Terror Trends BulletinThe US State Department has issued a worldwide travel alert ahead of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and warned Americans living and travelling abroad to remain vigilant.
The Department has not identified any specific threats, but warned that Al Qaeda had ‘demonstrated the intent and capability to carry out attacks’ against the US and US interests.
Rachel Alexander reports on TownHall.com that the famine in Somalia has killed tens of thousands of innocent children because the Jihadist terrorist organization Al-Shabab refuses to allow aid to get through to the victims.
Genocide and Jihad are long-time companions. We have seen it in Sudan and Armenia and now it is apparent in Somalia.
Read more at TownHall…
Over the years there have been persistent reports of Western telecom technology originated from firms such as Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia finding their way into the hands of Iran and Hezbollah.
It is almost a given that Western technology has found its way into the hands of the Iranians since Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia (among others) have seen fit to do massive amounts of business in and with Iran, the world’s most active state sponsor of Jihadist terrorism.
That Hezbollah would get their hands on this same technology is not a far reach either, given that Iran is Hezbollah’s primary sponsor. In fact, some experts claim that Hezbollah is in fact an arm of the Pasdaran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
The latest reports from Lebanon, Hezbollah’s home turf, have the Jihadist terrorist organization establishing and running its own autonomous telecom system there…
Three years go I was fortunate enough to spend some time with a couple of police officers from the New York Police Department who were part of that department’s counterterrorism apparatus. The things I learned about the NYPD left me extremely impressed. A few of the things I learned:
• The NYPD has officers attached to police departments in major cities around the world to both observe their foreign counterparts’ counterterror efforts and to ensure sharing of intelligence directly between police departments, without the information being delayed and filtered by national intelligence agencies.
• The NYPD has more personnel than the entire FBI.
• The NYPD has a linguistic capability exceeding that of any other US police department and probably exceeding the linguistic capabilities of the FBI. Here is an example of how important this capability is:
Several years ago, members of the security detail of Iran’s UN mission were observed by NYPD uniformed patrolmen videotaping and photographing New York City landmarks, as well as rail and subway facilities. The New York cops detained the Iranians, who, of course, claimed not to speak English (no doubt a lie). This was not a problem for the NYPD. Within an hour, a NYPD officer fluent in Farsi was on the scene to question the detainees (who, unfortunately, were diplomatically immune).
Also a few years ago, the NYPD counterterrorism unit published a report on Islamic “radicalization” in the West called Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat. (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/NYPD_Report-Radicalization_in_the_West.pdf)
That report was good enough for Muslim Brotherhood front groups to demand that it be redacted in its entirety, a sure sign that it hit too close to home.
One man who has seen the effectiveness of NYPD’s counterterrorism unit is former Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthy, who now writes for National Review. McCarthy convicted Omar Abdel Rahman, better known as the “Blind Sheikh,” for his leading role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
In the article linked below, he details how the NYPD did much of the work–overcoming federal incompetence and politics–to lay the groundwork for the Blind Sheikh to be sent to jail…
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/276181/how-nypd-gets-jihad-right-andrew-c-mccarthy?page=1
Unfortunately, more and more evidence indicates that at least some of the Libyan rebels, including some real important ones, are Jihadists. Some have ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Take Abdul Hakeem Belhaj. He’s one of the rebel leaders and he got to where he is today by first joining the LIFG (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group). He fought in Afghanistan and left in a hurry when US forces toppled the Taliban regime. He ended up in Malaysia, where he was arrested and eventually shipped back to Libya where he was put in prison. He was either freed or escaped during the course of the uprising and now he is a rebel leader.
This doesn’t give us a good feeling at all, especially given the fact that Libya has stocks of uranium yellowcake and chemical agents.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/09/02/libya.belhaj.profile/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/africa/02islamist.html?_r=1
Terror Trends Bulletin 