Video shows CIA bomber calling for attacks on U.S.

From the Associated Press

January 9, 2010

CAIRO — The Arabic news station Al-Jazeera has broadcast a posthumous video showing the Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan calling for revenge attacks inside and outside the United States.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi appears in the video next to the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and calls for all jihadists to carry out revenge attacks on Americans for the earlier killings of the Taliban's leadership.

The existence of the video was also announced by the U.S.-based IntelCenter group which monitors extremist websites.

IntelCenter said the video was released today by the Pakistani branch of the Taliban.

http://www.latimes.com/la-fgw-cia-bomber-video10-2010jan10,0,6158209,print.story

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Judge orders CHP to return 60 pounds of marijuana

It had been confiscated from a motorist whose attorney convinced a judge that California's medical marijuana law allowed its transport.

by Gerrick Kennedy

January 9, 2010

With the debate on medical marijuana still at a full boil in Los Angeles, a judge Friday ordered the return of 60 pounds of pot to a man after his attorneys successfully argued that a state law gave him the right to transport it.

Saguro Doven, 33, was initially charged with possession of marijuana for sale and transportation of the drug, a violation of the state's health and safety code.

The marijuana was bundled in individual bags that were tucked inside a larger duffel bag when Doven was pulled over on the 101 Freeway by a California Highway Patrol officer, according to court records.

But defense attorney Glen T. Jonas argued that his client was a member of a Venice-based medical marijuana collective and that he was authorized to transport the marijuana. The California attorney general's guidelines regarding medical marijuana indicate that collectives are allowed to both grow and transport quantities of marijuana for its members.

Jonas said the prosecution's expert witness, CHP Sgt. Richard Fuentes, was unqualified to render an expert opinion in the case because he lacked the knowledge required to distinguish lawful from unlawful possession and transportation of marijuana, according to court records.

Fuentes had testified that only caregivers can transport or carry large quantities of marijuana. The law, however, states that members of a collective may transport marijuana on behalf of the group and are exempt from prosecution.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Sterling agreed that the prosecution expert was unqualified and ordered the charge of possession for sale dismissed.

On Monday, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office asked that the remaining transportation count be dismissed.

Doven's attorney then asked for the 60 pounds of marijuana to be returned -- a request that was granted. Doven could have faced a maximum of four years in state prison if found guilty.

"Although justice was delayed, I am thankful it wasn't denied," Doven said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot-return9-2010jan09,0,5428253,print.story

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2 more suspects arrested in New York terror plot

The arrests of Adis Medunjanin, 25, and Zarein Ahmedzay, 24, bring to five the total number of suspects accused in connection with an alleged plot to use beauty products to make bombs.

by Tina Susman

January 9, 2010

Reporting from New York

Federal authorities Friday arrested two more men in connection with an alleged plot to use hair dye and other beauty products to make bombs for use against targets in New York.

Both of the men, Adis Medunjanin, 25, and Zarein Ahmedzay, 24, live in the New York City borough of Queens and were high school classmates of Najibullah Zazi, 24, an Afghan native charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction after the case unfolded in September.

Late Friday afternoon, Ahmedzay appeared in federal court in Brooklyn and pleaded not guilty to a charge of lying to investigators about where he had traveled during visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"The indictment indicates he was less than truthful with the FBI agents" during questioning in the months since Zazi's arrest, said Ahmedzay's lawyer, Michael A. Marinaccio, after the brief arraignment. "Whether that is going to be born out remains to be seen."

Charges against Medunjanin, a Bosnian, were not immediately announced. He was expected in court today.

Zazi, who was arrested while living in Colorado and sent to New York to face charges, has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.

His father, Mohammed Wali Zazi of Colorado, and a Queens imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, who had worked as a New York police informant, were arrested at the same time as Zazi and are charged with lying to authorities. They pleaded not guilty and are free on bail.

At the time of the initial arrests, authorities said they were searching for at least a dozen people in what they described as the first Al Qaeda-linked plot on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Robert Gottlieb, an attorney for Medunjanin, said his client knew the younger Zazi.

"He grew up in the same community. Whether or not that triggered it [the investigation] or whether or not something else triggered the focus on him . . . that is not a substitute for evidence he in fact is guilty," Gottlieb said.

Gottlieb said Medunjanin spent several hours with investigators in October. At that time, authorities also met with Ahmedzay, his brother, Nazir, told the Associated Press.

The men's pictures were among several that had been shown earlier to Afzali, whom police had used to gather information about Zazi before his arrest.

Afzali ended up under arrest himself when authorities accused him of tipping off Zazi about the probe.

An FBI spokesman in New York, Richard Kolko, said the agency believed both men were "associates" of Zazi.

The arrests followed a confusing chain of events that began Thursday afternoon when members of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York showed up at Medunjanin's apartment and seized his passport.

Later in the day, Medunjanin suffered minor injuries in a car crash. The New York Daily News quoted an unidentified law enforcement official as saying Medunjanin rear-ended another vehicle after become flustered while being followed by authorities.

Medunjanin was arrested before dawn Friday following his release from a Queens hospital.

Ahmedzay, a taxi driver, was arrested while on duty.

No one answered the phone at Medunjanin's home Friday afternoon.

A woman who answered the phone at Ahmedzay's home said she did not speak enough English to answer questions, then hung up.

The seizure of Medunjanin's passport suggested that officials were investigating whether he had accompanied Zazi on the defendant's travels to Pakistan last year for what prosecutors say was training by Al Qaeda.

According to the charges against Zazi, he conspired to use products purchased at beauty supply stores to make bombs that were meant to be used in New York, possibly in conjunction with the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-terror-arrests9-2010jan09,0,3078096,print.story

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EDITORIAL

It's a police matter

When police make 'compelled statements' in investigations, truth and accountability are the victims.

January 9, 2010

Five former Blackwater security guards are free today despite evidence that they killed or wounded more than 30 Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisoor Square on a September morning in 2007. They were freed on what conservatives like to deride as a "technicality" but which reasonable people should realize was a shocking violation of their 5th Amendment right against forced self- incrimination.

What ought to be even more troubling to residents of Southern California is that the circumstances that led to the Blackwater dismissal are far from unusual. They are repeated, day in and day out, by law enforcement agencies in this region and across the United States.

The issue that doomed the case was the misuse of "compelled statements." The guards were forced to discuss the events of that day by government officials -- in this case from the State Department -- on the threat of losing their jobs. That part was legal, but the statements were then used by other government officials -- prosecutors in the Justice Department -- in preparing the criminal case against them. As a result, the guards were prosecuted with statements they were forced to provide, precisely the travesty that the 5th Amendment prohibits.

Yet the Los Angeles Police Department, along with many other agencies, regularly puts itself in the same difficult position. Internal affairs investigators who roll out to scenes where police may have committed crimes first ask the officers to give voluntary statements, only to have the officers routinely refuse on the advice of their union. The officers are then ordered to speak or be fired; they almost always do so at that point, but the compelled statements may be used against them only administratively, not in criminal prosecutions.

The insistence on extracting statements this way has caused inordinate hardship over the years. During the investigation of the officers who beat Rodney G. King, for instance, they gave compelled statements for the purposes of gauging whether they violated department policy. Because those statements were inadmissible against them at trial, prosecutors had to create a "dirty team" to scour all evidence and make sure it was devoid of any reference to the statements. The "dirty team" then passed that edited material to a "clean team" that prosecuted the officers. Those complicated efforts became laughably extravagant and expensive when Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, one of the defendants, wrote a book that quoted from the statements. Potential jurors and witnesses, as well as prosecutors, then had to be screened to ensure that they had not been exposed to the statements or to news coverage about the book. Rare is the case that warrants such investment. One reason so few police are prosecuted is precisely because of the burdens created by compelled statements and their taint.

The exemplary work of federal prosecutors in the King case ensured a clean conviction of Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell (two other officers were acquitted). But in the aftermath of the case, the LAPD did not end the practice of demanding that officers speak or be fired. It has adopted safeguards to protect their statements from being leaked to prosecutors, but it continues to compel officers to speak, endangering the possibility of successful prosecutions. Indeed, after the Rampart scandal years later, the Independent Review Panel that examined those far-reaching allegations concluded that the LAPD's administrative investigative processes “seriously compromise[d] criminal investigations.” Moreover, other police agencies have emulated the LAPD and now compel officers to talk, usually driven by police unions that encourage officers not to cooperate voluntarily in order to protect their jobs and thwart investigations of possible crimes.

There are certainly reasons to compel testimony. The vast majority of police investigations validate the work of officers; even those that find fault usually don't uncover criminal violations. Compelling statements speeds that process and clears up administrative matters quickly. But inviting officers to cooperate offers many of the same benefits without the same risks. The LAPD, now under new leadership, should revisit its position on this issue and determine whether compelling statements has outlived its usefulness. One place to start may be by examining the practices of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which asks deputies to give voluntary statements and generally does not force them to talk under threat of firing. (In some rare instances, it does compel statements -- usually, however, after a criminal investigation has been concluded.) The LAPD and other agencies also might consider threatening officers with something less than firing -- a brief suspension might induce compliance and not run afoul of the law.

Some police departments already have concluded that compulsion is not worth the risk. Some local and most federal agencies conduct their internal investigations without resorting to compelled statements. They manage to dismiss irresponsible employees and prosecute those who commit crimes. Those agencies uphold the law; when their counterparts do not, truth and accountability are the victims. The proof: No one will be held responsible for what happened in Nisoor Square.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-blackwater9-2010jan09,0,1901993,print.story

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Undressing the Terror Threat

Running the numbers on the conflict with terrorists suggests that the rules of the game should change

I'm not much of a basketball player. Middle-age, with a shaky set shot and a bad knee, I can't hold my own in a YMCA pickup game, let alone against more organized competition. But I could definitely beat LeBron James in a game of one-on-one. The game just needs to feature two special rules: It lasts until I score, and when I score, I win.

We might have to play for a few days, and Mr. James's point total could well be creeping toward five figures before the contest ended, but eventually the gritty gutty competitor with a lunch-bucket work ethic (me) would subject the world's greatest basketball player to a humiliating defeat.

The world's greatest nation seems bent on subjecting itself to a similarly humiliating defeat, by playing a game that could be called Terrorball. The first two rules of Terrorball are:

Crunching the Risk Numbers

These rules help explain the otherwise inexplicable wave of hysteria that has swept over our government in the wake of the failed attempt by a rather pathetic aspiring terrorist to blow up a plane on Christmas Day. For two weeks now, this mildly troubling but essentially minor incident has dominated headlines and airwaves, and sent politicians from the president on down scurrying to outdo each other with statements that such incidents are "unacceptable," and that all sorts of new and better procedures will be implemented to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.

Meanwhile, millions of travelers are being subjected to increasingly pointless and invasive searches and the resultant delays, such as the one that practically shut down Newark Liberty International Airport last week, after a man accidentally walked through the wrong gate, or Tuesday's incident at a California airport, which closed for hours after a "potentially explosive substance" was found in a traveler's luggage. (It turned out to be honey.)

As to the question of what the government should do rather than keep playing Terrorball, the answer is simple: stop treating Americans like idiots and cowards.

It might be unrealistic to expect the average citizen to have a nuanced grasp of statistically based risk analysis, but there is nothing nuanced about two basic facts:

Consider that on this very day about 6,700 Americans will die. When confronted with this statistic almost everyone reverts to the mindset of the title character's acquaintances in Tolstoy's great novella "The Death of Ivan Ilyich," and indulges in the complacent thought that "it is he who is dead and not I."

Consider then that around 1,900 of the Americans who die today will be less than 65, and that indeed about 140 will be children. Approximately 50 Americans will be murdered today, including several women killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and several children who will die from abuse and neglect. Around 85 of us will commit suicide, and another 120 will die in traffic accidents.

No amount of statistical evidence, however, will make any difference to those who give themselves over to almost completely irrational fears. Such people, and there are apparently a lot of them in America right now, are in fact real victims of terrorism. They also make possible the current ascendancy of the politics of cowardice—the cynical exploitation of fear for political gain.

Unfortunately, the politics of cowardice can also make it rational to spend otherwise irrational amounts of resources on further minimizing already minimal risks. Given the current climate of fear, any terrorist incident involving Islamic radicals generates huge social costs, so it may make more economic sense, in the short term, to spend X dollars to avoid 10 deaths caused by terrorism than it does to spend X dollars to avoid 1,000 ordinary homicides. Any long-term acceptance of such trade-offs hands terrorists the only real victory they can ever achieve.

It's a remarkable fact that a nation founded, fought for, built by, and transformed through the extraordinary courage of figures such as George Washington, Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. now often seems reduced to a pitiful whimpering giant by a handful of mostly incompetent criminals, whose main weapons consist of scary-sounding Web sites and shoe- and underwear-concealed bombs that fail to detonate.

Terrorball, in short, is made possible by a loss of the sense that cowardice is among the most disgusting and shameful of vices. I shudder to think what Washington, who as commander in chief of the Continental Army intentionally exposed himself to enemy fire to rally his poorly armed and badly outnumbered troops, would think of the spectacle of millions of Americans not merely tolerating but actually demanding that their government subject them to various indignities, in the false hope that the rituals of what has been called "security theater" will reduce the already infinitesimal risks we face from terrorism.

Indeed, if one does not utter the magic word "terrorism," the notion that it is actually in the best interests of the country for the government to do everything possible to keep its citizens safe becomes self-evident nonsense. Consider again some of the things that will kill 6,700 Americans today. The country's homicide rate is approximately six times higher than that of most other developed nations; we have 15,000 more murders per year than we would if the rate were comparable to that of otherwise similar countries. Americans own around 200 million firearms, which is to say there are nearly as many privately owned guns as there are adults in the country. In addition, there are about 200,000 convicted murderers walking free in America today (there have been more than 600,000 murders in America over the past 30 years, and the average time served for the crime is about 12 years).

Given these statistics, there is little doubt that banning private gun ownership and making life without parole mandatory for anyone convicted of murder would reduce the homicide rate in America significantly. It would almost surely make a major dent in the suicide rate as well: Half of the nation's 31,000 suicides involve a handgun. How many people would support taking both these steps, which together would save exponentially more lives than even a—obviously hypothetical—perfect terrorist-prevention system? Fortunately, very few. (Although I admit a depressingly large number might support automatic life without parole.)

Or consider traffic accidents. All sorts of measures could be taken to reduce the current rate of automotive carnage from 120 fatalities a day—from lowering speed limits, to requiring mechanisms that make it impossible to start a car while drunk, to even more restrictive measures. Some of these measures may well be worth taking. But the point is that at present we seem to consider 43,000 traffic deaths per year an acceptable cost to pay for driving big fast cars.

For obvious reasons, politicians and other policy makers generally avoid discussing what ought to be considered an "acceptable" number of traffic deaths, or murders, or suicides, let alone what constitutes an acceptable level of terrorism. Even alluding to such concepts would require treating voters as adults—something which at present seems to be considered little short of political suicide.

Yet not treating Americans as adults has costs. For instance, it became the official policy of our federal government to try to make America "a drug-free nation" 25 years ago.

After spending hundreds of billions of dollars and imprisoning millions of people, it's slowly beginning to become possible for some politicians to admit that fighting a necessarily endless drug war in pursuit of an impossible goal might be a bad idea. How long will it take to admit that an endless war on terror, dedicated to making America a terror-free nation, is equally nonsensical?

What then is to be done? A little intelligence and a few drops of courage remind us that life is full of risk, and that of all the risks we confront in America every day, terrorism is a very minor one. Taking prudent steps to reasonably minimize the tiny threat we face from a few fanatic criminals need not grant them the attention they crave. Continuing to play Terrorball, on the other hand, guarantees that the terrorists will always win, since it places the bar for what counts as success for them practically on the ground.

Not Guilty Plea Entered for Christmas Day Bombing Suspect

Mr. Abdulmutallab entered the courtroom just before 2 p.m. Friday shackled by his feet and wearing a white T-shirt, khaki pants and blued shoes.

WSJ's John Bussey joins Kelsey Hubbard on the News Hub to discuss President Obama's speech on national security. Although some might have expected an announcement on overhauling the system, John says, that's not the case.

He is accused of strapping explosives in his pants that failed to detonate and instead set him on fire on a Christmas day Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. His trip originated in Nigeria, where his father had earlier alerted authorities to his radical turn.

U.S. officials had information that could have led them to block Mr. Abdulmutallab from boarding the plane, Obama administration officials said yesterday, but intelligence analysts failed to assemble the picture of the plot. Representatives of the militant group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, based in Yemen, have claimed credit for organizing the attack.

Judge Mark A. Randon presided Friday, asking the suspect a series of questions during the brief hearing about his mental state and fitness to stand trial Friday. When asked, he told a judge he had taken pain medication in the last day.

Mr. Abdulmutallab made his first appearance in court amid crowds of journalists. Scores of Muslim Americans held up anti-terrorism mantras on posters and waved large American flags outside the coutroom. A handful of Nigerian-born Americans joined in, with signs such as "Nigerians Are Against Terrorism."

Mr. Abdulmutallab will remain detained but has the right to a hearing on the matter. His next appearance in court was not immediately set Friday.

No new details were provided in an indictment earlier this week as to how the suspect was able to board a plane in Amsterdam with two types of explosives hidden in his pants, or how he gained a U.S. visa.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126296584036721669.html?mod=article-outset-box#printMode

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Pair Linked to Colorado Terror Suspect Arrested

Authorities Believe Three Men Traveled to Pakistan Together; Nigerian Accused of Christmas Bomb Attempt Pleads Not Guilty

NEW YORK -- Law-enforcement officials on Friday announced the arrest of two men linked to a suspect charged in September with planning what authorities have called the most serious home-grown terror plot since Sept. 11, 2001.

That alleged plot centered on Najibullah Zazi, an airport-shuttle driver from Aurora, Colo., who was indicted for planning to make bombs from hair products and household cleaners for attacks in the U.S.

Two men who traveled to Pakistan with Najibullah Zazi were arrested early Friday morning in New York. Video courtesy of Fox News.

Separately, the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, pleaded not guilty Friday in federal court in Detroit to charges that he attempted to detonate a bomb and murder 279 passengers and 11 crew members on board a Detroit-bound Northwest flight on Christmas. Outside the courtroom, scores of Muslim Americans held up anti-terrorism posters and waved American flags, while a handful of Nigerian-born Americans carried signs with slogans such as "Nigerians Are Against Terrorism."

The two men arrested Thursday, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, both of New York City, had ties to Mr. Zazi, the shuttle-bus driver. One of the men hasn't been issued terrorism charges; charges on the other man haven't been released, and a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on what, if anything, he may be charged with.

Mr. Ahmedzay, a 24-year-old cab driver, was charged Friday by a federal grand jury with making false statements to federal authorities. The charging document said Mr. Ahmedzay failed to tell FBI agents every location he visited in Pakistan and Afghanistan during a trip that "occurred on or about and between August 28, 2008, and January 22, 2009."

The indictment also said he lied about his discussions with a person who had attended a military-style training camp in Pakistan during that time period.

Mr. Ahmedzay pleaded not guilty and was held without bail. As of Friday evening, Mr. Medunjanin was still in custody but had not been charged. His lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, said he expected his client to be arraigned today.

"If they did question him, it would be an illegal interrogation," he said, adding that his client had been unaware he was under surveillance.

According to an FBI spokesman, the arrests are part of "an ongoing investigation" by the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York City, which includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New York City Police Department.

Authorities believe Mr. Medunjanin and Mr. Ahmedzay accompanied Mr. Zazi on a 2008 trip to Pakistan, where the latter allegedly attended an al Qaeda training camp according to a law-enforcement official. FBI affidavits filed in Mr. Zazi's case said that he told FBI agents in interviews that he attended courses and received instruction on weapons and explosives at an al Qaeda training facility in Pakistan. Mr. Zazi has denied his involvement.

The two men arrested Thursday had been under surveillance since Mr. Zazi's arrest as part of the ongoing investigation.

Rick Nelson, director of the Homeland Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said homegrown terror cells are a major concern. "A U.S. resident or someone with a passport to get into the U.S. is the crown jewel for these terrorist organizations," he said. "This is a very real problem, something Europe has been dealing with a longer period of time than we have."

Initially, authorities went to Mr. Medunjanin's Queens apartment with a search warrant for his passport, the official said. Mr. Medunjanin surrendered the passport without incident.

Mr. Medunjanin left his apartment and began driving erratically on the Whitestone Expressway in Queens, N.Y., crashing into another car and fleeing the scene on foot, the official said. New York City police took him into custody for leaving the scene of an accident. He was treated for minor injuries at a local hospital. Mr. Ahmedzay was picked up Thursday by law enforcement while he was driving a cab in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan.

Mr. Medunjanin's apartment was one of several that agents had searched in September around the time of Mr. Zazi's arrest, the lawyer said. At that time, they took some computers and unspecified literature, all of which were later returned, Mr. Gottlieb said. "There was nothing involving bombs or terror plots on the computer," the lawyer said. Mr. Medunjanin agreed at that time to be interviewed by the agents for several hours over two days, the attorney said. Mr. Gottlieb would not reveal what his client was asked.

Mr. Medunjanin, whose parents are from Bosnia, is a Muslim who attends a mosque, Mr. Gottlieb said. His client knows Mr. Zazi from the neighborhood, he added. He believed that both had attended the same local high school, although Mr. Gottlieb would not comment as to whether his client knows Mr. Zazi in any other capacity. Mr. Medunjanin received a bachelor of arts in economics in 2009 from Queens College, part of The City University of New York.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126295317543921471.html?mod=article-outset-box#printMode

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Groups Say Screening Invites Bias

Twenty-seven organizations on Friday asked the Department of Homeland Security to change newly tightened airport-security rules that they say will result in racial and ethnic profiling.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, the groups -- about half representing Muslim Americans -- criticized a new policy that requires extra screening for people traveling to the U.S. from or through 14 countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism or countries "of interest."

The terror-sponsor list includes Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria, while the countries of interest include Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.

The groups said in the letter that with the exception of Cuba, the directive targets individuals traveling from Muslim-majority or Middle Eastern countries with no regard as to whether the passenger poses an individualized threat.

The groups also said the extra screening diverts attention and resources from legitimate leads and suspicious behavior.

"All of us are concerned about the security of our nation. However, security policies based on ethnic and religious profiling are both ineffective and contrary to constitutional principles. Terrorism is neither ethnically nor geographically confined," the letter reads.

DHS spokesman Matt Chandler said the agency would respond directly to the letter's authors. He said the Transportation Security Administration, an arm of the DHS, "does not profile."

The new DHS policy is one of several actions the Obama administration took following a failed attempt by a Nigerian national to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet flying to Detroit on Christmas Day. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is accused of hiding explosives in his underwear. He pleaded not guilty to the charges Friday.

"As is always the case, TSA security measures are based on threat, not ethnic or religious background," said Mr. Chandler. He also noted that the new directives applied to every person flying to the U.S. from or through the list of 14 countries, and required that a majority of travelers flying to the U.S. from everywhere else in the world go through enhanced, threat-based and random screening.

Among the groups are the Muslim Advocates, the Arab American Institute, the Muslim Bar Associations in several states and the Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126299928433022191.html?mod=article-outset-box#printMode

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TSA Pressed on Full-Body Scans Despite Concerns

The alleged failed Christmas Day airline bomb attempt is opening the door to wider deployment of full-body-imaging machines at airports across the U.S. and possibly Europe, despite reservations from some members of Congress, privacy advocates and airlines.

There are about 40 full-body scanners in use as part of a pilot program at 19 U.S. airports. European Union officials also are discussing plans to expand the use of body-imaging scanners.

Privacy and other concerns had slowed the installation of body scanners on both sides of the Atlantic. The machines can produce detailed images of a person's body. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the man accused of trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines jet over Detroit, had explosives sewn into his undergarments, U.S. officials have charged.

The close call over Detroit has lifted the profile of OSI Systems Inc., the parent company of the U.S. government's largest supplier of body-scan machines, Rapiscan Systems Inc. Rapiscan's technology produces a full-body image that sees through clothes. The Rapiscan systems use low-level X-rays, while attached computers deploy algorithms the government says will maintain privacy, mostly by obscuring faces.

After testing Rapiscan against the existing vendor, L-3 Security & Detection Systems, a division of L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., the government in October said it would purchase the 150 new machines from Rapiscan.L-3 makes the 40 machines that have been deployed by the TSA.

DHS officials would not say this week how quickly the 450 new machines would be deployed, or where. But political pressure on the agency since the alleged failed plot is likely to push officials to move fast.

The International Air Transport Association has taken a "cautionary view" on body scanners, said Steve Lott, a spokesman for the trade group representing international airlines. One of the main issues is privacy concerns, said Mr. Lott. The group is also concerned about how the machines could slow the passenger screening process, and how they will fit logistically with current airport design.

Cost is another factor airlines are considering, as they are worried that the government will assess them fees for the added security expenses. "Before spending so much money, test the machines in a real environment and see how they affect the flow," said Mr. Lott.

Christopher Bidwell, vice president of security for the Airports Council International's North American arm, said that because the TSA procures and installs the advanced imaging technology, his trade group has asked the agency to coordinate closely with airports. "A lot of airports are space-constrained, so it [the technology] might not be appropriate for all airports," said Mr. Bidwell.

In Congress, an amendment blocking the use of full-body scanners as the main way of screening passengers who don't fit risk profiles, offered by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), was passed by the House in June. The Senate has not yet taken up the legislation.

The Privacy Coalition, a network of groups that advocates for privacy rights, sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano the same week the bill passed the House asking her to suspend the use of the scanners. The letter was signed by 34 member organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Gun Owners of America.

Mr. Chaffetz has indicated that he would be willing to drop the issue if the scanners used technology that ensured a passenger could not be identified during the scan.

Meanwhile, aviation-security specialists from the European Union, airlines and airports met Thursday in Brussels to discuss issues raised by the alleged Christmas Day bombing attempt. A major issue was the use of full-body scanners, said Fabio Pirotta, spokesman for the EU Transport Commission. "There was unanimous agreement on the need for a coordinated EU approach, which could include scanners, but there is no concrete proposal yet," he said.

The EU last year tried to begin setting rules on full-body scanners, but abandoned the effort after objections from some member-states and members of the European Parliament, Mr. Pirotta said. Objections were based on privacy concerns and questions about health affects of the devices.

But governments of EU member-countries are free to set security standards stricter than EU-wide rules, which some have announced they are doing.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126296286103421603.html?mod=article-outset-box#printMode

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Togo Soccer Stars Attacked at African Cup

LUANDA, Angola -- Gunmen in a part of Angola plagued by separatist violence opened fire with machine-guns on a bus carrying Togo to the African Cup of Nations on Friday, killing the driver and wounding at least nine people.

Togo's footballers, two of whom were hit, said they wanted to pull out of the 16-nation tournament, though a member of the Angola organizing committee said it will go ahead as planned from Sunday.

"We were machine-gunned like dogs," Nantes striker Thomas Dossevi told Radio Monte Carlo. "They were armed to the teeth .. We spent 20 minutes underneath the seats of the bus."

Mr. Dossevi told Infosport television in France: "We were surrounded by police buses. Everything looked fine and we came under heavy fire. Everyone scrambled under the seats trying to protect themselves. It lasted at least a quarter of an hour with the police responding."

The wounded were taken to a hospital in Cabinda, and Portugal's state-run Lusa news agency said it received a communication from the region's main separatist group, FLEC, claiming to have carried out the attack.

Human Rights Watch called the apparent rebel attack "shocking." The New York-based rights group said a 2006 peace agreement between Angola's government and a faction of the separatist Front for the Liberation of the Enclave of Cabinda was supposed to end conflict in the area, but "sporadic attacks on government forces and expatriate workers have continued."

In Togo, the government put the total number of injured at nine, and said the slain driver was Angolan.

Togo said it was dispatching a delegation to Pointe Noire in Congo, where the Togolese team was holed up.

Togo Football Federation vice president Gabriel Ameyi said the team should have flown to Angola instead of traveling by road.

He said defender Serge Akakpo and backup goalkeeper Obilale Kossi were among those hurt.

FC Vaslui said on its Web site that the 22-year-old Akakpo, who joined the Romanian club from Auxerre last year, was hit by two bullets and lost a lot of blood but was now out of danger.

Midfielder Alaixys Romao believed Togo should return home.

"If we can boycott it, let's do it," Mr. Romao told French TV channel Infosport. "It's just not on for us to be shot at because of a football match. All I can think about is stopping this competition and going home."

Mr. Dossevi agreed: "We don't want to play this African Cup of Nations," he told Infosport. "We're thinking about our teammates – to be hit by bullets when you've come to play football is disgusting."

Mr. Adebayor told the BBC that "if the security is not sure then we will be leaving tomorrow. I don't think they will be ready to give their life."

"Most of the players want to go back to their family. No one can sleep after what they have seen today. They have seen one of their teammates have a bullet in his body, who is crying, who is losing consciousness and everything."

The African Football Confederation condemned the attack and held an emergency meeting.

"The Angolan authority deployed immediately a team down there to assess the exact situation," CAF said in a statement.

A delegation of Angolan officials and a delegation from CAF will be heading to Cabinda on Saturday while the Angolan Prime Minister will meet CAF president Issa Hayatou "to take decisions to guarantee the smooth running of the competition."

CAF also expressed its "total support as well as sympathy to the entire Togolese delegation."

FIFA also expressed "utmost sympathy" in a statement, and expected a report from CAF.

The tournament will still go ahead as planned, said a senior member of the local organizing committee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. He said Ivory Coast, considered the top African team, arrived early Friday in Cabinda, where Togo was also to be based as part of Group B. Burkina Faso had been there since Jan. 2, and Ghana was the other group member.

Togo was due to play in the opening group match on Monday against Ghana.

Even if the tournament goes ahead, the attack was a major blow to host Angola.

Angola has been struggling to climb back from decades of violence, and its government was clearly banking on the tournament as a chance to show the world it was on the way to recovery. A building boom fueled by oil wealth has included new stadiums in Cabinda and three other cities for the tournament.

But Cabinda, Angola's main oil-producing region, has been plagued by unrest. Human rights groups have accused the military of atrocities and claim government officials have embezzled millions of dollars in oil revenue. The government has denied the charges.

The simmering violence in Cabinda is separate from a larger civil war that broke out after independence from Portugal in 1975. An anti-colonial war had begun in the southern African country in the 1960s. Major fighting ended in 2002.

The attack on Togo was the second major gun attack on a sports team in less than a year. Several players were injured and six policemen killed when gunmen fired on the Sri Lanka cricket team's bus in Lahore, Pakistan, in March 2009.

The violence also comes five months before the World Cup in South Africa, the first to be held on the continent. The biggest concern leading to that 32-team tournament has been the security situation in South Africa, which has one of the world's highest crime rates.

Togo, which played at the 2006 World Cup, did not qualify for this year's finals.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126301943479623043.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories#printMode

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Risky Ally in War on Polio: the Taliban

MEHTAR LAM, Afghanistan -- Knocking on door after door, thousands of volunteers fan out every month across southern and eastern Afghanistan, vaccinating children against polio, a disease eradicated almost everywhere else in the world.

Usually, the volunteers -- sent by the government and sponsored by United Nations agencies -- bring a single-page letter requesting people to cooperate, "for the benefit of our next generations." The letter's signatory: Mullah Mohammad Omar, the one-eyed supreme leader of the Taliban.

"We always carry a copy," says Dr. Attar Wafa, the chief of polio vaccinations in the insurgent-infested province of Laghman, much of which is a no-go area for government workers and foreigners.

The antipolio campaign brings together the Taliban, President Hamid Karzai's central government, Unicef and the World Health Organization in an uneasy but functioning partnership -- one that recognizes the reality of the insurgents' stranglehold over large chunks of the country.

The arrangement shows the possibilities and perils of cooperating with the Taliban. It brings the world a major step closer to eradicating a crippling disease. Yet "there is no doubt that it is a political victory for the Taliban," says Afghan lawmaker Sardar Oghli. "The Taliban are trying to show the world that they are in control."

Mr. Karzai, with Western backing, has repeatedly called for ending the eight-year Afghan war through a broad political settlement with the insurgents. The Taliban leadership has rejected negotiations with Kabul as long as U.S.-led foreign troops remain in the country. But the antipolio drive is already leading to de-facto collaboration between the insurgents and representatives of Mr. Karzai's administration.

"There used to be a ping-pong diplomacy, and now we have a vaccination diplomacy," says Afghan parliament member Daud Sultanzoi, referring to the sports contacts between China and the U.S. in the 1970s that paved the way for talks between the two nations.

For U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan, the arrangement represents a moral dilemma. Coalition military officials shy away from criticizing the WHO and Unicef for reaching out to the Taliban. In an interview, U.S. Lt.-Gen. David M. Rodriguez, the commander of U.S.-led coalition forces here, said: "We support all the efforts to help the people of Afghanistan."

Nevertheless, the fact that the international community and Afghan government authorities must request Taliban permission to operate in large parts of the country makes some Western officials wince. "It's a pact with the devil," says one senior Western diplomat in Kabul. "But it's a pact in order to save lives."

A spokesman for the U.N.'s secretary-general said, "Around the world, the United Nations has tried to make sure that it has acceptance by all parties on the ground to carry out its humanitarian work." The spokesman added, "We always face security challenges, but it's important to carry out inoculations so people do not die."

Since Mullah Omar's first letter was issued, in August 2007, vaccinators gained entry to dozens of previously out-of-bounds villages, WHO officials say. More importantly, the Taliban endorsement allowed many vaccination teams that considered pulling out because of safety concerns to continue operating in other districts, even as fighting intensified.

Mullah Omar's cooperation with Afghanistan's polio drive contrasts with the ban on polio vaccinations imposed by leaders of the separate, but affiliated, Taliban movement in neighboring Pakistan. The relative access enjoyed by vaccination teams in Afghanistan amid an escalating war also shows the degree of control that the Afghan Taliban's central leadership, mostly based in the Pakistani city of Quetta and headed by Mullah Omar, exercises over Afghanistan's many insurgent groups.

Eliminating polio in the remaining four endemic countries -- a top U.N. priority -- would eventually render it unnecessary to vaccinate hundreds of millions of children elsewhere every year. Last year, Afghanistan had 31 diagnosed cases of polio, the vast majority in the insurgency-wracked Kandahar and Helmand provinces, up from four known cases in 2004. The polio virus can cause irreversible paralysis in about one out of 200 infected children.

In the U.S., children usually receive four injections of a vaccine made from the dead polio virus. By contrast, kids in southern and eastern Afghanistan ingest oral doses of the weakened, live virus almost monthly. The reason: The live vaccine is eventually excreted by the children and enters the typically unhygienic local water supply -- providing a secondary dose to unvaccinated neighbors.

But unlike the dead virus used in the West, an oral vaccine carries a risk, albeit very small, of actually infecting a healthy child with polio. That possibility helps fuel the anti-vaccination conspiracy theories. For instance, in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, Maulana Fazlullah, a Taliban-affiliated warlord, outlawed polio vaccinations until that area was retaken by government forces last summer.

Afghanistan's Mullah Omar adopted the opposite approach. His letter, viewed by The Wall Street Journal and issued on behalf of the movement's parallel government, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, urges all jihadi fighters and Taliban sympathizers to work with Unicef, WHO and the polio teams. It instructs villagers to take children to a specially designated area where they can receive their dose.

"The Taliban want legitimacy," says Zefnoon Safai, an Afghan lawmaker representing Laghman province, southeast of Kabul. The use of Mullah Omar's letter by U.N. agencies such as the WHO, she adds, "means that these organizations believe that in addition to the Afghan government and international forces there is a third power here, the Taliban."

Yet on the issue of vaccinations, the Taliban seem to have suspended this enmity, constrained by Afghan public opinion and, just like the foreign troops, eager to win hearts and minds. "When the Taliban were in power, they supported our program, and now that they are in opposition, we expected them to do the same, and we have received a positive response," says Dr. Mir of the WHO.

In mid-2007, when Dr. Mir first asked for a Taliban letter of support, polio teams encountered growing difficulties in accessing insurgent-held areas.

At the time, some vaccinators were beaten up and their rosters snatched by local Taliban, because the teams' frequent home visits and detailed documentation of who lives where aroused suspicions that the health workers were spying on militants. "But now, if they have any problems, they just show the Taliban letter, and it works," says Khushhal Zaman, the WHO's polio-eradication team leader for four eastern Afghan provinces, including Laghman.

"Give me your kid," Mr. Nasiullah demanded as 27-year-old mason Mohamed Hashim brought out his two-month-old daughter, Amida. Then, squeezing the crying baby's cheeks, he poured the vaccine into her mouth. Another team member marked the girl's pinkie with indelible violet ink to indicate she had been vaccinated.

Mr. Nasiullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, had also been here the previous day, to vaccinate Mr. Hashim's two other children. Just as he started berating the father for not having Amida at home during the earlier visit, their conversation was interrupted by the boom of an explosion on the valley floor below.

While health officials across southern and eastern Afghanistan agree that the Taliban letter is undoubtedly helpful, it isn't always foolproof. In the province of Kunar, east of Laghman, some insurgent commanders have rejected it as a fake, saying they don't recognize the wavy "M.O." initials that constitute Mullah Omar's signature. Similar problems occurred in Kandahar and Helmand, where some local militias maintain little contact with Quetta.

"The letter from Quetta is an umbrella, but how it all trickles down to the local level is not always clear," says Helene Kadi, Unicef's Kandahar-based representative in southern Afghanistan. "This is why negotiations with the local commanders are always important."

The WHO and Unicef aren't dealing with Quetta and Mullah Omar directly: U.N. agencies have been banned from contacting the Taliban, which the world body blacklisted as terrorists, since the attacks on America of Sept. 11, 2001.

Instead, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only international organization that maintains regular communications with the Taliban command, acts as an intermediary every time a new letter of support is issued. That happened 10 times in 2009, each time a new vaccination campaign was launched.

Dr. Mir of the WHO says he decided to ask the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, for assistance after watching how that organization facilitated talks between the South Korean government and the Taliban that led to the freeing of 23 Korean hostages kidnapped by the insurgents in July 2007.

"It struck us, if they can help with this, they can certainly help the children of Afghanistan," says Dr. Mir.

Afghan insurgents generally respect the ICRC's neutrality, unlike their counterparts in Iraq, who blew up the organization's Baghdad headquarters in October 2003. The ICRC maintains first-aid posts in some Taliban-held parts of the country and runs special taxi-ambulance services that evacuate wounded Taliban fighters from the battlefield as well as Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire.

"We have a very constructive dialogue with the armed opposition, and we have contacts with the local leadership as well as the highest leadership sitting in Quetta and in Peshawar," says the ICRC's deputy head in Kabul, Eloi Fillion. "We've gained the trust of these groups because we are efficient in the field."

Red Cross workers coordinate with the Taliban almost daily their movement through insurgent-dominated areas. And the organization has established channels of communication that allow it to receive responses on requests sent to the Taliban's senior leadership within hours, Mr. Fillion says. He declined to elaborate on how that system works because the information could enable the U.S. and its allies to kill or capture Taliban leaders.

Once the ICRC relayed to Quetta the WHO's request for a vaccination-support letter in 2007, the Taliban took about a month to ponder their decision, Dr. Mir says. In the end, the appeal of what amounted to a gesture of international recognition proved irresistible for a movement that views itself as Afghanistan's legitimate government.

These days, Mullah Omar quickly issues a new letter for every vaccination round. The WHO staff then print thousands of copies, distributing them to volunteers.

Dr. Mir says that, because of the rise in insurgent activities in the previously safe northern Afghanistan, vaccination workers now must carry the Taliban letter in northern provinces such as Kunduz and Baghlan, in addition to the south and the east.

In the insurgent-dominated areas, it's the Taliban who select the local vaccination teams and their supervisors. These Taliban-appointed vaccinators then receive the vaccine and the documentation from government health offices, and report back the results once the round is over.

"The insurgents know these locals," says Dr. Mohammad Ishaq, who oversees the polio program in the Kunar province. "They trust them and cooperate with them."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126298998237022117.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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Venezuela Says Its Jets Intercepted U.S. Plane

Brandishing a photo of the plane, which he described as a P-3, Mr. Chávez said the overflight was the latest incursion in Venezuelan skies by the U.S. military from its bases on the Netherlands' Caribbean islands and from neighboring Colombia.

Separately, Mr. Chávez announced a currency devaluation for the first time since 2005. The president said Venezuela's currency, the bolivar, will now have two government-set rates depending on the use, either 2.60 to the dollar for transactions deemed priorities by the government or 4.30 to the dollar for other transactions. The currency's official exchange rate has been held by the government at 2.15 bolivars to the dollar.

On the plane interception, Mr. Chávez said the F-16s escorted the U.S. plane away after two incursions lasting 15 and 19 minutes each.

The perceived threat of U.S. intervention has become a central element of Mr. Chávez's political discourse and a rallying cry for his supporters.

Foes say the president is hyping the idea of a foreign threat to distract Venezuelans from domestic problems such as a recession and inadequate public services. Mr. Chávez surprised the diplomatic world in December when he accused the Netherlands of abetting potential offensive action against his government by granting U.S. troops access to its islands close to Venezuela.

The Dutch government says the U.S. presence is only for counternarcotics and surveillance operations over Caribbean smuggling routes.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126300260041422661.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

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From the Washington Times

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Arrest made in Newart airport security breach

by David Porter and Samantha Henry

ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERS

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- The man believed to have caused a security breach that resulted in major delays Sunday at Newark Liberty Airport has been arrested and will be charged with defiant trespassing.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says 28-year-old Haisong Jiang of Piscataway was taken into custody at 7:30 p.m. Friday at his home by Port Authority police. It was not immediately clear whether Jiang has retained a lawyer.

Further details were not immediately available.

On a surveillance video released Thursday by the Transportation Security Administration and the Port Authority, a man wearing a light-colored jacket ducks under a rope barrier and enters the secure area unseen by a security guard.

The guard is on administrative leave and facing possible disciplinary action.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/09/arrest-made-newart-airport-security-breach//print/

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From Fox News

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Plane Plot Suspect Boasted of Others Trained to Blow Up Jets

The Nigerian man suspected of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day told investigators after his arrest that close to 20 other young Muslim men were being trained in Yemen to blow up airliners, CBS News reports .

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's claim that others were being prepared to use the same technique on jets reportedly was confirmed by British intelligence.

Sources told CBS that his statement was behind the U.S.-issued directive announcing "enhanced screening" for "every individual" on U.S.-bound flights from 14 countries.

Abdulmutallab pleaded not guilty Friday to charges that he tried to blow up the Northwest Airlines jet.

He said little during a federal court hearing that lasted less than five minutes. The 23-year-old, who wore a white T-shirt, tennis shoes and light olive pants, said "yes" in English when asked if understood the charges against him.

Authorities say Abdulmutallab was traveling from Amsterdam when he tried to destroy the plane carrying nearly 300 people by injecting chemicals into a package of explosives concealed in his underwear. The failed attack caused popping sounds and flames that passengers and crew rushed to extinguish.

A grand jury indicted Abdulmutallab on six charges earlier this week. The most severe carries up to life in prison — the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

During Friday's hearing, Abdulmutallab stood at the podium along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel and defense attorney Miriam Siefer and answered a few questions from Magistrate Judge Mark A. Randon.

When the judge asked if he had taken any drugs or alcohol in past 24 hours, he answered, "some pain pills." Siefer then said he was competent to understand the proceedings. Abdulmutallab, who is being held at a federal prison in Milan, Mich., had been treated at a hospital for burns after the attack.

His attorneys then waived the reading of the indictment, and the judge entered not guilty plea on his behalf.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,582651,00.html

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Attacks Show Al Qaeda-Inspired Groups Target West

New attacks on U.S. interests, plotted by local militants as opposed to Al Qaeda's core group, warn of the possibility of new mini-fronts in the war on terrorism that could stretch American resources even more thinly across the globe.

WASHINGTON – From Detroit to Afghanistan , scattered terrorists inspired and equipped by Al Qaeda have attacked recently with surprising speed and worldwide reach, challenging the U.S. strategy of slowly and deliberately targeting the terror group's top leaders.

Counterterror officials and other experts say the botched Christmas Day airliner bombing and the Dec. 30 assault at a CIA base in Afghanistan demonstrate that Al Qaeda and its supporters can react quickly when opportunities arise.

The new attacks, plotted by local militants as opposed to Al Qaeda's core group, also warn of the possibility of new mini-fronts in the war on terrorism that could stretch American resources even more thinly across the globe. They come as U.S. forces are focusing on the Taliban in Afghanistan and Al Qaeda in Pakistan .

Al Qaeda's adaptability contrasts with the comparatively plodding pace of the U.S. military buildup in Afghanistan, which will take almost a full year. As the U.S. moves in, the terror group moves on.

The recent attacks, "are not necessarily evidence of a resurgent or more sophisticated Al Qaeda, but of them taking advantage of targets of opportunity as they present themselves," said Matthew Levitt, a counterterrorism and intelligence expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.

The airliner attack in Detroit appears to have been fermenting only since October, and the homicide bombing at the CIA base also appears to have been put together relatively quickly — over a matter of months in contrast to the yearslong Al Qaeda planning that went into the 9/11 attacks.

While the Pakistan-based hard core of Al Qaeda has been degraded by missile strikes and other covert action since the 2001 attacks, the group is still adept at spreading propaganda and attracting new recruits.

Over the past year, Al Qaeda-linked groups in Yemen , Somalia and North Africa , spurred on by similar extremist views, have expanded beyond their regional turf wars to threaten regional governments. Now they threaten broader assaults against the West.

"Though Al Qaeda as an organization remains on the ropes, with leadership, finances, and legitimacy diminished and under constant pressure, the focus and attempt by one of its regional affiliates to attack the United States directly is a dangerous development," said Juan Zarate, a senior counterterrorism official in the Bush administration who is now senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He said the new attacks put "a premium on containing if not destroying (Al Qaeda) outposts in Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa." Zarate added that the incidents also show Al Qaeda's intent to strengthen its global reach, and that the direction from core Al Qaeda leaders remains targeting the United States.

John Brennan , President Barack Obama 's top counterterrorism adviser, said much the same thing Thursday, describing a mounting drumbeat among Yemen militants to get individuals to carry out attacks on the U.S. The airliner attack, he added, showed a new ability to move from aspiration to action.

The U.S. caught a break in this attack, which fizzled when Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly started a fire but failed to ignite explosives hidden in his clothing as the plane from Amsterdam neared Detroit.

"Al Qaeda is diminished as evidenced by the fact they are sending inexperienced individuals without long association with Al Qaeda, but susceptible to jihadist ideology," said the U.S. director of national intelligence, Dennis Blair, in an open letter to his work force this week. "Unfortunately, even unsophisticated terrorists can kill many Americans."

The Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility for the bungled Dec. 25 attack.

Terrorists had better luck in Afghanistan , where a Jordanian double agent blew himself up, killing seven CIA personnel and wounding six. An Al Qaeda leader claimed on a jihadi Internet forum that the CIA attack was retaliation for earlier deaths of the head of a Pakistani Taliban group and two Al Qaeda figures. A Pakistani Taliban group linked to Al Qaeda also claimed responsibility.

U.S. and British intelligence officials have warned that Al Qaeda has been turning to affiliate groups outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan — including militants in unstable countries such as Yemen and Somalia. And the involvement of a Nigerian and a Jordanian in the recent plots also warn of the growing diversity of those willing to carry out terror plots.

In recent years, terror franchises such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), concentrating on Yemen and Saudi Arabia , and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), aimed at Algeria and Northern Africa, have been embraced by core Al Qaeda leaders.

Some weaker affiliates, such as those in Somalia and Gaza have not, and so they do not yet bear the terror group's brand name.

James Dobbins, the Bush administration's first special representative for Afghanistan after the October 2001 U.S.-led invasion, said Al Qaeda is demonstrating that it is as much an idea as an organization.

"The organization can be defeated, or at least successfully contained," he said in an interview. "But this will be of only limited effect if the idea remains influential."

Richard Barrett, head of a U.N. group that monitors the threat posed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban, said the Christmas Day scare should not be interpreted as a sign that Al Qaeda is gaining in strength.

"That sort of attack we can expect to happen episodically over the years, but I don't think that goes against the general trend, which is that Al Qaeda is becoming weaker. And certainly they have become pinned down in their main areas of operation," Barrett said in a telephone interview.

After being run out of Afghanistan by a U.S.-led invasion force following the 9/11 attacks, Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants found safe haven across the border in northwestern Pakistan. Al Qaeda then strengthened its hand in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion to topple Saddam Hussein , but over time its organization there was battered by the U.S.-led war.

In a report published in November, Levitt and a Washington Institute colleague, Michael Jacobson, agreed that Al Qaeda's leadership is in disarray, its ideological influence in the Muslim world on the decline, its attack capacity diminished and its financial condition deteriorating.

Yet the terrorist movement, they said, remains potent — to U.S. and Western security and to the nerves of millions.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/ci.Attacks+Show+Al+Qaeda-Inspired+Groups+Target+West.opinionPrint

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Researchers Claim to Find Insurgency Patterns That Can Predict Future Attacks

Researchers from the University of Miami and other institutions claim to have found mathematical patterns in the behavior of insurgencies that can help predict future attacks

The most powerful tool in the wars of the future might just be an equation. 

Researchers from the University of Miami and other institutions claim to have found mathematical patterns in the behavior of insurgencies that can help predict future attacks. 

The findings were published in the journal Nature last month. For the study, researchers examined 54,000 attacks across nearly a dozen wars in countries ranging from Iraq to Colombia. 

"The sizes and timing of violent events within different insurgent conflicts exhibit remarkable similarities," they found. 

Neil Johnson, study co-author and physics professor at the University of Miami, said the researchers found a pattern to the way insurgents form and break up and the way they spread out deadly attacks. 

Less deadly attacks occur far more frequently than deadly ones, which may seem obvious. But the researchers found that the ratio of deadly attacks to less deadly attacks is fairly constant across all modern wars. 

"They're not random," Johnson told FoxNews.com. "It's the same for all of these different wars." 

He compared the calibrated chaos of insurgent warfare to the financial markets. As with traders on the stock market, he said, insurgents are making decisions timed for maximum impact. 

"They're all trying to look for the opportunity, and there's a tendency to ration at the same time," he said. 

Johnson said the model he and other researchers are developing can't predict any attacks with absolute certainty but can pinpoint "pockets of predictability," even down to the day.

Researcher Sean Gourley, in an interview with the non-profit TED, where he was a fellow, said the findings could be used to predict the size, distribution and timing of future insurgent attacks. 

"From this we can predict the likelihood of an attack occurring in a particular region or neighborhood during a specific time window," he said. 

He said the research could be used to "test" different war strategies in simulation before they are implemented. He also said it could be used to look for "early signs" of a potential war.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/ci.Researchers+Claim+to+Find+Insurgency+Patterns+That+Can+Predict+Future+Attacks.opinionPrint

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Unruly Passengers Divert Planes; F-16s Deployed

Saturday , January 09, 2010

DENVER  —  Military jets scrambled to intercept a San Francisco-bound jetliner reporting a problem aboard — one of two commercial airplanes diverted because of disruptive passengers.

In addition, police at London's Heathrow Airport arrested three passengers after removing them from a jetliner bound for Dubai. Officials described it only as a security incident.

Friday's passenger plane disruptions came amid heightened concern over airline security after following an alleged Christmas Day attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plane.

Two F-16s were launched at 11:44 a.m. to catch up with AirTran Airways Flight 39 from Atlanta to San Francisco after a report that an intoxicated passenger had locked himself in a bathroom, the Colorado-based North American Aerospace Defense Command said.

The jets arrived over Colorado Springs Airport as the captain — who AirTran said had decided to divert the plane — landed there around noon, NORAD spokeswoman Stacey Knott said.

Colorado Springs police detained the passenger, who allegedly refused to follow flight crew instructions to take his seat before locking himself in a lavatory. Canine teams searched the airplane, and the flight was cleared to continue to San Francisco.

Muhammad Abu Tahir, 46, of Virginia, was being held at the El Paso County jail, the FBI said. Federal charges for interference with a flight crew were expected to be filed Monday. His hometown was not immediately available.

Also Friday, a Hawaii-bound flight had to change course and land in Los Angeles after a man was accused of harassing a woman. The man was removed from the jet that departed Las Vegas early Friday.

The man was interviewed and released after the woman declined to press charges, Los Angeles airport police Sgt. Jim Holcomb said. The exact nature of the disruption or whether the passengers knew each other wasn't known, Holcomb said.

The Hawaiian Airlines flight resumed to Honolulu and arrived three hours late.

It was the second time this week a flight to Hawaii had to change course because of an onboard disruption.

On Wednesday, a Maui-bound Hawaiian Airlines flight from Portland, Ore., was turned around and escorted by two F-15 military fighters because of an uncooperative passenger. The U.S. attorney's office on Friday filed a charge of interfering with a crew member against the passenger, Joseph Hedlund Johnson of Salem, Ore.

An FBI affidavit said Johnson, traveling with his girlfriend, held his carry-on bag closely and was unhappy he couldn't stow it under his seat.

He was in the bulkhead row, so there was no seat ahead to provide storage beneath, the affidavit said. Attendants told him the space beneath his seat was reserved for the feet of the passenger behind.

Then the 56-year-old then filled out a comment card with phrases about death and crashing, and he gave it to an attendant who passed it along to the pilot, the affidavit said.

"The Captain stated that he absolutely felt threatened by the contents of the card, especially when he considered Johnson's earlier suspicious behavior with his bag," the affidavit said.

A search after the plane returned showed Johnson and his girlfriend had no dangerous items, the FBI said.

Johnson was not jailed. He is expected to appear in court Monday.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,582632,00.html

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We Can't Let Fear Define Brand America

We are the people of Bunker Hill, not bunkers. Terrorism fails if the target does not succumb to fear.

America, take back your brand!

It's fine to get upset at the intelligence lapses, the TSA screw-ups and the White House gaffes (especially its insistence on treating terrorists like criminals, not wartime enemies) that have all unfolded since the Christmas Day terror attack but ultimately terrorism's success or failure depends on us.

By its very definition, terrorism fails if the target does not succumb to fear.

After September 11, 2001 we used the mantra “don't let the terrorists win.” Maybe we said and heard it too much, but it was a useful phrase that reminded us of the bottom line here: we're Americans and we have a way of life. Letting anyone disrupt it by using violence or the threat of violence was an outrage, it was wrong, and we needed to pushback.

The problem with fear is that it doesn't have a well-defined limit. If you start getting afraid of stepping on that airplane, pretty soon you might be afraid of crossing the street or jump at the sight of your own shadow. A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one.

One of America's strongest and most enduring brand traits is our tendency to resist fear. The American legacy is the legacy of risk-taking and rugged individualism. Lose this and we lose a critical part of our national identity.

That's why, instead of expecting government to solve all of our security problems and stop all the terrorists, we need to face facts. We are in a war. The enemy is relentless and brutal. There will be days when the government will fail and the enemy will seem to win. Americans will die.

So what? Now I don't mean to dismiss the loss of life or diminish the tragedy -- I mean to put this tragedy in mature and tough perspective and eliminate the fear. We need to get on with things, board those airplanes, travel wherever we want, speak our minds freely, and keep moving forward no matter what. As the old song says, we need to eliminate the negative and latch on to the affirmative.

Getting stuck is what Americans need to be afraid of. After all, getting stuck in the past is what characterizes the terrorists. Let's face it, broken, fear-ridden societies, places without a history of effective governance and civic tradition bred the terrorists who want to do us harm. Ancient prejudices and closed minds define them and they think they have the right to impose this nonsense on us.

Well they don't and we simply can't let fear of their agenda and their violent tactics define us. We are the people of Bunker Hill, not a people born to live in bunkers. The best defense is to be true to our native brand: be optimistic, be open, be friendly, and, above all, be brave.

And, remember, the business of life is always easier when you keep marketing in mind.

John Tantillo is a marketing and branding expert and president of the Marketing Department of America who markets his own services as The Marketing Doctor . He is a frequent contributor to the Fox Forum.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ci.We+Can%27t+Let+Fear+Define+Brand+America.opinionPrint

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GERALDO RIVERA: My Time On the Terror Watch List

It was humiliating, being closely searched in full view of the traveling public. It was time consuming and vastly frustrating.

During forty years in public life I have been accused of being many things, but never of being a terrorist. Yet during a period from 2004 to at least late 2005 I was obviously on the federal government's aviation watch list requiring additional screening and surveillance every time I flew. Supposedly limited to either random selection or to those on the top-secret computer generated watch list, the ‘CCCC' designation on my boarding pass immediately alerted TSA agents -- at all our nation's airports -- to take me aside and give me and my stuff a thorough going over.

Picture the scene. “Hey Geraldo, how's it going?” the friendly TSA officer would say upon recognizing the mustache and familiar face. Then upon seeing the damning letters on my boarding pass, with an almost physical tightening of features and a suddenly cool professional strain in the officer's voice, “Ohh, you've been randomly selected for additional screening. Sir, could you step over here please?” “Sir?” What had just happened to good ole ‘Geraldo'?

It was humiliating, being closely searched in full view of the traveling public, presumably with all my other fellow passengers watching to see if the officer found any hidden drugs on me or illegal exotic pets hidden in my clothing. It was time consuming and vastly frustrating.

“How the hell can your guys waste all that time giving me the business when you know my name should not be on that stupid list?” I vented to the son of the legendary Oregon senator Mark Hatfield Jr., who headed the Office of Communications and Public Information at the Transport Security Administration. “If they're wasting all that time on me, are they letting Usama and Atta through because they're not on the list?!”

Even after I interviewed Hatfield on the air and complained publicly on “At Large” still the Scarlet C's were there on the boarding pass every time I traveled. If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had been on the same list I was, the underwear bomber would never have gotten on the plane.

After countless flights, they finally fixed what Hatfield explained must have been a computer glitch, but flash forward to 2010 and this old reporter has had his left knee replaced. The contraption is made of plastic and titanium and it sets off the metal detector every time I pass through. Before I walk through the machine I explain that the alarm is about to go off, and why. It does. Then I am sent to the same isolated area I came to know during the days of the secret list for further screening. I get patted down and all of my carry-on stuff is again given a thorough examination.

It makes commercial flying, an already unpleasant experience, hell. But here's my real beef. In typical bureaucratic over-reaction we are about to spend billions to upgrade airport security buying full-body X-ray scanners and such. Like so much having to do with the War on Terror, it will be another colossal waste of taxpayer money. How about some common sense instead? We don't need new higher-tech machines to spot explosives being smuggled in crotches or armpits onto airplanes. We need those highly competent TSA agents who are giving me and old ladies in wheelchairs the pat-downs to instead spend their precious time and energy giving high-risk passengers that same Geraldo Treatment. It is not racial profiling to pat-down each and every adult passenger coming from a high-risk nation (like, say, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Somalia or Lebanon) or wearing flowing garments or head coverings, (which could be used to hide lethal stuff more easily than conventional garb). And yes, like so many Latinos during the height of the Drug Wars, many innocent Muslims will be inconvenienced by this move. So am I, every time I fly. Get over it.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/ci.GERALDO+RIVERA%3A+My+Time+On+the+Terror+Watch+List.opinionPrint

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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The United States and New Zealand Sign New Agreement to Strengthen Security Through Increased Cooperation on Science and Technology

“International collaboration in science and technology is a major part of our ongoing efforts to counter threats of terrorism,” said Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Janet Napolitano. “This agreement will enhance our ability to collaborate on research and share innovative technologies to ensure our mutual security and protect the public.”

“The Agreement on Science and Technology Cooperation Contributing to Domestic and External Security Capabilities strengthens New Zealand's longstanding relationship with the U.S. in research science and technology,” said New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully. “Under the Agreement New Zealand transport security and civil defense emergency management researchers will now benefit from collaborative project work with their U.S. counterparts.”

The Agreement calls for close cooperation between the US and New Zealand on the development of threat and vulnerability analyses and new technologies, and strengthened collaboration on border and transport security and civil defense emergency management.

The Agreement draws on the collective technical expertise of government scientists from both countries, and encourages robust participation by universities, non-profit organization and the private sector through public-private partnerships and collaborative funding.

It was signed today in Washington by Secretary Napolitano and New Zealand Ambassador Roy Ferguson. The United States has recently concluded similar agreements with Spain, Germany, France, Israel, Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada.

For more information, visit www.dhs.gov .

http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/releases/pr_1262987857215.shtm

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New Measures for Aviation Security and Information Sharing

Yesterday, I joined White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan to announce recommendations that DHS has made to the President for improving the technology and procedures used to protect air travel from acts of terrorism .

The attempted attack on Northwest Flight 253 is a powerful illustration that terrorists will go to great lengths to try to defeat the security measures that have been put in place since Sept. 11, 2001. The steps I outlined yesterday will strengthen aviation security—at home and abroad—through new partnerships, technology and law enforcement efforts.

These steps include

• Re-evaluating and modifying the criteria and process used to create terrorist watch lists—including adjusting the process by which names are added to the “No-Fly” and “Selectee” lists.
• Establishing a partnership on aviation security between DHS and the Department of Energy and its National Laboratories in order to develop new and more effective technologies to deter and disrupt known threats and protect against new ways by which terrorists could seek to board an aircraft.
• Accelerating deployment of advanced imaging technology to provide greater explosives detection capabilities—and encourage foreign aviation security authorities to do the same—in order to identify materials such as those used in the attempted Dec. 25 attack. The Transportation Security Administration currently has 40 machines deployed throughout the United States, and plans to deploy 300 additional units in 2010.
• Strengthening the presence and capacity of aviation law enforcement—by deploying law enforcement officers from across DHS to serve as Federal Air Marshals to increase security aboard U.S.-bound flights.
• Working with international partners to strengthen international security measures and standards for aviation security.

FBI Releases Bank Crime Statistics for Third Quarter of 2009

During the third quarter of 2009, there were 1,212 reported violations of the Federal Bank Robbery and Incidental Crimes Statue, a decrease from the 1,378 reported violations in the same quarter of 2008.

1 According to statistics released today by the FBI, there were 1,184 robberies of financial institutions

2 and 28 burglaries reported between July 1, 2009 and September 30, 2009. No larcenies or extortions were reported during the quarter.

Highlights of the report include:

• Loot was taken in 90 percent of the incidents, totaling more than $9.4 million.
• Of the loot taken, 22 percent of it was recovered. More than $2.2 million was returned to financial institutions.
• Bank crimes most frequently occurred on Friday. Regardless of the day, the time frame when bank crimes occurred most frequently was between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
• Acts of violence were committed in 5 percent of the incidents, resulting in 26 injuries, five deaths (perpetrators), and 32 persons being taken hostage.
• The most common methods used were oral demands, closely followed by demand notes.
• Most violations occurred in the southern region of the U.S., with 492 reported incidents.

These statistics were recorded as of October 20, 2009. Note that not all bank crimes are reported to the FBI, and therefore the report is not a complete statistical compilation of all bank crimes that occurred in the U.S.

View the detailed report and learn more about the FBI at www.fbi.gov .

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – John M. Walker, 50, of Alexandria, Va., was sentenced today to 36 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release, for illegally converting a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun. The defendant also agreed to forfeit 19 of his firearms that were possessed in violation of the National Firearms Act.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and Willie Brownlee, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' ( ATF ) Washington Field Division, made the announcement after sentencing by United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee in federal district court in Alexandria. Walker, who was cooperative with authorities, pleaded guilty on Sept. 1, 2009.

According to court documents, Walker admitted to illegally converting two semi-automatic Uzi firearms to fully-automatic Uzi machine guns and removing the serial numbers on the machine guns that he sold. He further agreed that he sold these two illegal fully-automatic Uzi machine guns to an undercover agent from the ATF for approximately $2,000 each.

Also in court documents, Walker admitted to possessing 19 firearms that had been converted to machine guns. Walker had not registered the 19 firearms in the National Firearms Act Registration and Transfer Record, and he had not paid the required Special Occupational Tax to manufacture, transfer or possess firearms designated in the National Firearms Act, specifically to include those sold to the undercover ATF agent. Thus, he agreed to forfeit the 19 illegal machine guns to ATF . The forfeiture will ensure that these guns are kept out of the hands of potential criminals.

This case was investigated by ATF . Special Assistant United States Attorney Stephanie Bibighaus Hammerstrom prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae . Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov .

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/01/010810-dc-alexandria-man-sentenced.html

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Member of Opa-Locka Drug Gang Sentenced on Narcotics and Gun Charges

Jeffrey H. Sloman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Field Office, Hugo Barrera, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Mark R. Trouville, Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration, Miami Field Division, James K. Loftus, Interim Director, Miami-Dade Police Department, and Rodney Ballentine, Chief, City of Opa-Locka Police Department, announced the sentencing of the final defendant in Operation Cold Turkey.

On January 5, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks sentenced defendant Erick Hinds to 248 months in prison, following his October 2009 trial on gun and drug charges in connection with a drug trafficking gang that operated in the City of Opa-Locka. Hinds was arrested on December 17, 2008, after he violently resisted arrest, and was himself shot and wounded by Miami Dade Police Officers executing a search warrant.

This sentencing effectively concludes Operation Cold Turkey, a two-year investigation that resulted in charges against 17 defendants in connection with drug trafficking. The investigation and prosecution resulted in the seizure of approximately 40 firearms, including assault weapons and machine guns, and a ballistics vest. Others charged and convicted were:

According to statements made in court in the Hinds trial and in various guilty pleas, it is estimated that this gang trafficked in approximately 8,200 grams of marijuana, 560 grams of crack cocaine, 700 grams of powder cocaine, and 500 MDMA in just a one month period.

Gangs and the guns and drugs that they bring are not welcome in Miami, and our prosecutions make that clear. If you are in a gang, if you sell drugs, and if you have a gun, you will face federal charges and a lengthy prison sentence, stated U.S. Attorney Jeffrey H. Sloman.

FBI Special Agent in Charge John Gillies added, Through the combined efforts of local, state and federal law enforcement and prosecutors, this violent gang has been dismantled. Drugs and guns have a devastating effect on our communities and we will continue to work with our partners to make South Florida a safer place.

These gangs prey on our communities without regard to the damage they do or the lives they ruin. As residents of this community, we must reject this way of life, said ATF Special Agent in Charge Hugo Barrera. We will not tolerate gang behavior, or that of anyone who uses firearms to wreak violence on law enforcement and on our community. Our message is simple. We will not go away; we will continue to investigate and prosecute gang members and felons who commit acts of violence using guns.

DEA Special Agent in Charge Mark R. Trouville stated, Unfortunately, drugs and gangs go hand in hand. DEA will continue to stand up with our federal, state, and local counterparts to attack these violent drug trafficking organizations.

James K. Loftus, Interim Director for the Miami-Dade Police Department stated, This should be a wake-up call to gang members and criminals that their actions will not go unnoticed. We will not rest until people such as Mr. Hinds are held responsible and brought to justice. With our continued partnership with our law enforcement allies, we are accomplishing this goal.

Mr. Sloman commended the efforts of the FBI , ATF , DEA , Miami-Dade Police Department, the City of Opa-Locka Police Department, and other state and local law enforcement agencies for their work in this investigation. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Brown.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls . Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov .

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/01/010710-mia-opa-locka-gang-member-sentenced.html

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Life Sentence For Leader of Heroin Trafficking Organization

COLUMBUS – Ronald Kelsor, 55, of Columbus was sentenced in United States District Court jury here today to life in prison for leading a heroin trafficking organization that operated throughout central and southern Ohio from 2004 until his arrest in April, 2008.

Carter M. Stewart, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Anthony C. Marotta, Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ), Union County Sheriff Rocky W. Nelson, Columbus Police Chief Walter Distelzweig, and Chris Sadowski, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) and other state and local law enforcement agencies participating in the investigation announced the sentence handed down today by Senior U.S. District Judge James L. Graham.

Kelsor was convicted on August 17, 2009 of leading a heroin trafficking conspiracy out of houses in southern and southeastern Columbus. After a seven-day trial and three hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Kelsor of one count of conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 grams of heroin, two counts of possession with intent to distribute heroin, 15 counts of unlawful use of a communications facility, two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug crime and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

During the trial, the government presented 19 witnesses who testified to Kelsor's leadership role in the conspiracy. The government also introduced as evidence transcripts of 56 of the approximately 10,000 wire communications agents and officers monitored during the investigation between February and April 2008. The transcripts recounted phone calls between Kelsor and others discussing the price and delivery of heroin.

The investigation, known as “Operation Alley Way” because the organization distributed heroin along U.S. Route 33 from Marysville into Athens County, eventually led to federal charges against 32 people.

Twenty-six others charged in connection with the investigation have pleaded guilty and received sentences ranging from probation to 144 months imprisonment. Two of the original defendants are deceased.

Stewart commended the cooperative investigation by DEA agents, Union County Sheriff's and Columbus Police detectives, and ATF agents, along with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Don Pashayan and Salvador A. Dominguez, who prosecuted the case.

Other agencies participating in the task force include the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray's Office, the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Fairfield Hocking Major Crimes Unit, and the police departments in Westerville and Upper Arlington. The Ohio National Guard provided intelligence analysis in the investigation. The Athens County Sheriff's Office and the Athens Police Department assisted with the arrests.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/01/010610-col-heroin-trafficking-ring-ldr-sentenced.html

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ATF Publishes 2009 List of Explosive Materials Subject to Law

WASHINGTON — The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) published a notice in the Federal Register today containing the list of 237 explosive materials that are subject to federal law and implementing regulations.

This list covers not only explosives, but also blasting agents and detonators, all of which are defined as explosive materials in the United States Code chapter regulating the importation, manufacture, distribution, receipt, and storage of explosive materials. The Department of Justice must publish and revise the explosives list annually, pursuant to 18 U.S.C. 841.

The 2009 list does not contain any new terms. However, ammonium perchlorate composite propellant ( APCP ) has been removed. As a result of a court decision in March 2009, APCP is no longer regulated under federal explosive laws.

The list is comprehensive, but is not all-inclusive. Therefore, an explosive material may not be on the list but may still be within the coverage of the law if it meets the statutory definitions. Some of the explosive materials on the list include: dynamite, black powder, pellet powder, safety fuses, squibs, detonating cord, display fireworks, igniter cord, and igniters.

ATF has jurisdiction for the enforcement in Title 18 U.S. Code, Chapter 40, as amended by the Safe Explosives Act in 2002. As such, ATF is the federal agency primarily responsible for administrating and enforcing the regulatory and criminal provisions of federal laws pertaining to destructive devices (e.g., bombs) and explosives.

ATF has the experience and ability to detect, prevent, protect against, and respond to explosives incidents resulting from improvised explosive devices ( IED s). Since 1978, ATF has investigated more than 25,000 bombings and attempted bombings, more than 1,000 accidental explosions, and more than 22,000 incidents involving recovered explosives or explosive devices. The majority of these bombings involved the use of IED s. ATF is the primary source of explosives investigative and training support throughout the world.

The 2009 List of Explosive Materials can be viewed at http://www.atf.gov/regulations-rulings/rulemakings/general-notices.html .

More information about ATF and its programs is available at www.atf.gov .

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/01/010810-atf-publishes-list-of-explosives.html

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