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National News

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Entrenched Muslim Grievances Fuel Jihad Movement, Says Natl. Intelligence Estimate (Washington Post) “The Bush administration [on Tuesday] released portions of a classified intelligence estimate that says the global jihadist movement is growing and being fueled by the war in Iraq even as it becomes more decentralized, making it harder to identify potential terrorists and prevent attacks,” reports the Washington Post. “The war in Iraq has become a ‘cause celebre’ for jihadists, breeding resentment of U.S. involvement in the Muslim world and drawing new adherents to the movement, the assessment says. The growth in the number of potential terrorists is also being fed by corruption, slow-moving political reform in many Muslim countries and ‘pervasive’ anti-American sentiment, according to the report.… information from the document was leaked to media outlets over the weekend. Articles based on those leaks said the report blames the war in Iraq for worsening the global terrorist threat—an interpretation that the administration calls a distortion of its contents.” What the report “doesn’t say—can’t say—is that before and beyond Iraq, a movement grew because of fundamental U.S. policies,” according to the Post’s William Arkin in his weblog on national and homeland security. “… the jihadist movement grew out of a complex and convoluted anti-western, dare we say anti-Christian and anti-Jewish, narrative that began with the defeat of Soviet empire in Afghanistan and now promises the defeat of America, Israel, and the west.” [View article] [View key judgments] [View Arkin blog]

Defense Dept. Team Didn’t ID 9/11 Terrorists Beforehand (New York Times) “The Defense Department’s inspector general on [September 21] dismissed claims by military officers and others who had insisted that a secret Pentagon program identified Mohamed Atta and other terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks before the attacks occurred,” reports the New York Times. “… The claim that a secret Pentagon data-mining program had known of Mr. Atta and other hijackers before Sept. 11 created a stir when the witnesses’ accounts became public last year.” [View article]

U.S. Spy Agencies Struggle to Infiltrate Terrorist Groups (Washington Times) “The FBI, the CIA and other intelligence agencies continue to struggle to plant agents in, or recruit them from, deadly Islamist terror organizations here and abroad,” reports the Washington Times in an excerpt from the book Enemies by Times reporter Bill Gertz. “The FBI, for example, did not have under way a single active investigation this past spring of al Qaeda or any Islamist group anywhere in the United States. Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network is not alone in posing a threat of new attacks. The FBI believes that Lebanon-based Hezbollah has set up terrorist cells in at least 10 U.S. cities.” [View article]

FBI Casts a Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks (Washington Post) “Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in a frustratingly slow investigation,” reports the Washington Post. “The finding, which resulted from countless scientific tests at numerous laboratories, appears to undermine the widely held belief that the attack was carried out by a government scientist or someone with access to a U.S. biodefense lab.” [View article]

Much of the Southern Border Is Unsuitable for Fencing (Tucson Arizona Daily Star) “Without major changes … much of the U.S.-Mexican border cannot be fenced,” reports the Daily Star. The boundary “crosses miles of rugged canyons and more than a dozen mountain ranges” and the territory includes rivers and canals. (See the Stats of the Week.) [View article]

Border Fences Have Ecological Plusses and Minuses (Tucson Arizona Daily Star) Construction of fences and roads along the border can unbalance the environment by causing erosion and disrupting the movement of animals, but it can also protect a lot of habitat, reports the Daily Star, “Illegal entrants have left behind hundreds of thousands of pounds of [trash], from clothes and old food cans to feces, graffiti and old cars.” [View article]

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International News

U.S. and Canada Relax Ban on Liquids and Gels Aboard Airliners (Canadian TV Network) “Canada and the United States are partially easing some of the restrictions against carrying liquids and gels onto airliners,” reports the Canadian Television Network. “… Travellers are expected to supply their own plastic bags.… In addition, passengers are banned from carrying onboard unsealed, open or opaque plastic bags of any size. They are also restricted from carrying liquids, gel or aerosols in containers larger than 90 ml or 3 ounces.” [View article] [View new TSA rules]

Armed Vessels on Great Lakes Anger Canadians (Toronto Globe and Mail) U.S. Coast Guard boats armed with machine guns are patrolling the Great Lakes, and the Coast Guard has been training with live ammunition, drawing objections from both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, reports the Globe and Mail. “‘This is very much the wrong direction, to militarize the border between these two countries,’ [Toronto Mayor David Miller] said.… Until this year, U.S. Coast Guard vessels carried only handguns and small-calibre rifles.” [View article]

Israeli ID Card Policies Leave Some in Limbo (Jerusalem Haaretz) “The Interior Ministry considers applications only from those with some kind of an I.D.,” reports Haaretz. “A person without legal status cannot identify himself.… How can you escape the paradox? Usually you cannot.” [View article]

Indian Court Convicts Two More in 1993 Mumbai Bombings (Yahoo! News) “An Indian court has convicted two more Muslim men of involvement in a two-hour bombing blitz on the country’s economic heartland 13 years ago that killed 257 people,” reports Agence France-Presse. (See the Sept. 15 newsletter.) “Mohammed Iqbal Yusuf Shaikh was Monday found guilty of murder, conspiracy and planting explosives at a hangar at Mumbai’s international airport prior to the blasts on March 12, 1993. He was also found guilty of planting explosives on a scooter at a suburban crossroad. Another accused, Nasim Ahmed Barmare, was convicted of conspiracy in the blasts for travelling to Pakistan for terrorism-linked training.” [View article]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Key 9/11 Planner, Linked to 2005 London Bombings (Yahoo! News) “The chief architect of the September 11 attacks was also linked to last year’s suicide blasts on the London transport network, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says in his memoirs,” according to Agence France-Presse. “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003, confessed that Al-Qaeda sized up London’s subway for an attack at the same time as it hatched a plan to crash jets into Heathrow, Musharraf says in ‘In the Line of Fire.’ … Mohammed, the self-proclaimed key conspirator behind the September 11 attacks on the United States, has previously been linked to the foiled Heathrow plot but not to the subway attacks.” [View article]

Al-Qaeda and Taliban Operating Freely in Afghanistan (MSNBC) “Ridge by ridge and valley by valley, the religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11—and who suffered devastating losses in the U.S. invasion that began five years ago next week--are surging back into the country’s center,” reports Newsweek. “In the countryside over the past year Taliban guerrillas have filled a power vacuum that had been created by the relatively light NATO and U.S. military footprint of some 40,000 soldiers, and by the weakness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration.… a new failed-state sanctuary is emerging across thousands of square miles along the Afghan-Pakistan border.” [View article]

Saudis Plan Long Fence for Iraq Border (Yahoo! News) “Saudi Arabia is pushing ahead with plans to build a fence to block terrorists from crossing its 560-mile border with Iraq,” reports the Associated Press. “… The barrier, which hasn’t been started, is part of a $12 billion package of measures including electronic sensors, security bases and physical barriers to protect the oil-rich kingdom from external threats.” [View article]

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State and Local News

States Say They Can’t Afford Real ID Act Compliance (Stateline) “States cannot possibly meet a May 2008 federal deadline for making driver’s licenses more secure—or afford costs that could mount to more than $11 billion over five years, according to a survey of state motor vehicle administrators,” reports Stateline. “… new federal standards … will require them to verify and reissue an estimated 245 million driver’s licenses and identification cards.” [View article]

States and Counties Begin Enforcing Immigration Law (Washington Post) Mecklenburg County and Charlotte, NC, are taking “one of the most aggressive stances in the United States toward illegal immigrants,” reports the Washington Post. Since April, “the Mecklenburg County sheriff’s office” has been “placing more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, others with traffic infractions.” Proponents of the plan “see it as a way to catch illegal immigrants who slip through porous federal enforcement measures and then run afoul of state or local police.… Besides Mecklenburg, six other state and local law enforcement agencies have started similar programs in recent years. A dozen more are being worked out with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And in the past three months, hundreds of state and local departments have inquired about similar efforts, said Robert J. Hines, who heads the program for the ICE.” [View article]

Nebraska Judge Orders Egyptian Students’ Deportation (Yahoo! News) “Three Egyptian college students who sparked a nationwide search when they failed to show up for a college exchange program last month [see the August 18 newsletter] were ordered deported Monday,” reports the Associated Press. “The students—Mohamed Ibrahim El Sayed El Moghazy, 20; Ahmed Refaat Saad El Moghazi El Laket, 19; and Moustafa Wagdy Moustafa El Gafary, 18—had admitted they violated immigration laws and asked Judge James Fujimoto to allow them to return home voluntarily.” [View article]

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DHS News

DHS Awards Critical Infrastructure Protection Grants for 2006 This week the Homeland Security Department awarded Infrastructure Protection Program grants for fiscal year 2006 (which ends tomorrow). The grants go to ports, mass transit, and intercity bus systems to strengthen the nation’s ability to prevent, protect against, respond to, and recover from terrorist attacks, major disasters, and other emergencies. [View press release] [View program summary]

DHS Needs More Jail Space (Government Executive) “The Homeland Security Department soon may need to either buy additional space in existing jails to detain apprehended illegal immigrants or implement a $385 million contingency contract to build more detention centers,” reports Government Executive. “Unless lawmakers revoke a provision that prevents the deportation of Salvadorans, a contingency contract already agreed upon with Halliburton subsidiary KBR may be put into effect to offset the amount of space being taken up by arrested Salvadorans … DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff told lawmakers in written testimony for a House Homeland Security Committee hearing Tuesday that Salvadorans’ ‘presence puts a strain on our detention facilities at a tremendous cost.’” [View article] [View testimony]

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Other Federal News

GAO Recommends Stronger Efforts to Combat Nuclear Terrorism The Energy Department has “highly trained teams that minimize the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack and the only helicopters and planes that help manage and minimize the consequences of a nuclear or radiological attack and … can readily help locate nuclear or radiological devices and measure contamination levels after a radiological attack,” according to a Government Accountability Office report to the Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations (Committee on Government Reform). “Since these capabilities and assets have not been fully dispersed, current physical security measures may not be sufficient to protect the” department’s Remote Sensing Laboratories “against a terrorist attack.” [View abstract]

Intl. Efforts Help Stem the Spread of Nuclear Materials and Technology Despite the challenges it faces, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards system has been a cornerstone of U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation since the Non-Proliferation Treaty was adopted in 1970, according to Gene Aloise, Director of Natural Resources and Environment at the Government Accountability Office. Aloise testified Tuesday before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations (Committee on Government Reform). U.S. nonproliferation programs have helped former Soviet countries to secure nuclear material and warheads, detect illicitly trafficked nuclear material, and eliminate excess stockpiles of weapons-usable nuclear material, stated Aloise. [View abstract]

Terrorism Is Too Unpredictable for Assessing Insurance Risks The difficulty of pricing and providing insurance coverage for risks from terrorist use of nuclear, biological, chemical, or radiological risks makes any purely market-driven expansion of coverage highly unlikely, according to a Government Accountability Office report to the Chairman of U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services. [View abstract]

October Is National Cyber-Security Month Learn more about how you and your organization can secure your part of cyber-space at the website of the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team. [View CERT website] [View Focus on CERT]

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Dual-Benefit Solutions

Report Calls for Common Emergency Communications (Government Executive) “Public-safety officials at all levels of government must embrace innovative solutions for emergency communications systems capable of functioning across jurisdictions, according to” an Aspen Institute report issued Tuesday, notes National Journal’s Technology Daily. The report “found that the American safety community needs to abandon specialized systems and equipment, and adopt new strategies that take advantage of solutions already being implemented by the private sector and the military.… David Aylward, director of the Comcare Alliance, a nonprofit aimed at improving emergency response, said … ‘There is not one state in the union where the governor is doing what this report calls for.’” [View article] [View report]

Dual-benefit news archive

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Private-Sector News

Sealed Border Would Squeeze Business (Tucson Arizona Daily Star) “The nation’s pursuit of a sealed border would cost taxpayers and businesses tens of billions of dollars,” reports the Daily Star. “It would require new fencing, technology and additional agents, and would mean lost revenue for border businesses. Border cities such as San Diego and El Paso and Laredo, Texas, already have lost millions since officers began more rigid checks after Sept. 11.” [View article]

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Education

The Homeland Security Institute lists these education programs as a service to readers who may be interested; it does not endorse them or their courses.

Terrorism: Threats, Training, Tactics and Technology (October 23-25, Tacoma, WA) Nationally renowned experts will discuss terrorism, emerging threats, training, tactics, and technology issues. Participants will have the opportunity to explore some of the challenges and gain a comprehensive understanding of issues related to terrorism. [View conference website] Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties (October 29–November 3; Aberdeen and Fort Detrick, MD) The course is conducted jointly by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases; it is designed for physicians, nurses, and other medical professionals. Classroom, laboratory, and field instruction focuses on pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment of chemical and biological casualties. [View conference website] Mirror Image (November 12-17; Moyock, NC) Mirror Image is an intensive, one-week classroom and field training program, designed to realistically simulate terrorist recruiting, training techniques, and operational tactics. Participants will receive insight into the mindset and rationale of the terrorist through hands-on experience with the methods and means they use, plus education about the ideologies that motivate them and cultural dimensions that influence their decision making. [View course website] Aircrew Member Self-Defense Training (Summer and fall; various locations) This program, provided by the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Air Marshals, is available to any actively employed flight or cabin crew member. In the first part of the program, the crew member receives and reviews a self-paced, interactive DVD and student manual with basic self-defense concepts and techniques. After a review and a short written assessment, the crew member attends one day of hands-on training at a participating community college. [View conference website] Hospital Management of Chemical, Biological, Radiological/Nuclear and Explosive Incidents (January 8-12, 2007; Aberdeen, MD) The course, hosted by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense and the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute, instructs civilian healthcare professionals in planning for and managing multicasualty incidents resulting from such terrorist attacks. [View conference website] Associate’s Degree in Homeland Security (East Hartford, CT) Goodwin College’s associate program in homeland security combines classroom instruction with hands-on experience to prepare students for new or continuing careers in law enforcement, fire service, private security, computer security, and public safety organizations. For more information, call (800) 889-3282. [View website]

Upcoming Events

October 1-9; Las Vegas: SANS Network Security 2006

October 2-5; Colorado Springs, CO: Homeland Defense Symposium

October 25-27; New York: Environmental Sampling and Detection for Bio-Threat Agents

October 26; London: Global Security Challenge

November 21-23, Helsinki, Finland: Information Society Technologies 2006

December 3-6; Baltimore: Society for Risk Analysis

February 6-7; Washington, DC: Homeland Security: The Ripple Effect

June 5-8, 2007; Trogir, Croatia: The 14th TIEMS (International Emergency Management Society) International Conference

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