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International News
Terrorist Attack in Mumbai, India, Kills 171, Wounds 239
(London Guardian; Denver Post; London Times;
ABC News)
“A three-day rampage [Nov. 26-29] in India’s financial center [Mumbai] left at least 172 dead” and “wounded 239,” reports the Associated Press. The attacks, launched from the sea, “were carried out by 10 suspected Muslim militants against upscale hotels, a restaurant and other sites across Mumbai,” reports the Associated Press in a separate story. Only one attacker survived. “During the attacks, the gunmen used mobile phones taken from hotel guests to place calls to the Pakistani city of Lahore.” The “police on [Dec. 3] found two bombs at Mumbai’s main train station nearly a week after they were left there by the gunmen.” The station had been “declared safe and reopened hours after the attack.” The attack started when two “gunmen armed with assault rifles blithely ignored more than 60 police officers patrolling the … train station and sprayed bullets into the crowd.”
“Mumbai’s police force was hopelessly outgunned and overwhelmed,” reports the London Times.
“The police were armed mainly with batons or antiquated rifles,” according to the Associated Press. “… authorities called in … the National Security Guards” (commandos), but it took them “nearly 10 hours to reach the scene.”
“U.S. intelligence agencies [had] warned” India “in mid-October of a potential attack ‘from the sea against hotels and business centers in Mumbai,’” reports ABC News. On “Nov. 18, Indian intelligence also intercepted a satellite phone call to a number in Pakistan [revealing] a possible sea-borne attack.” (See also the Quote of the Week.) [View Guardian AP article] [View Denver Post AP article] [View Times article] [View ABC News article]
Counterterrorism in India (Newsweek) “Why is India the target of so many terrorist attacks?” An answer comes from Eben Kaplan and Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations. Writing in Newsweek, they answer this question and others: “What groups are involved in terrorism in India?… What agencies are responsible for fighting terrorism in India?… How does the government react to terrorist attacks?… How have India’s counterterrorism agencies performed?… Does India have antiterrorism legislation similar to the U.S. Patriot Act?”
[View article]
U.S. and Iraq Agree on Troop Withdrawal by 2011 (UPI) “Iraq’s Presidency Council on Thursday approved a security agreement that oversees U.S. troop presence in Iraq through 2011,” reports United Press International. “… The Status of Forces Agreement provides that U.S. combat forces will leave Iraqi cities and towns by next summer and be completely out of Iraq by the end of 2011. The agreement will take effect Jan. 1, the day after a U.N. mandate on international military presence in Iraq expires.”
[View article]
Colombia Makes Gains Against Terror (Miami Herald) “Colombia is succeeding against terrorism, and … it has become an international model,” writes James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, in the Miami Herald. “Since Alvaro Uribe became president in 2002, homicides have dropped 40 percent; kidnappings, 83 percent; and terrorist attacks, 76 percent.” Colombia’s military “has driven terrorists of the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, out of strongholds.” Furthermore, “Colombia has developed an anti-terror model in our own hemisphere that has powerful applications in North Africa, South Asia and the Middle East”: 10,000 fighters “have escaped the FARC in a vast ‘demobilization and reintregration’ program that ensures their safety and seeks to make them productive citizens. Since 2005, about 48,000 members of armed groups of both left and right have been demobilized.”
[View commentary]
Almost 100 Countries Sign Cluster Bomb Ban (Reuters AlertNet) “Nearly 100 nations began signing a treaty on Wednesday to ban cluster bombs responsible for killing and maiming thousands, but powerful arms producers including the United States, Russia and China remain outside the pact,” although “18 of 26 NATO members, including Britain, France and Germany, are expected to ink the pact,” reports Reuters.
[View article]
WMD Commission Warns of Possible Attack Within 5 Years
(Voice of America)
The congressionally mandated, bipartisan U.S. Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism on Wednesday “released a report warning of a possible nuclear or biological attack somewhere in the world within five years,” reports Voice of America. “The report [‘World at Risk,’] singles out Pakistan as the top security priority for the United States.”
[View article]
[View report website]
Nuclear Terror Threat Is Still High, Says NTI (Voice of America) The Nuclear Threat Initiative’s “new report, called ‘Securing the Bomb 2008,’ says major progress has been made to reduce the danger of nuclear terrorism,” reports the Voice of America. “The report warns, however, there are still major gaps in these efforts and says the risk of terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon remains unacceptably high.”
[View article] [View report website]
Zimbabwe Declares National Emergency Over Cholera (AllAfrica; Reuters AlertNet) The Zimbabwe government on Wednesday “declared the cholera outbreak that has claimed 563 lives so far and the malfunctioning of central hospitals as national emergencies and appealed to the donor community for assistance to alleviate the situation,” reports the Harare, Zimbabwe, Herald. “At least 12,546 people have been infected with cholera in Zimbabwe since August,” reports Reuters. “… The normal case fatality rate is below 1 percent,” but the World Health Organization “estimates that 4.5 percent of those contracting cholera in Zimbabwe have died.” “‘We won’t be able to stop the outbreak like that, it is escalating,’ the WHO’s global cholera coordinator Claire-Lise Chaignat” said.
[View Herald article] [View Reuters article]
Al-Shabaab Increases Its Hold on Somalia
(ABC News)
“The impoverished, lawless country of Somalia is in danger of becoming the newest safe haven for al Qaeda …” reports ABC News. “A group of Islamic militants called al-Shabaab now controls much of southern and central Somalia, and U.S. officials fear that the group, which swears allegiance to Osama bin Laden, is now strong enough to take over the country’s capital, Mogadishu, and defeat the weak, American-backed government.”
[View article]
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| U.S. Navy photo | Mercy Cruise Helped 90,000 (DefenseLink) The Navy hospital ship Mercy “helped care for more than 90,000 patients and helped spread diplomacy throughout the U.S. Pacific Command during a four-month stint in the region this summer,” reports American Forces Press Service. “… The ship concluded its part of the Pacific Partnership 2008 mission in September after it provided medical, dental and engineering support to thousands in the Western Pacific countries of the Philippines, Vietnam, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea and Micronesia.” (See the Statistics of the Week.)
[View article]
Jordan and the European Union Launch an Antiterror Project (Jerusalem Haaretz) “Jordan and the European Union on Wednesday launched” the “European Union–Jordan Twinning Project to Fight Against Terrorism and Organized Crime,” reports Haaretz. It “focuses on delivering training courses to the Explosives Handling Unit at Jordan’s Preventive Security Department and to the Forensic Laboratories Department.”
[View article]
Eta Leader Indicted for 2006 Madrid Airport Bombing (BBC) “The suspected head of Basque separatist group Eta has been charged over the December 2006 Madrid airport bombing,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “The indictment, issued by a Spanish judge, says Miguel de Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina ordered the attack and gave final instructions to the bombers.”
[View article]
Pirate Ship Was a Hijacked Fishing Boat (BBC) The pirate vessel sunk by the Indian navy on November 18 (see the Nov. 21 newsletter) “was a hijacked Thai fishing boat,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “… The Indian navy said the ship was a pirate vessel in ‘description and intent’ and had opened fire first.” Of the fishing boat’s crew of 15, only one was found after the attack.
[View article]
Afghan Govt. Sabotages War Against Opium, Say Officials (Australian) “Australia’s military campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan is being undermined by a chronic failure to combat the opium trade in Oruzgan province, according to … anti-narcotics officials in Tarin Kowt,” reports the Australian. “… the war against opium crops—which help to fund the Taliban—is being sabotaged by endemic local corruption, assassination threats and recalcitrant governors and officials.” (See the Aug. 1 newsletter.)
[View article]
Britain and Syria Share Counterterror Intelligence (BBC) “Syria and Britain have been holding high-level intelligence talks in order to combat terrorism,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “… preparatory meetings had been going on for several months in secret” and “new levels of co-operation” were “reached during” a visit by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband to Syria last month.
[View article]
National News
No Court Order Needed for Wiretapping of Americans Overseas (Wired) “The Fourth Amendment’s shield against invasive searches reaches only partially across the border, [the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals] ruled [last] week, finding that the nation’s spies don’t need a court order to wiretap an American overseas, though there has to be a good reason for listening in,” writes Ryan Singel, Wired’s “Threat Level” blogger. (See the Oct. 10 newsletter.)
[View blog]
Five Holy Land Foundation Leaders Found Guilty (New York Times) “Federal prosecutors won sweeping convictions [November 24] against five leaders of a Muslim charity in a retrial,” reports the New York Times. “The five defendants, all leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, based in Richardson, a Dallas suburb, were convicted on all 108 criminal counts against them, including support of terrorism, money laundering and tax fraud. The group was accused of funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, an Islamist organization the government declared to be a terrorist group in 1995.”
[View article]
Cyber-Attack Hits U.S. Central Command (Los Angeles Times) A malware strike that “hit combat zone computers and the U.S. Central Command overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan … also penetrated at least one highly protected classified network,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “… The invasive software, known as agent.btz, has circulated among nongovernmental U.S. computers for months.” But this latest attack was “apparently designed specifically to target military networks.… The malware is able to spread to any flash drive plugged into an infected computer.” The Pentagon’s “worldwide ban on external drives was a drastic move” to block it.
[View article]
Security for Motorcoach Passengers (Metro Magazine) “Worldwide, buses are a key [terrorism] target, by default, as other targets become harder to strike.…” according to Metro Magazine. “Being prepared means understanding that theft, abuse and attack are the minor league equivalents to the big league of hijackings, murder and potential terrorist incidents. Each needs a plan to address risk and a plan for response.… Open transportation systems”—“where any and all riders may approach the coach and step on board”—“seem to demand more extensive security” but “closed systems”—such as charter operations—“are certainly not trouble free.” Many bus operators have responded “with dedicated police forces, intercom systems,… security communication systems, GPS locators and the installation of ‘panic’ alert buttons on vehicles” as well as information sharing and employee training.
[View article]
United Nations News
UN Extends Antipiracy Measures
(BBC)
The United Nations “Security Council has extended its authorisation for countries to enter Somalia’s territorial waters to stop acts of piracy,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “The 12-month extension allows nations—with advance notice—to use ‘all necessary means’ to combat piracy in Somali waters.”
[View article]
DHS News
GAO Wants More Data on Northern Border Security The Homeland Security Department’s “February 2008 report to Congress is not fully responsive to legislative requirements in providing information for improving northern border security,” states the Government Accountability Office. Although “DHS provided a listing of northern border vulnerabilities and initiatives to address them,” it “did not include recommendations and additional resources that are needed to protect the northern border.… DHS has implemented 11 GAO recommendations designed to improve border security, but 39 recommendations are yet to be fully addressed.” Of these, “21 recommendations” that “DHS and other agencies generally agreed to take action to implement” are more than a year old.
[View GAO summary]
New DHS Machines Remotely Scan IDs at Borders (USA Today) “Agents along the Canada and Mexico borders are using a controversial new machine that can ‘read’ the personal information contained in some government-issued ID cards—such as passports and driver’s licenses—as travelers approach a checkpoint,” reports USA Today. “The Homeland Security Department says the new practice will tighten security and speed the flow of traffic. Privacy advocates say the technology could make Americans less secure because terrorists or other criminals may be able to steal the personal information off the ID cards remotely.… Machines are in place at” Buffalo; Detroit; Blaine, WA; Nogales, AZ; and San Ysidro, CA; and in use at Buffalo, Blaine, and Nogales.
[View article]
FEMA Flood Insurance Rate-Setting Needs Attention, Says GAO The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “method for setting its full-risk rates may not ensure that the rates accurately reflect the actual risk of flood damage,” reports the Government Accountability Office, citing “outdated or inaccurate” data, not requiring “all properties remapped into higher-risk areas to pay rates based on the new designation,” and “a nationwide rating system” that does “not always reflect topographical features that affect flood risk.”
[View GAO summary]
Focus Groups Help TSA Improve Procedures (USA Today) A report by Blue Lime consultants on last year’s focus groups involving airline passengers and security screeners has “helped spawn changes this year at airports across the nation,” reports USA Today. For example, “business travelers and families” now have “separate lanes at nearly 50 airports” and the Transportation Security Administration is “is installing simplified checkpoint signs.”
[View article]
Religious Worker Visa Gets Stricter Conditions U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is revising the regulations for the special immigrant and nonimmigrant (R-1) religious worker visa classification. The final rule requires employers to submit a formal petition for temporary religious workers and provides for increased inspections, evaluations, verifications, and compliance reviews of religious organizations. Anyone seeking to enter the United States through the nonimmigrant religious worker program will have to provide an approved Form I-129, Petition for Alien Worker, to a consular officer.
[View press release]
| New Voice Radio Manual for Firefighters Voice Radio Communications Guide for the Fire Service— a new manual produced by the U.S. Fire Administration and the International Association of Fire Fighters—updates information on communications technology and discusses critical homeland security issues and concepts, such as SAFECOM, that did not exist when the original manual was first published. It also will familiarize a wide fire service audience with basic communications issues such as hardware, policy and procedures, and human interface.
[View press release] [View report (3.8MB PDF)]
New DHS Rules for Maritime Cargo The Importer Security Filing and Additional Carrier Requirements interim final rule announced last month will require maritime cargo carriers and importers to submit additional data to U.S. Customs and Border Protection before vessels are permitted to enter the United States. Under certain conditions, carriers must submit a vessel stow plan and container status messages, and importers or their agents must submit an Importer Security Filing with eight data elements no later than 24 hours before the cargo is laden aboard a vessel destined for the United States. [View press release]
Customs Trade Strategy Focuses on Import Safety U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s trade strategy for fiscal years 2009-2013 is based on a “layered approach to trade facilitation and enforcement that employs numerous efforts in the pre-entry, entry, and post-release environments to prevent, address, and deter trade law violations.”
[View report (409KB PDF)]
Other Federal News
FDA Finds Melamine in U.S. Baby Formula (MSNBC) “Laboratory tests have detected traces of contamination in several major brands of infant formula,” reports the Associated Press. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said “that the baby food is safe” yet “maintained [that] it is unable to identify any exposure level of melamine in infant formula ‘that does not raise public health concerns.’” The FDA “said the melamine contamination in U.S.-made formula had occurred during the manufacturing process, rather than intentionally as was done in Chinese production.”
[View article]
U.S. Bans Dealings With Four Linked to Mugabe (Yahoo! News) The U.S. Treasury Department on November 25 “banned any dealings with four loyalists of Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, including his Malaysian doctor and a Thai gem dealer, and froze their assets in the US,” reports Agence France-Presse. The four are “Malaysian urologist Mahmood Awang Kechik … Thai businesswoman, Nalinee Joy Taveesin … John Bredenkamp, a Mugabe insider” and “Muller Conrad Rautenbach, also known as Billy Rautenbach.”
[View article]
State and Local News
Louisiana FEMA Trailer Park Children Have High Illness Rate (USA Today) The Children’s Health Fund, which “reviewed medical records of 261 children who lived in a federally funded Baton Rouge trailer park until early summer,” found “disturbingly high rates of respiratory problems and skin rashes,” reports USA Today. After Hurricane Katrina, the nonprofit fund “dispatched mobile clinics across the Gulf Coast, including one outside Renaissance Village in Baton Rouge, then the largest Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer park in the region.… the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it would launch a long-term study of children who resided in federally issued trailers and mobile homes in Louisiana and Mississippi.”
[View article]
Less Security at Federal Buildings? (Government Executive) After the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, “tightened security soon became a familiar sight at federal buildings throughout the nation,” reports Government Executive. “… That post-bombing ramp-up has been almost completely rolled back, says Lauri Goff, president of the National Treasury Employees Union Chapter 45 and an employee in that Oklahoma City building. And security faded even more after the Federal Protective Service’s post–Sept. 11 transition to the Homeland Security Department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, she says.… Her concern is echoed by federal employees across the country, who have told Government Executive they do not feel safe, and by the Government Accountability Office, which has sounded the alarm on federal building security.”
[View article]
Four Plead Guilty to Defrauding FEMA (Mobile, AL, Press-Register) “Four people pleaded guilty in Mobile [AL] on [Nov. 25] to defrauding the federal government by filing multiple fraudulent claims for hurricane assistance following Hurricane Katrina,” reports the Press-Register. “James Kelly Knowles, James C. Daughdrill and Brian A. Sedlack pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government by making false claims on a Gulfport home they never owned that was destroyed by the hurricane in 2005. Knowles’ nephew, Moss Point resident Dennis Troy Knowles Jr., pleaded guilty to making false claims against the government by fraudulently stating that he paid rent at the Mobile home of his uncle and Daughdrill for five months after the hurricane.”
[View article]
Arizona License Plate Scanners Catch Car Thieves (Phoenix Arizona Republic) The Arizona Department of Public Safety has “scanned more than 1.6 million plates since introducing its first cameras in 2006—leading directly to 122 felony arrests,” reports the Arizona Republic. The agency has “25 plate-reader cameras … stolen trucks seized on freeways are often linked to other border-related crimes.”
[View article]
Missouri Activates Disaster Notification System (Government Technology) Missouri has launched its “Statewide Disaster Responder Notification System,” reports Government Technology. It “is designed to notify up to 1,500 key contacts critical for a statewide disaster deployment in the event of a” catastrophe: “Homeland Security Regional Response Systems, Emergency Management Directors, regional fire mutual aid coordinators, state employees in the Division of Fire Safety,” the Missouri Information and Analysis Center, State Emergency Operations Center “responders, and shelter points of contact.” The system was successfully tested on October 24 and November 11.
[View article]
Impact of Earthquakes in the Central USA This new report by the Mid-America Earthquake Center (see the Website of the Week) presents the outcome of a comprehensive earthquake consequence assessment project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, assessing earthquake impact for eight central states and listing damage and other consequences to the built environment as well as social and economic impacts in the New Madrid, Wabash Valley, and East Tennessee seismic zones.
[View announcement]
Private-Sector News
TSA Approves TWIC Readers (Washington Technology) “The Transportation Security Administration approved Innometriks Inc. and Datastrip Corp. biometric readers for the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC) program,” reports Washington Technology. “The agency has now authorized three TWIC readers for testing at ports.” Sagem Morpho is the third approved supplier.
[View article] [View Focus on TWIC]
Dual-Benefit Solutions
Commerce Dept. Tests Rescue Robots The National Institute of Standards and Technology held a rescue robot exercise in Texas last month. Developers and first responders tested about three dozen robots to develop standards for evaluating their use for urban search-and-rescue missions. The exercise was sponsored by the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate.
[View press release]
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New Upcoming Events
(After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page)
Trends in CBRN Field Analytics (December 9; Arlington, VA) The Chemical Biological Radiological and Nuclear Defense Information Analysis Center will host this technical forum at which subject matter experts will discuss the latest trends in chemical, biological and radiological/nuclear field analytics.
[View event website]
Globalization, Movement of Pathogens (and Their Hosts) and the Revised International Health Regulations (December 16-17; Washington, DC) This conference, sponsored by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, will explore historical approaches to infectious disease identification and containment, natural and human-mediated pathways of pathogen and vector movement, the ecology of invasive species relevant to infectious diseases, public health and economic threats associated with invasive species, national and international policies concerning border biosecurity, and opportunities to prevent and contain biological introductions and thereby the burden of emerging infectious diseases.
[View event website]
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(January 27-28; Arlington, VA) With the Association of American Railroads, the American Public Transportation Association, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, and the Railway Supply Institute, Railway Age presents this forum to address topics such as state compacts, passenger and baggage screening, fusion centers, tunnel operations, tracking and tracing technology, resilience, and NIMBY activism. [View event website]
(January 27-28; Arlington, VA) MarineLog’s Maritime & Port Security 2009 Conference & Expo will examine the “scan every box” container security requirement, the terrorism threat to ports and
shipping, piracy off the Horn of Africa, new technologies, and more.
[View event website]
(February 9-11; Washington, DC) The conference will bring together developers, users, and decision makers to discuss chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear protection, detection, and defense in the homeland, as well as information sharing and medical countermeasures.
[View event website]
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Calls for Papers
TIEMS 2009 (June 9-11; Istanbul, Turkey) The International Emergency Management Society’s 16th annual conference will address global cooperation in emergency management, geographic information systems in emergency management, terrorism and security, critical infrastructures, emergencies and the media, psychological aspects of disasters, health emergencies and response, and more. The deadline for submitting abstracts is December 31.
[View call for papers (290KB PDF)]
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