New this week in the Journal of Homeland Security In “100% Container Inspection Is Not Necessary and Would Halt World Trade,” Scott Dedic, Chairman of the International Cargo Security Council, says that 100% cargo container inspections would break the back of global commerce. The council says that government initiatives since 9/11 have addressed the vulnerabilities in transporting containerized cargo to better target and inspect suspect containers before they are loaded onto ships.

International News

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Al-Qaeda in Pakistan Has Inexperienced Leaders, Murky Goals (Christian Science Monitor) “Al Qaeda’s top levels are now filled with inexperienced commanders, and its new camps can train only a fraction of the recruits the pre-2001 infrastructure in Afghanistan could handle,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “Al Qaeda’s goals also remain murky. It is not clear whether the organization has a specific plan to strike within the United States or whether it considers Europe, or Iraq, more important in its war to impose its vision of Islam on the Middle East. ‘We have no evidence that they have a coherent strategy’ to attack US targets, says Martin Libicki, lead author of a recently published RAND Corp. study on the subject.… Al Qaeda still tops the list of single threats.” And the terror group “would still like to inflict mass casualties upon the US, and it continues to seek weapons of mass destruction … Still, Al Qaeda remains a loose network of like-minded individuals, instead of a tightly controlled terrorist hierarchy.” [View article]

Petraeus Says the Iraq Security Plan Can Work (DefenseLink; CNN) “A new strategy that puts U.S. and Iraqi forces inside Baghdad neighborhoods to safeguard residents against insurgent and sectarian violence can work, but it’ll take time to be fully implemented … said Army Gen. David H. Petraeus,” Multinational Force Iraq commander, yesterday, reports American Forces Press Service. “About 40 joint Iraqi-U.S. security posts have been established across Baghdad as part of the three-week-old Operation Law and Order, Petraeus said.… However, the operation ‘will take months, not days or weeks, to fully implement,’ Petraeus cautioned.” He also “warned that military force alone will not be enough to quell the country’s violent insurgency,” reports CNN. [View DefenseLink article] [View CNN article]

Marriages Between Sects Come Under Siege in Iraq (Washington Post) “As U.S. and Iraqi forces attempt to pacify the capital, mixed couples who symbolize Iraq’s once famous tolerance are increasingly entangled by hate,” reports the Washington Post. “Forced by militias or insurgents to leave their homes because one partner is from the wrong sect, they find few havens because of the other partner’s affiliation. These strains, fueled by displacement, separation and fear, are beginning to tear apart such families, weakening bonds that for many Iraqis hold the hope of sectarian reconciliation.… nearly a third of Iraqi marriages are unions between members of different sectarian or ethnic communities.” [View article]

Congo Arrests Atomic Research Chief (Reuters AlertNet) “Democratic Republic of Congo’s top nuclear research official”—Professor Fortunat Lumu, Commissioner General for Atomic Energy—“has been arrested, the government said on Wednesday, after a Kinshasa newspaper [Le Phare] reported” that “around 100 bars of uranium” were “missing from an atomic institute in the city,” according to Reuters. [View article]

Germans Relive Red Army Faction’s Season of Terror (Washington Post) “Germany is suddenly reliving the events of 1977 … thanks to a court decision to parole one of the terrorist masterminds” of “a leftist guerrilla group known as the Red Army Faction,” reports the Washington Post. One of the terrorists, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, 57, is to be released “later this month. Another Red Army Faction leader, Christian Klar, 54, is also seeking an early release from prison that could occur in the next two years. Both were convicted of” murdering “Juergen Ponto, chief executive of Dresdner Bank and confidant to West Germany’s chancellor.” They also “have been accused of a long list of other bombings and crimes in the 1970s and 1980s. After serving more than two decades in prison, however, neither has apologized or shown any remorse for their ideological fanaticism.… The Red Army Faction was founded in 1970, an offshoot of a vigorous leftist student movement that had taken root across West Germany. Initially known for low-casualty bombings of police and military facilities, the group became progressively more violent in the late 1970s, targeting for assassination industrialists, prosecutors and other agents of what it termed ‘the capitalist state.’” The group, “accused of killing at least 30 people, disbanded in 1998.” [View article]

Pentagon Charges Australian With War Crime (Los Angeles Times) “The Pentagon filed a war crimes charge against Australian David Hicks on [March 1], making the former kangaroo skinner the first target of new military commissions designed by the White House and endorsed by Congress to try terrorism suspects imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “The indictment charges Hicks with a single count of providing material support for terrorism, dropping an accusation of attempted murder.” [View article]

In Britain, 1,100 Terror Arrests Have Led to 40 Convictions (USA Today) “More than 1,100 people in Britain have been arrested as terror suspects since the Sept. 11 attacks, but [fewer] than half have been charged with any crime and only 40 have been convicted of terrorism,” reports the Associated Press. (See the Stats of the Week.) [View article]

U.S. and European Union Will Strengthen Security Cooperation European Union Commissioner László Kovács, responsible for Taxation and Customs, on Monday met his U.S. counterpart, Michael Chertoff, Secretary of Homeland Security, and agreed to continue strengthening cooperation, tackle growing security concerns, and explore ways to facilitate trade between the European Union and the United States—over 40% of world trade. [View press release]

How Should Africa React to the ‘War on Terror’? (Johannesburg, South Africa, Mail and Guardian) “Faced with the return of warlords and anarchy, African states are indeed anxious to contain the damage, if possible,” writes Virginia Tilley, chief research specialist at the Human Sciences Research Council, in the Mail and Guardian. “But in the ‘war on terror’, each security crisis inevitably breeds another and [African Union] interventions must expand accordingly. And Africom will be there to help the US steer their direction. Renewed crisis in Somalia and the coming showdown with Iran suggest that the Bush administration’s agenda offers little but mounting expense and new dangers for African security. The urgent question for South Africa is not how to join that war, but how to help protect Africa from it.” [View commentary]

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National News

Real ID Act Implementation Delayed Till 2009 (Los Angeles Times) “Under siege from states and angry lawmakers, the White House on [March 1] moved back a deadline to implement national driver’s license standards that critics say would seriously undermine personal privacy and burden states with a hefty bill,” reports the Los Angeles Times. (See last week’s newsletter.) States “have an extra 20 months, until the end of 2009, to meet the requirements of the Real ID Act.” On March 1, the Homeland Security Department issued 162 pages of minimum standards for compliance with the Real ID Act. [View article] [View DHS announcement] [View DHS standards]

Former Navy Sailor Arrested for Supporting Terrorism (CNN) A former U.S. Navy sailor, Hassan Abujihaad, formerly known as Paul R. Hall, “was arrested Wednesday in Phoenix, Arizona, on charges of espionage and providing material support to terrorists,” reports CNN. “… He is alleged to have provided classified information to a London-based group called Azzam Publications about a U.S. Navy battle group as it traveled from California to the Persian Gulf region in 2001.… At the time, Abujihaad was an enlistee in the Navy on active duty in the Middle East, stationed aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Benfold, one of the ships in the battle group … In one e-mail exchange, authorities allege, Abujihaad ‘… praised the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.’” [View article]

Baggage Handlers Carried Drugs and Guns on Flight to Puerto Rico (Chicago Tribune) “Two baggage handlers carried a bag containing guns and drugs on a commercial flight from Florida to Puerto Rico [on Monday], but passengers were in no danger, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman said,” according to the Associated Press. “The baggage handlers used their employee uniforms and airport identification cards to enter restricted areas, bypass screeners with the bag and board the commercial Delta flight … Security screeners questioned Zabdiel J. Santiago Balaguer when he was taken off the plane Monday, but court documents said he was released when no weapons or drugs were found on him. Thomas Anthony Munoz, 22, was arrested in San Juan when he got off the plane at the Luis Munoz Marin International Airport. Inside the duffel bag he was carrying, authorities found 13 handguns, one assault rifle and eight clear bags containing a total of 8 pounds of marijuana.” [View article]

Press Barred From Terrorism Tribunals (CBS News) “Reporters will be barred from hearings that begin [today] in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for 14 terror suspects transferred last year from secret CIA prisons,” reports the Associated Press. “… Interest in the 14 is particularly high because of their alleged links to the al Qaeda network. Among them is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.… No word of the hearings will be made public until the government releases a transcript of the proceedings, edited to remove material deemed potentially damaging to national security.” [View article]

Massachusetts Immigration Raids Snarl Child Care (MSNBC) “Dozens of young children” in New Bedford “were stranded at schools and with baby-sitters after their parents were rounded up by federal authorities who raided a leather goods maker suspected of hiring illegal immigrants,” reports MSNBC. “… About two-thirds of the 500 employees of Michael Bianco Inc., mostly women, were arrested Tuesday by immigration officials for possible deportation as illegal aliens. As a result, about 100 children were stuck with baby sitters, caretakers and others.… The state Department of Social Services … [made] sure the children [received] proper care.” And “eight pregnant women were released and women who were sole caregivers of children would also be released.” [View article]

Terrorists Find Fertile Environment in Cyberspace (Government Computer News) “Finding proof that terrorists plan to launch cyberattacks against the United States is difficult, but the accessibility and vulnerability of the Internet to attack makes it a growing threat,” says Terrorist Capabilities for Cyberattack: Overview and Policy Issues, a January report by the Congressional Research Service, according to Government Computer News. “Terrorists are using the Internet today to recruit new members, the report states. While it is highly likely that terrorist organizations are using cybercrime to finance their activities, the threat is expanding beyond credit card fraud and identity theft.… The CRS report outlines the fragmented nature of the federal response to potential cyberattacks, pointing to responsibilities dispersed among the Homeland Security and Defense departments, the FBI and the intelligence community.” [View article] [View report]

‘Fortress America’: How the U.S. Is Reshaping Its Southern Border (Denver Post) The U.S. government’s plan to stem the tide of illegal immigrants “will lead to the biggest border prison boom in decades, create the federal government’s largest enforcement arm, and literally remake the landscape of the country’s 2,000-mile southern border,” according to a four-part report in the Denver Post.

[View multimedia overview]

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DHS News

DHS Tests ‘ADVISE’ (Washington Times) “Homeland Security officials are testing a supersnoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations,” reports the Washington Times. “The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations.” The Government Accountability Office is investigating “the project called ADVISE—Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement.” [View article]

FEMA Has Thousands of Unused Mobile Homes (Washington Post) “The Federal Emergency Management Agency hurriedly bought 145,000 trailers and mobile homes just before and after Katrina hit, spending $2.7 billion largely through no-bid contracts,” reports the Washington Post. “Now, it is selling off as many as 41,000 of the homes, netting, so far, about 40 cents on each dollar spent by taxpayers. Thousands more of the homes—critics say more than 8,000—have never been used and cannot be sold immediately, even though scores of people in the South have been made homeless by recent storms.… FEMA cannot sell unused mobile homes directly to the public because of legislation passed by Congress in October.” [View article]

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Other Federal News

Islamic American Relief Agency and Five Persons Indicted The Islamic American Relief Agency (the U.S. branch of an international Islamic charity) and five of its officers, employees or associates have been indicted for illegally transferring funds to Iraq, laundering money, stealing federal funds, and obstructing tax laws by, among other things, falsely denying that a procurement agent of Osama bin Laden had been an employee of the charity. The Islamic American Relief Agency, formerly known as the Islamic African Relief Agency–USA, was headquartered in Columbia, MO, and closed in 2004, when the U.S. Treasury Department designated it a global terrorist organization. [View press release]

Better Planning Needed for Housing Victims of Catastrophes The National Response Plan clearly describes “the overall responsibilities of the two primary agencies—the Red Cross and the Federal Emergency Management Agency”—in sheltering victims of disaster, notes the Government Accountability Office. However, the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs also assisted in providing housing, but FEMA “was not aware of [their] full capabilities.” Furthermore, “temporary housing needs include not just shelter, but also access to medical facilities, public transportation, schools, employment opportunities, and other social services.” [View abstract]

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State and Local News

New Orleans Seeks $77 Billion From Army Corps of Engineers (New Orleans Times-Picayune) “Submitting a claim for a staggering $77 billion, the city of New Orleans joined tens of thousands of would-be plaintiffs who rushed to beat a [March 1] deadline to alert the Army Corps of Engineers that they may sue for losses resulting from the levee breaches after Hurricane Katrina,” reports the Times-Picayune. “Also joining the queue were Entergy New Orleans, the city’s bankrupt electrical utility, which is seeking $655 million, and the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board, which put in a claim of about $460 million … Until recently, the idea of suing the Army Corps of Engineers was dismissed by most lawyers,” who “pointed to a 1928 federal law immunizing the corps from lawsuits stemming from its flood-control projects. But early last month, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the corps has no such protection when it comes to lawsuits over problems caused by its navigation projects.” [View article]

Anti-Smuggling Exercise Off Florida Nets Illegal Immigrants (Naples [FL] News) “Federal and local law enforcement agencies began a two-day simulation Thursday to prepare for a mass migration such as might occur from Cuba, but the exercise coincided with a real mission to pick up more than 40 migrants,” reports the Associated Press. [View article]

New Haven, Connecticut, Welcomes Immigrants, Legal or Not (New York Times) New Haven “is marching steadily toward becoming a safe haven for immigrants,” reports the New York Times. The city’s “Police Department has adopted a sort of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding citizenship status. City Hall is sponsoring workshops to help illegal immigrants file federal income taxes. And this summer, New Haven plans to allow illegal immigrants to apply for municipal identification cards, in what immigration advocates describe as the first program of its type in the nation.… New Haven’s welcoming policies have, in many ways, trickled down from larger cities like New York, Los Angeles and Houston, but stand in sharp contrast to the expanding crackdown on immigrants announced last week in Suffolk County [NY] on Long Island.… At the same time, immigrant groups in New Jersey are working with Hackensack, Paterson and other places to pass resolutions prohibiting the police or other city officials from questioning residents about their immigration status, joining Newark and Trenton in becoming so-called sanctuary cities.” [View article]

Shadow Wolves Track Smugglers in Arizona (New York Times) “The Shadow Wolves, a federal law enforcement unit of Indian officers” in the Tohono O’odham Nation straddling the U.S.-Mexican border, “has operated since the early 1970s,” reports the New York Times. Their “tracking skills are in such demand that the Departments of State and Defense have arranged for the Shadow Wolves to train border guards in other countries … the 15-member Shadow Wolves unit, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is recruiting members to reach the congressionally authorized complement of 21. And the immigration agency is considering forming a sister unit to patrol part of the Canadian border at the Blackfeet reservation in Montana, where concern about drug trafficking is growing.” [View article]

New York Plot Shows Danger of Copycats (Newsweek) “The alleged plot to behead New York’s police commissioner and bomb” New York Police Department “headquarters, however implausible, suggests the dangers of copycat terrorism,” reports Newsweek. “… The alleged plot never got past the talking stage, and probably never would have.” But it suggests “the way publicity about terrorist tactics and methodology can creep into the more conventional criminal culture of the United States.” [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. New education listings are posted for four weeks.

Medical Corps Combat Medicine Class (April 20-22; Caldwell, OH) An intensive classroom and field training program taught by doctors, nurses, and Navy combat corpsmen. The class teaches how to disinfect serious wounds in the field, how to suture wounds under mass-casualty field conditions, how to set broken bones, how to perform minor emergency surgery, mass-casualty triage techniques, shock and trauma management, and how to protect yourself from nuclear, biological, and chemical agents. [View conference website]

Upcoming Events

New Events (After four weeks, new events will be moved to the list below, in chronological order) Mirror Image (April 22-27; Moyock, NC) Mirror Image is an intensive 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] (March 27-29; Singapore) This is an opportunity for companies and research institutions to showcase their latest equipment and systems that have been specifically designed and developed to meet the needs of counter-terrorism, special forces, and government security agencies worldwide, and it is an intellectual platform for the world’s experts in security, intelligence, and defense. [View conference website] DHS Science and Technology Stakeholders Conference (May 21-24; Washington, DC) The Homeland Security Department’s Science & Technology Directorate will be the key participant in this conference, presented by the National Defense Industrial Association to inform the private sector, academia, and government at all levels of the direction, emphasis, and scope of the directorate’s research investments. [View conference website] U.S. Disaster Preparedness Conference (Aug. 21-22; New Orleans) Presentations and interactive panel discussions with the nation’s top experts combined with classroom-style training will arm participants with disaster planning and response best practices. Tradeshow exhibits and evening networking events will provide a chance to interact with the people and technologies making a difference in national preparedness. Recent changes in the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the National Response Plan, and the National Incident Management System will be detailed. [View conference website] The Emergency Management and Homeland Security Expo of the International Association of Emergency Managers provides a forum for current trends and topics, along with the latest tools and technology in emergency management and homeland security. Sessions encourage stakeholders at all levels of government, the private sector, public health, and related professions to exchange ideas on collaborating to protect lives and property from disaster. [View conference website]

March 15-16; Washington, DC: University Network Summit on Research and Education

March 28-29; Arlington, VA: 6th Annual Infrastructure Security Partnership Congress

March 29–April 5; San Diego: SANS 2007

April 11-12; San Pedro, CA: Sayres Response 2 Terrorism

June 2-4; Emmitsburg, MD: Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education Conference

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

June 10-13; Alexandria, VA: 2007 National Conference on Community Preparedness

September 27-30; Madrid, Spain: Interdisciplinary Analyses of Aggression & Terrorism

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New Calls for Papers Society for Risk Analysis (Dec. 9-12; San Antonio) The Society’s 2007 annual meeting will focus on the theme “Risk 007: Agents of Analysis.” The deadline for online submission of abstracts and proposals for symposia is May 21. [View conference website]

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