual to pick up a gun and shoot some, or even many, people. Maj. Hassan was in email contact with a radical religious leader from Yemen, according to officials. The silver lining is that the Army believes the suspect acted alone and without any assistance from other terror groups, a view reflected in their decision to charge him with murder in a military rather than civilian court.

It may be tempting to dismiss Mr. Zazi as a one-off, but there is every indication that the al Qaeda core is reviving after its setback in Afghanistan. Each month the group seems more entrenched in tribal parts of Pakistan. While Islamabad had made fitful efforts to uproot it, some of the jihadist groups the regime nurtured and tolerated to fight India and advance Pakistani interests in Afghanistan have turned against the regime, while others are off the leash. Mr. bin Laden now has close ties to several groups that have tens of thousands of supporters in Pakistan, and his reach is growing to non-tribal parts of the country. In his sanctuary, he and his lieutenants can plan, recruit, issue propaganda, and train the next round. While in 2002 would-be terrorists in the United States had no obvious place to go for training, now even the most casual news-reader, to say nothing of those who trawl jihadist sites that appeal for volunteers, knows to go to Pakistan.

Several steps are necessary to keep our country safe. First, fighting the al Qaeda core in Pakistan should remain at the center of U.S. counterterrorism policy. Having a secure haven is often a make or break issue for terrorist groups, and al Qaeda's growing strength there is a deadly danger. U.S. drone strikes, a program that accelerated near the end of the Bush administration and took off in the first months of Mr. Obama's term, keep al Qaeda off-balance, but they are not a substitute for forcing Pakistan to clean out this haven. We mustn't forget that Mr. Zazi managed to receive training after the drone strikes began in earnest.

Second, we need to consider how American foreign policy can lead to domestic radicalization. Killing an al Qaeda leader in Somalia is a blow to the organization there, but the decision on whether to pull the trigger or not should also factor in the risk of radicalizing an already alienated immigrant group here at home, not just the operational benefit of removing one leader from the organization.

As the allegations about Maj. Hasan, Mr. Zazi, and the Alexandria five suggest, you don't need a large and alienated community in order to have terror threats. But here at least there is good news, for counterterrorism is far more effective when the community is integrated and friendly to the government. Tips from local communities facilitated many of the post-9/11 arrests related to terrorism. And in the case of Mr. Zamzam and his friends, family members in the United States consulted the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which—recognizing the potential danger—put them in touch with the FBI. In contrast to the combative stances of many European Muslims toward their governments, most American Muslims trust their government, and relationships are growing stronger.

To improve this further, government officials should continue and expand outreach efforts to the Muslim American community. From the President's Eid al-Fitr greetings to Muslims down to town councilors swinging by for a local celebration, these gestures are powerful signs of welcome and stand in sharp contrast to the cold shoulder given Muslims in many European towns. And before new counterterrorism measures are announced, officials should consider how they would be perceived in the Muslim community as well as their immediate benefits for intelligence collection or better border security. Growing vigilance against any emerging threat must ensure the Muslim community feels respected and integrated, as this is the best way to make sure the holiday from terrorism does not end.

Daniel Byman is the Director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Saban Center at Brookings.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704517504574589841594836308.html#printMode

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For Terror Suspect, a Life of Contradictions

Heroin Conviction in '90s Was Turning Point From Decadence to Devotion, but Headley Partied in Mumbai in '08, Authorities Say

CHICAGO -- Federal authorities allege David Headley is a terrorist. Joy Tomme knew him as a ladies' man.

"Girls fell on their faces for him," said Ms. Tomme, who worked the day shift in 1984 at one of two Philadelphia bars owned by Mr. Headley's mother. Mr. Headley worked nights and still went by his given name, Daood Gilani.

Ms. Tomme, now a 78-year-old writer, said she was surprised during a visit to his apartment. "I thought it was going to be a love-nest," she said. Instead, she saw posters of anti-capitalistic slogans and Islamic men bearing weapons.

Still tall and fit, the 49-year-old Mr. Headley is in custody, accused of helping coordinate the terrorist assault on Mumbai last year that killed more than 160 people. He is also accused of planning an attack on a Danish newspaper that had published unflattering cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad.

Mr. Headley was born in Washington in 1960 and his life since has skirted the extremes of decadence and his Muslim faith -- partying with women abroad while keeping a wife and family in the U.S., working as a heroin smuggler and an alleged jihadi.

How Daood Gilani became David Headley

• 1960 : Daood Gilani is born in Washington, to a Pakistani father and an American mother. The family moves to Pakistan while he is an infant.
  
  
• 1970 : After divorcing Daood's father, Serrill Headley returns to U.S. and buys a bar in Philadelphia, which she renames the Khyber Pass.
  
  
• 1977 : Serrill Headley brings Daood back from Pakistan, where he attended a military high school. He spends one semester at Valley Forge Military College. Then he lives above his mother's bar and works there in the 1980s until it is sold.
  
  
• 1989 : Daood is charged with heroin smuggling and is sentenced to four years in prison. He is released early, but violates parole and goes back to prison several times.
  
  
• 1994 : He spends a month in outpatient rehab for narcotics and then moves to New York.
  
  
• 1997 : He is charged with heroin smuggling again and gets 15 months in jail in return for extensive cooperation with the DEA.
  
  
• 2006 : Daood changes his name to David Headley. He begins a series of trips related to the Mumbai terror attack and a planned attack on a Danish newspaper, federal authorities say.
  
  
• 2009 : He is arrested at O'Hare airport in October and was charged this month with 12 counts of planning and aiding terrorist attacks. He is cooperating with authorities.
  

His father, Syed Saleem Gilani, was a Pakistani diplomat, poet and musicologist; his mother, Serrill Headley, from the Philadelphia area, was a student at the University of Maryland. Cultural differences wore on the marriage -- the Gilanis divorced in 1966 -- and apparently left their mark.

Mr. Headley's father desired "to live exactly in accordance with the word of Muhammad," said William L. Headley, a 61-year-old uncle. Mr. Headley's mother, he said, was "a freewheeling, very independent feminist who took advantage of all the freedoms available in America." Both parents died in recent years.

"I have this image of him," said William Headley. "He would have the Koran under one arm and a bottle of Dom Pérignon under the other. He loved Armani suits and yet would wear native dress and a beard at other times. He is an extremely rare bird."

The family moved to Pakistan shortly after Mr. Headley was born. He later attended Cadet College Hasan Abdal, a military school in Pakistan on the resumes of many top Pakistani military officers and executives.

In 1970, Mr. Headley's mother moved to Philadelphia, where she bought a bar and renamed it the Khyber Pass. Seven years later, she retrieved her 17-year-old son to live with her. He watched the TV show "Happy Days," and played on a cricket team at Fairmount Park. "He liked America very much," his uncle said. Mr. Headley attended Valley Forge Military College for one semester in 1977. Dorothy Storck, a former Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and friend of Mr. Headley's mother, said he first used drugs there.

Mr. Headley spent the late 1970s and 1980s living upstairs from his mother's bar. He had girlfriends, recalled Ms. Tomme. He also followed Muslim teaching by abstaining from pork. By the mid-1980s, his mother had remarried and turned the bar over to Mr. Headley. The business faltered and was sold, his uncle said. In 1989, Mr. Headley was charged with conspiracy to import heroin, according to federal records. He was convicted and sentenced to 48 months in prison. Mr. Headley was released early but was returned for parole violations.

Mr. Headley's uncle said the conviction was a turning point. "He found God, so to speak," William Headley said. Afterward, he said, his nephew grew a beard, began to pray regularly and wear more traditional garb.

Ms. Storck, the retired Inquirer columnist, said she spoke with Mr. Headley's mother a year before her death in 2008, and said her friend worried about her son. Mr. Headley was making a decent living in New York, running video stores and selling video-gambling machines. But Serrill Headley said he was reconnecting with friends in Chicago from his Pakistani school days, recalled Ms. Storck. "'He's really mixed up in things,'" she recalled her friend saying.

In 2006, Mr. Headley moved to Chicago with his four children and his wife, a Pakistani Muslim. They settled in a northern immigrant neighborhood, where merchants sell grilled kabobs and fresh-baked traditional bread.

Federal authorities say he came into close and frequent contact with Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a former Pakistani schoolmate and businessman who also is being charged with planning to attack the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten.

Mr. Rana arranged Mr. Headley's trips abroad, say federal prosecutors, and Mr. Headley told authorities he worked for Mr. Rana's immigration firm.

Patrick Blegen, Mr. Rana's attorney, said his client "categorically denies involvement in the tragic events in Mumbai." Regarding the government's allegations that Mr. Rana arranged Mr. Headley's travels to prepare an attack against the Danish newspaper, he suggested Mr. Rana had been "duped."

U.S. investigators said Mr. Headley traveled throughout Pakistan, India and Europe, beginning in at least 2006. He Anglicized his name during that time, allegedly to make travel easier.

Officials at India's National Investigation Agency, which was created after the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, said Mr. Headley spent months there scouting targets.

He rented a room in an apartment that was a short walk from the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai. He didn't show his devout side in Mumbai, investigators said, and he often went to parties with women. "He was playing the white man," the investigator said. "Here, he was Headley." He left two weeks before the attacks.

This fall, when federal investigators learned Mr. Headley planned to fly to Pakistan on Oct. 3, they arrested him before he could board the plane.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126057977267688241.html#printMode

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Drone Kills a Leader of Al Qaeda

WASHINGTON -- A U.S. drone strike this week killed a senior al Qaeda operator in a Pakistani tribal area near the Afghan border, U.S. and Pakistani officials said Friday.

U.S. officials said Saleh al-Somali, who was responsible for al Qaeda's operations outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan, was killed in the strike Tuesday. He was on the Central Intelligence Agency's list of the top 20 al Qaeda targets, according to an official familiar with the list.

On Friday, officials in Pakistan said intelligence officers on the ground had identified the dead militant as Abu Yahya al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda figure higher on the CIA's list of terrorist targets.

Mr. Somali was likely involved in planning attacks against the U.S. and Europe, and maintained links to Pakistan-based militants plotting attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said.

"He's a big fish when it comes to [al Qaeda's] efforts to strike in the West," said Vahid Brown, a research fellow at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

Mr. Somali moved up the al Qaeda ranks, initially working on the group's propaganda operations and working with Western recruits when they traveled to Pakistan's tribal areas, the official said.

"He took strategic guidance from [al Qaeda's] top leadership and translated it into operational blueprints for prospective terrorist attacks," the counterterrorism official said.

A native of Somalia, Mr. Somali maintained relationships with al Qaeda's East African affiliates, including the Somalian terrorist group al Shabaab, U.S. officials said.

The report of Mr. Somali's death couldn't be immediately confirmed by the Pakistanis.

The State Department has offered a $1 million award for information leading to the capture of Mr. Libi.

The pace of U.S. drone attacks has slowed in recent months as Pakistan mounted its own counterterrorism offensive.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126056379662287811.html#printMode

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From ICE

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286 arrested in ICE's largest ever enforcement surge targeting criminal aliens
2 convicted rapists and armed robber among those captured in 3-day California operation

LOS ANGELES - Nearly 300 foreign nationals with criminal records have been removed from the United States or are facing deportation following a three-day enforcement surge in California, making it the biggest operation targeting at large criminal aliens ever carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

During the operation, which concluded late Thursday, ICE officers located and arrested a total of 280 criminal aliens statewide, along with six non-criminal aliens who had final orders of deportation. More than 80 percent of the criminal aliens taken into custody had prior convictions for serious or violent crimes, such as rape by force, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Also included in the group are 30 convicted sex offenders, many whose crimes involved sexual assaults on children. Of those arrested, at least 100 have already been removed from the country.

At a news conference here Friday morning, Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton announced the results of the special operation, which involved more than 400 agents and officers from ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service, as well as several other state and local agencies. Assistant Secretary Morton cited the operation as another example of the vital role multi-agency cooperation and targeted immigration enforcement play in protecting our communities.

"Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE's mission," said Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary John Morton, who oversees ICE. "Legal immigration is an important part of our country's history and the American dream exists for many immigrants. However, that dream involves playing by the rules and those who break our criminal laws will be removed from the country. Sadly, many of the people victimized by aliens who commit crimes are other members of the immigrant community, who are following the rules."

Northern California accounted for the largest number of arrests during the operation where a total of 119 criminal aliens were taken into custody. The Los Angeles-area recorded the next highest number of arrests with 96, followed by San Diego and Imperial counties collectively with 71. The arrestees, 257 men and 29 women, represent more than 30 different nations, including countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Because of their serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records, at least 17 of those arrested during the enforcement surge will face further federal prosecution for reentering the country illegally after a formal deportation. A conviction for felony re-entry carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Among the arrestees being federally prosecuted is a previously deported Guatemalan national with ties to the Mid-city street gang whose criminal history includes a prior conviction for first degree robbery. Ulises Vazuiz Arucha, 37, was taken into custody by ICE officers Dec. 8 in Reseda, Calif. Also facing felony re-entry charges is Ignacio Camacho-Madrigal, 43, a Mexican national formerly convicted of committing a lewd act on a child under 14. Camacho-Madrigal was arrested by ICE Dec. 8 in Rialto, Calif.

The foreign nationals detained during the operation who are not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

This week's special enforcement action was spearheaded by ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting, and removing at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives - aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts. ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety, including members of transnational street gangs and child sex offenders.

Last year, ICE's 104 FOTs nationwide made 35,094 arrests. More than 31,000 of those arrests, or nearly 89 percent, involved immigration fugitives and aliens with prior criminal convictions. Criminal aliens specifically accounted for approximately 45 percent of the overall total, including more than 3,600 individuals with prior convictions for violent crimes, such as murder and assault.

The officers who conducted this week's special operation received substantial assistance from ICE's Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) located in South Burlington, Vermont. The FOSC conducted exhaustive database checks on the targeted cases to help ensure the viability of the leads and accuracy of the criminal histories. The FOSC was established in 2006 to improve the integrity of the data available on at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives nationwide. Since its inception, the FOSC has forwarded more than 150,000 case leads to ICE enforcement personnel in the field.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).

Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0912/091211losangeles.htm

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From the FBI

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Pop-Up Security Warnings Pose Threats

The FBI warned consumers today about an ongoing threat involving pop-up security messages that appear while they are on the Internet. The messages may contain a virus that could harm your computer, cause costly repairs or, even worse, lead to identity theft. The messages contain scareware, fake or rogue anti-virus software that looks authentic.

The message may display what appears to be a real-time, anti-virus scan of your hard drive. The scareware will show a list of reputable software icons; however, you can't click a link to go to the real site to review or see recommendations. Cyber criminals use botnets—collections of compromised computers—to push the software, and advertisements on websites deliver it. This is known as malicious advertising or “malvertising.”

Once the pop-up warning appears, it can't be easily closed by clicking the “close” or “X” buttons. If you click the pop-up to purchase the software, a form to collect payment information for the bogus product launches. In some instances, the scareware can install malicious code onto your computer, whether you click the warning or not. This is more likely to happen if your computer has an account that has rights to install software.

Downloading the software could result in viruses, malicious software called Trojans, and/or keyloggers—hardware that records passwords and sensitive data—being installed on your computer. Malicious software can cause costly damages for individual users and financial institutions. The FBI estimates scareware has cost victims more than $150 million.

Cyber criminals use easy-to-remember names and associate them with known applications. Beware of pop-up warnings that are a variation of recognized security software. You should research the exact name of the software being offered. Take precautions to ensure operating systems are updated and security software is current. If you receive these anti-virus pop-ups, close the browser or shut down your computer system. You should run a full anti-virus scan whenever the computer is turned back on.

If you have experienced the anti-virus pop-ups or a similar scam, notify the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) by filing a complaint at www.ic3.gov .

http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/popup121109.htm

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