National News

CIA Reveals More on Waterboarding (MSNBC; International Herald Tribune; Los Angeles Times; Yahoo! News; USA Today) CIA director Michael Hayden on Tuesday “gave the most extensive public accounting yet of the use of coercive interrogation methods, including waterboarding, and strongly urged Congress not to limit the range of methods available to U.S. intelligence agencies,” reports NBC News. “… Hayden told a Senate hearing that fewer than 100 people have been held by the CIA in its terrorist detention program. And of those, fewer than one-third were subjected to enhanced interrogation methods, he said.… As for the controversial practice of waterboarding, Hayden told the senators it was used on only three people more than five years ago. For the first time, he named them in public—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, all accused of being al-Qaida leaders.” But Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, “blasted the White House for defending the use of waterboarding … and urged the U.S. government to give up its defense of ‘unjustifiable’ interrogation methods,” reports the Associated Press. “The White House said Wednesday that … waterboarding is legal and that President Bush could authorize the CIA to resume using” it, reports the Los Angeles Times. However, “CIA Director Michael Hayden … told the House Intelligence Committee [yesterday] that he officially prohibited CIA operatives from using waterboarding in 2006 in the wake of a Supreme Court decision and new laws on the treatment of U.S. detainees,” reports the Associated Press. “Attorney General Michael Mukasey said [yesterday] that he will not open a criminal investigation into the CIA’s use of … waterboarding,” reports USA Today. And “at the time that the Central Intelligence Agency destroyed videotapes of the interrogations of operatives of Al Qaeda, a U.S. judge was still seeking information from Bush administration lawyers about the interrogation of one of those operatives, Abu Zubaydah,” reports the International Herald Tribune. [View NBC article] [View AP Nowak article] [View USA Today blog] [View LA Times article] [View AP Hayden article] [View Tribune article]

U.S. Admiral Confirms Secret Camp at Guantanamo (Washington Post) “Separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded—a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret,” reports the Washington Post. In an interview with the Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby—“the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo”—“confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7.… for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.” [View article]

FBI Wants Palm Prints, Eye Scans, Tattoo Mapping (CNN) “The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists,” reports CNN. It’s “expected to announce … a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric” data—“palmprints, scars and tattoos, iris eye patterns, and facial shapes.… The FBI has [already] started collecting mug shots and pictures of scars and tattoos” and has a plan for a “service in which an employer could ask the FBI to keep the prints for an employee on file and let the employer know if the person ever has a brush with the law. The FBI says it will first have to clear hurdles with state privacy laws, and people would have to sign waivers allowing their information to be kept.” On Wednesday, the FBI signed an agreement making West Virginia University its lead academic partner in biometrics research. [View article] [View FBI press release]

Are Terrorists Using Online Virtual Worlds? (Washington Post) “U.S. intelligence officials are cautioning that popular Internet services that enable computer users to adopt cartoon-like personas in three-dimensional online spaces also are creating security vulnerabilities by opening novel ways for terrorists and criminals to move money, organize and conduct corporate espionage,” reports the Washington Post. “… Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, … said the national security fears are overblown, in part because the country already has legal and technical mechanisms in place to give the government access to digital records it needs.” [View article]

International News

Al-Qaeda Turns Handicapped and Children Into Bombers (Melbourne, Australia, Herald Sun; Times of India; Google News) “Al-Qaida-backed militias [on Feb. 2] turned two women with Down syndrome into human bombs,” reports the Herald Sun. “More than 90 people died and up to 200 more were injured when the two—possibly unwitting—suicide bombers mingled with crowds in Baghdad. The women were wearing 15kg explosive vests, which were detonated using mobile phones as they walked through separate city markets.” Furthermore, “Al-Qaida is using children as suicide bombers in Iraq, with at least two attacks in [late January] committed by 15-year-olds, a US military commander [has] claimed,” reports the Press Trust of India. “‘We are not sure whether one of these children even knew he was being used to deliver a bomb,’ Rear Admiral Gregory Smith” said. Also, “videotapes seized during U.S. raids on suspected al-Qaida in Iraq hide-outs show the terror group training young boys to kidnap and assassinate civilians,” reports the Associated Press. The videos “showed an apparent training operation with black-masked boys—some of whom appeared to be about 10 years old—storming a house and holding guns to the heads of mock residents. Another tape showed a young boy wearing a suicide vest and posing with automatic weapons.” [View Herald Sun article] [View PTI article] [View AP article]

Al-Qaeda Tries to Shake Nasty Image in Mosul, Iraq (USA Today) “Al-Qaeda militants operating” in Mosul “have shifted tactics to try to improve their image among Iraqis and avoid the mass civilian killings that alienated the public in Baghdad and other cities,” reports USA Today. “… The changes include warning locals to take cover before bomb attacks, relaxing the enforcement of strict Islamic laws and staging fewer attacks on Iraqi police. The strategy has made the population of Mosul less likely to follow the example of Iraqis elsewhere who have turned on al-Qaeda.” [View article]

Egyptians and Palestinians Trade Fire at Resealed Gaza Border (Washington Post; Reuters; Johannesburg, South Africa, Mail and Guardian) “Egyptian construction workers … rolled barbed wire across the last breaches of the Gaza Strip’s border wall with Egypt on [Feb. 3], reasserting Egyptian control of the frontier after Palestinian guerrillas used explosives and machinery to knock down the barrier,” reports the Washington Post. (See last week’s newsletter.) “… Security officials from Hamas, the armed Palestinian movement that has controlled Gaza since June, worked alongside Egyptian officials Sunday to turn back Gazans seeking to enter Egypt,” which “allowed Gaza residents stuck in Egypt, and Egyptians in Gaza, to cross the border and return home.” However, “Palestinian gunmen and Egyptian forces exchanged fire at the Gaza-Egypt border on Monday, killing one person and wounding 59 others …” reports Reuters. “At least 45 Egyptian policemen and 14 Palestinians were wounded in the clash at the Rafah border crossing.” The fighting “began after Egyptian security men stopped the flow of people trying to go back home and the crowd responded with stone-throwing, drawing smoke grenades from the Egyptians.” Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit “said that no further violations of its borders would be tolerated in the wake of a 12-day breach on its frontier with Gaza and said anyone daring to cross would have their legs broken,” reports the Mail and Guardian. [View Post article] [View Reuters article] [View Mail and Guardian article]

U.S. Intelligence Chief Sees Increased al-Qaeda Threat to U.S. and Pakistan (New York Times; Washington Post) “Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, train and position operatives capable of carrying out attacks inside the United States, the director of national intelligence, … Mike McConnell, told” the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Tuesday, reports the New York Times. “He said Al Qaeda was also … producing militants, including new Western recruits, capable of blending into American society and attacking domestic targets.” Furthermore, “radical elements are now a threat to the survival of Pakistan … McConnell said,” according to the Washington Post. “Pakistan has emerged as a terrorist sanctuary for some of the world’s most violent groups, including al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and home-grown militants,” says Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations. [View Times article] [View Post article] [View Bajoria report]

U.S. Trains Pakistani Special Forces (International Herald Tribune) “U.S. military advisers are helping the Pakistanis double the size of their elite commando force in a continuing effort to blunt the rising threat of terror groups and anti-government militants operating in Pakistan’s unruly tribal areas …” reports the Associated Press. “The U.S. military presence in the country is fewer than 100 people.” [View article]

Pakistan Arrests Two in Bhutto Assassination (Bloomberg) Yesterday, “Pakistani investigators arrested two men in connection with the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto,” reports Bloomberg. [View article]

Pakistani Terrorist Group Declares Cease-Fire (Yahoo! News) “A coalition of Taliban militants [Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan] in northwestern Pakistan declared an ‘indefinite’ cease-fire Wednesday in fighting against security forces,” reports the Associated Press. A spokesman for the group “said the cease-fire was the result of talks with the government.” [View article]

Hindu Violence Against Christians Grows in India (Christian Science Monitor) “In recent weeks, Hindu extremists in India’s eastern ‘tribal belt’—home to large numbers of forest-dwelling animists—have stepped up a campaign against Christians,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. In the “state of Orissa, over Christmas, mobs destroyed 55 churches and 600 houses—‘the worst anti-Christian violence in India since independence [in 1947],’ says Asghar Ali Engineer, who heads the Centre for Study of Society and Secularism in Mumbai.” [View article]

NATO Chief Says Losing in Afghanistan Will Bring Terror in the West (BBC; London Guardian) “Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer has said the failure of Nato’s mission in Afghanistan could result in terror attacks in Western countries,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “The alliance’s mission in Afghanistan is not failing, but big challenges remain, Mr de Hoop Scheffer added.… His warning was echoed by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.” And U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates “criticised some countries for not providing troops that were prepared to ‘fight and die’ against the Taliban,” reports the Guardian. [View BBC article] [View Guardian article]

South Africa Confronts Half a Million Illegal Immigrants (Johannesburg, South Africa, Business Day) The undocumented migrants in South Africa “number 500000 people, including asylum-seekers, refugees and those waiting for bureaucrats to resolve their paperwork,” reports Business Day, citing a report by the International Federation for Human Rights. “… The report said” that the government assumes that the country’s “borders were impossible to monitor because of their length and geographic features,” so “government migration policy focused on rendering [South Africa] inhospitable for undocumented migrants through arrests, restricting access to jobs, services and temporary residence.” Yet “a large majority of migrants entered [South Africa] legally. Many were cross-border traders, seasonal, circular or temporary migrants who did not wish to settle” there. [View article] [View report (222 KB PDF)]

Five Convicted of Helping the Failed London Transport Bombers (London Times) On Monday, “five men [were] found guilty of acting as accomplices to help” the July 21, 2005, failed suicide bombers “evade police in the aftermath of the attacks,” reports the Times. The bombs failed to explode, and the bombers were captured and “all found guilty of conspiracy to murder and jailed for life.” (See the July 13, 2007, newsletter.) [View article]

After Three Years, a Hamas Suicide Attack in Israel (London Guardian) “The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas” returned “to suicide bombing for the first time in more than three years inside Israel when it claimed responsibility for an attack in the town of Dimona on Monday,” reports the Guardian. [View article]

Terrorist Wanted for 2001 Mass Kidnapping and Murder Arrested in Philippines (Yahoo! News) “Police in the southern Philippines” on Tuesday arrested “Al Muadz Ismael, a member of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group,” who was “involved in the mass kidnapping of tourists in 2001 that led to the death of two Americans,” reports Agence France-Presse. “… Many of the Abu Sayyaf gunmen who took part in the raid have since been killed or captured, and in December, 14 of its members were sentenced to life in prison over the incident.” [View article]

Drugs and Fake Bomb Slip Past Dutch Airport Security (Melbourne, Australia, Age) Dutch journalist Alberto Stegeman “smuggled a fake bomb and drugs into airliners at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport,” where “an associate secured a job … as a baggage handler,” reports Reuters. “‘When you work there, you can do anything,’ Stegeman said. Stegeman said he used his accomplice’s uniform and credentials to smuggle a fake bomb, complete with a digital timer and fake explosive blocks, onto a plane. Over a three month period, they were also able to take drugs into flight cabins and other areas of aircraft because gate personnel always let uniformed workers into the cabins.” [View article]

Facebook Used to Organize Global Rallies Against FARC (Christian Science Monitor; Washington Post) “What began as a group of young people venting their rage at the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on Facebook, an Internet social-networking site, … ballooned into an international event called ‘One Million Voices Against FARC,’” which took place on Monday around the globe, reports the Christian Science Monitor. “Millions of protesters fanned out across Colombia … expressing fury over guerrilla atrocities in a long civil conflict and demanding the liberation of hundreds of hostages held in clandestine jungle camps,” reports the Washington Post. “Thousands more people joined in protests worldwide, with rallies … in neighboring Venezuela, as well as in Washington [DC], New York and dozens of other cities as far away as Paris and Sydney [Australia].” [View Monitor article] [View Post article]

The New Sons of Iraq (Newsweek) “Former Iraqi insurgents now on the U.S. payroll in Baghdad and some of the outlying areas” are called the Sons of Iraq, says Babak Dehghanpisheh in a Newsweek blog. “… there are roughly 85,000 across the country. They get about three hundred dollars a month now to aim their guns away from American and Iraqi security forces. But so far the Iraqi government has only absorbed about 6,000 of them into the local security forces.” Others will be steered “toward a U.S.-funded civil service program and others may be accepted into a vocational training program funded by the Iraqi government.” Any left out may “go back to what they were: insurgents.” [View article]

Russia Ends Counterterror Operation in Ingushetia (RIA Novosti) “A counter-terrorist operation launched in [Russia’s] Republic of Ingushetia January 25 [see last week’s newsletter] due to the threat of an imminent large-scale terrorist attack has been terminated,” reports the Russian News & Information Agency Novosti. [View article]

United Nations News

UN Peacekeepers Stay in Eritrea Without Fuel (Reuters) “Eritrea has ignored a U.N. deadline to grant peacekeepers on its border with Ethiopia access to badly needed fuel, but U.N. troops fear war could break out and have not begun leaving,” reports Reuters. “… Last week the U.N. Security Council renewed the mandate of the U.N. Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea … for six months”; on Monday, the Security Council gave Eritrea a deadline of Wednesday to resume supplying fuel. “The 1,700-member U.N. force went to the border in 2000 at the end of a two-year war between the two countries in the Horn of Africa that killed 70,000 people.” [View article]

UN Warning System Will Track Dust Clouds and Germs (Washington Post) “The World Meteorological Organization” is setting “up a global warning system to track the moving clouds of dust” in the upper atmosphere “and to alert those in the path,” reports the Washington Post. The “dust clouds [are] possible suspects in transcontinental movement of diseases such as influenza and SARS in humans, or foot-and-mouth disease in livestock.” [View article]

UN Emergency Response Funds Allocated to Neglected Crises The United Nations Central Emergency Response Fund has allocated more than $100 million in grants for lifesaving work in some of the world’s neglected trouble spots. The money will fund the work of UN agencies and their partners in 15 countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and Myanmar. The fund is required to commit one-third of its money each year to redress imbalances in the global distribution of aid by addressing neglected crises. [View press release]

New this week in the Journal of Homeland Security In “A Networked Approach to Improvements in Emergency Management,” Robert J. O’Neill, Executive Director of the International City/County Management Association, describes why changes are needed and offers specific recommendations for improvements in our inter-governmental system. Building on lessons learned from recent disaster experiences, he lays out an ambitious new approach based on a network of partnerships among cities and counties and supported by state governments and a sophisticated database.

State and Local News

New World Trade Center Building Showcases Terror-Proof Technologies (Christian Science Monitor) Manhattan’s 7 World Trade Center skyscraper “has been hailed as the safest building in the world, its 52-stories of glass elegance belying a concrete core built to be a bunker in the sky,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. The skyscraper’s “skin is made almost entirely of glass, and … incorporates new bomb-resistant technologies … that eliminate flying shards—and actually shield the structure from an explosion.” [View article]

Prior Trauma Raised Children’s 9/11 Risk (New York Times) “Preschoolers who witnessed the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center or saw its victims were at high risk of developing lingering emotional and behavior problems if—but only if—they had had a previous frightening experience, like seeing a parent fall ill,” reports the New York Times, citing a report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, which “found that more than 40 percent who had such sequential traumas suffered from depression, emotional outbursts, poor sleep or some combination three years later. By contrast, children who saw the attack or its victims but had no earlier trauma showed few if any [psychological] scars.” [View article] [View report abstract]

New York 2002 Bomber Caught With More Explosives (Hartford [CT] Courant) Yung Tang, “a citizen of China who lives in Greenwood Lake, N.Y.,” was “already facing charges in a 2002 pipe bomb attack in New York that blew off part of a man’s leg” when he “was arrested [Jan. 30] in Wallingford [CT] after he was found asleep in a car with homemade explosives and other items, including a disguise,” reports the Associated Press. Tang “was charged with transporting explosive materials without a license and possession of an improvised explosive device not registered to him in national records.” The 2002 “incident stemmed from a landlord-tenant dispute.” [View article]

FEMA and Natl. Guard Respond to Tornadoes (DefenseLink) “More than 160 National Guard members turned out” this week “to support recovery missions in” Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee, which were “hit by a violent string of tornadoes,” reports American Forces Press Service. National Guard members performed search-and-rescue missions, provided security at traffic control points, and supported civilian authorities in other ways. Federal Emergency Management Agency liaisons are in the state emergency operations centers in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi, and the Atlanta-based Federal Incident Response Support Team deployed to Lafayette, TN. [View DefenseLink article] [View FEMA press release]

DHS News

New DHS CIO Is Under Federal Investigation (Government Executive) “The Homeland Security Department has appointed” Scott Charbo to be its Chief Information Officer even though he is “under federal investigation” for failing “to properly address computer security breaches within agencies housed at department headquarters, along with incompetent and possibly illegal activity by private contractor Unisys,” reports CongressDaily. [View article]

Bush Would Boost DHS Funding Past $50 Billion President Bush’s fiscal year 2009 budget request for the Homeland Security Department is $50.5 billion, an increase of 6.8% over 2008, excluding emergency supplemental funding. The budget request concentrates on protecting against dangerous people, protecting against dangerous goods, protecting critical infrastructure, building an effective emergency response system and culture of preparedness, and strengthening and unifying the department’s operations and management. (See the Statistics of the Week.) [View press release]

DHS Issues Guidance for Recovery Grants The Homeland Security Department has published application guidance for 14 federal grant programs to strengthen prevention, protection, response, and recovery capabilities at all levels of government. More than $3 billion will be available, mainly under the Homeland Security Grant Program and the Infrastructure Protection Program. [View press release]

Other Federal News

Detection System for ‘Dirty Bombs’ Hits Snags (Washington Post) Securing the Cities, a radiation detection program, “may be technologically unfeasible” and the New York prototype “is based on assumptions ‘that run counter to current intelligence in this threat arena, and has no measure of success, nor an end point,’” reports the Washington Post, citing a Senate Appropriations Committee report. New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner for Counterterrorism Richard A. Falkenrath, a former Bush White House homeland security aide, “said [that] the New York system still” needs “better detection technology to find the most dangerous and shielded devices; better communications and data transfer links for managing monitoring efforts; and better procedures allowing police officers to investigate all alarms without disrupting traffic, which they can do in Manhattan but not on the approaching highways.” [View article]

Private-Sector News

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) Public Health Preparedness Summit (February 19-22; Atlanta) This third annual conference for public health and emergency preparedness professionals offers workshops, interactive sessions, and roundtable discussions. [View conference website] CBRNE for Defense (February 25-27; Arlington, VA) This course, presented by the Institute for Defense and Government Advancement, covers enhancing threat reduction and response capabilities against chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and high-explosive weapons. A Defense Tech Focus Day will precede the conference. [View conference website] Winter 2008 Biometrics Summit (February 25-28; Miami) This event, presented by the Advanced Learning Institute, will cover key biometric objectives and proven methods, processes, and approaches in industry, government, telecommunications, border control, law enforcement, healthcare, airports and seaports, and motor vehicle departments. Representatives of the Port of Seattle, the Transportation Security Administration, William Beaumont Hospital, the U.S. General Services Administration, the Illinois Office of the Secretary of State, IBG, and Lockheed Martin Transportation & Security Solutions will be there. [View conference website] National Emergency Management Association Midyear Conference (March 9-13; Washington, DC) The conference will cover the Emergency Management Accreditation Program, Emergency Management Assistance Compacts, climate change and emergency management, and more. [View conference website] National Disaster Medical System Training Summit (March 15-19; Nashville, TN) This conference promotes interaction among federal, state, local, and tribal governments, the private sector, nonprofit organizations, and academia to enhance the knowledge, skills, and abilities of those involved in the management or delivery of public health and medical care during disasters. Expert faculty will discuss clinical care, public health, and disaster response. [View conference website] (March 16-18; Nashville, TN) Held in conjunction with the 2008 National Disaster Medical System Training Summit, the Disaster Response & Recovery Exposition gives local, state, and federal public health and emergency preparedness practitioners and policy makers an opportunity to discover the latest equipment, technologies, and services. [View conference website] Disaster Risk Management in an Age of Climate Change (April 3; Washington, DC) This public workshop, organized by the National Research Council–National Academies’ Disasters Roundtable, will feature presentations by experts from the hazards, policy, and practitioner communities on key topics related to disaster risk management in the context of climate change, along with audience discussion. [View conference website] 2nd Annual Global Border Security Conference & Expo (May 21-22; Austin, TX) The conference will discuss cargo, immigration, drugs, and terrorism. [View conference website]

Calls for Papers 2nd Annual Global Border Security Conference & Expo (May 21-22; Austin, TX) The conference will discuss cargo, immigration, drugs, and terrorism. The conference organizer, E.J. Krause & Associates, and Northcentral University are sponsoring two white paper contests: one for working professionals in academics, industry, law enforcement, and the military and one for college students under age 25. The submission deadline is May 1. [View call for papers]