International News

Attack on Sri Lankan Cricket Team in Pakistan (Australian) “Suspected Islamic terrorists [on Tuesday] opened a new front by launching an attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, wounding eight team members and killing at least eight people,” reports the Australian. “The attack, in Pakistan’s most cosmopolitan city, bore all the hallmarks of the terror group responsible for November’s deadly Mumbai attacks. Punjabi Governor Salman Tahseer said the 12 masked and heavily armed gunmen who attacked the cricket convoy as it approached the Gaddafi stadium were not ordinary terrorists, but highly trained.” [View article]

Mexican Drug Cartels ‘on Par’ With Mexican Army (Washington Times) “The U.S. Defense Department thinks Mexico’s two most deadly drug cartels together have fielded more than 100,000 foot soldiers—an army that rivals Mexico’s armed forces” [an “army of about 130,000”] “and threatens to turn the country into a narco-state,” reports the Washington Times. (See the Jan. 16 newsletter.) [View article]

Zimbabwe Unable to Track Tuberculosis (AllAfrica) “Zimbabwe’s crumbling health system makes it almost impossible to detect and treat tuberculosis (TB), doctors say,” according to AllAfrica. “As a result, they suspect [that] the country has large numbers of unidentified cases of multi-drug resistant” and “extensively drug resistant” TB. An “international humanitarian relief organisation, Médicins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Zimbabwe has the public health system of a country at war.” [View article]

Venezuela Demands Extradition of ‘Terrorist’ Posada (Havana Prensa Latina) “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reiterated [on Feb. 27] to the United States the extradition request of terrorist Luis Posada Carriles,” reports the Latin American News Agency. (See the May 11, 2007, newsletter.) “… Chavez stated that US President Barack Obama must deliver Posada Carriles, fugitive from the Venezuelan justice and responsible for the explosion in mid air of a Cuban airplane in 1976 that killed 73 people.” [View article]

Pakistanis in Tribal Areas Favor Drone Attacks, Says Survey (Karachi, Pakistan, International News) A survey by the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy done in Pakistan’s tribal areas found that “over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants,” reports the International News. “A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.” (See last week’s newsletter.) Those surveyed “said most of the attacks had hit their targets, which include Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban (Pakhtun and Punjabis) and training camps of the terrorists.” [View article]

U.S. Combat Mission in Iraq Ends August 31, 2010 “By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end,” President Obama stated on February 27. He acknowledged that “Iraq is not yet secure,” but he said that “we will leave the Iraqi people with a hard-earned opportunity to live a better life.” [View White House blog]

Photo courtesy of Steve Dunham

Arabs Should Stand Up to Iran, Says Top Saudi Diplomat (MSNBC) “Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat”—Prince Saud al-Faisal—“urged Arabs on Tuesday to stand up to Iran’s ambitions in the region, including its nuclear program,” reports the Associated Press. “… Saud stressed that resolution of disputes among Arabs depended on ‘a unified and a joint vision’ in dealing with the ‘Iranian challenge in regard to the Arabian Gulf security and the nuclear issue.’” [View article]

United Nations News

Sudan’s Bashir Indicted for War Crimes (AllAfrica) The International Criminal Court on Wednesday issued a warrant “for the arrest of President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising out of the war in Darfur,” reports AllAfrica. “… forces backed by the Sudanese government had been guilty of ‘murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property.’… Bashir becomes the first sitting head of state to be indicted by the [court] for war crimes and crimes against humanity.” Apparently in response to the indictment, Sudan’s government this week “revoked the licences of British-based Oxfam International, the Dutch branch of Medicines sans Frontiers and the” America-based International Rescue Committee, barring them “from operating in war-torn Darfur as well as in the north and eastern regions of the country,” AllAfrica reported in another article. [View indictment article] [View relief article]

National News

Foreign Science Students Face Visa Troubles (New York Times) American “universities and scientific organizations … say they have heard increasing complaints of visa delays … The issue matters because American universities rely on foreign students to fill slots in graduate and postdoctoral science and engineering programs,” reports the New York Times. “… the National Academy of Sciences and several dozen other scientific and academic organizations” met in January to discuss the problem. According to the academy’s report Beyond “Fortress America,” “universities around the world now have the research equipment and infrastructure to compete with their American counterparts. When the United States puts up barriers, the report said, ‘foreign universities are well positioned to extend competing offers.’” [View article] [View report]

DVD Piracy Linked to Terrorism, Says Rand (United Press International) “Organized criminal groups are increasingly pirating movies and using the funds to support terrorism, a study from U.S.-based think tank Rand Corp. said,” reports United Press International. The study suggested “that organized criminal groups are increasingly turning to the lucrative and largely unprosecuted street sales of pirated movies as a new revenue source … The research [was] supported by a grant from the Motion Picture Association.” There have been “several cases of criminal groups pirating movies and using some of the funds to support terrorism, including activities by the Irish Republican Army and Hezbollah.” [View article]

Chicago Man Arrested for Allegedly Targeting Obama With HIV-Infected Blood (Fox News) “An Ethiopian refugee” in Chicago was “arrested for allegedly sending Obama and his staff envelopes containing HIV-infected blood, in the hopes of killing or harming them,” reports Fox News. “In the weeks leading up to Obama’s inauguration, Saad Hussein … sent an envelope addressed to ‘Barack Obama’ to offices of the Illinois government in Springfield, Ill.” [View article]

‘Enemy Combatant’ al-Marri Indicted (Washington Times) “The final ‘enemy combatant’ held by the U.S. military on American soil was indicted [on Feb. 27] in criminal court, marking a stunning departure from the way the Bush administration typically handled terrorism cases,” reports the Washington Times. (See last week’s newsletter.) “Ali al-Marri was charged in a federal indictment with two counts of providing material support to terrorists. The indictment contains no specific allegations, but signifies that Mr. al-Marri will be transferred from a military facility to a federal prison. Mr. al-Marri’s lawyers will then be able to argue that he be released on bail, though a judge can order him held pending trial.” [View article]

Risks of Relying on ‘Chatter’ (Time) Chatter—“anything from secretly intercepted telephone calls and e-mails to the volume of communications traffic at a particular time over a particular line”—“usually makes sense only in context,” reports Time. “… America’s 16 intelligence agencies by and large consider chatter the most reliable intelligence there is.” But “the risk of misinterpretation or missing a vital piece of information is enormous.” [View article]

Immobilization Strobes Become Secret (Wired) “Last year, military-funded researchers were eager to talk about their new generation of non-lethal strobelight weapons,” writes Wired “Danger Room” blogger David Hambling. “The most ambitious project is the” xenon-based searchlight “built by Peak Beam Systems for the U.S. Army” and “fitted to a small unmanned helicopter.” Another “was the LED Incapacitator being developed by Intelligent Optical Systems for the Department of Homeland Security. This is a flashlight-sized device for use by security and police forces, using a special combination of flashing frequencies.” Details of the testing are no longer being discussed publicly. But “outside medical and non-lethal weapon researchers remain resolutely unconvinced that strobe lights can have much of an effect.” [View blog]

Wilders Screens Fitna in U.S. Senate (American Spectator; Canada National Post) “Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian/filmmaker who is facing prosecution in the Netherlands and constant death threats for his criticism of Islam, … was denied entry to the United Kingdom” last month but on February 26 “screened his film [Fitna] in the U.S. Senate at the invitation of Sen. Jon Kyl,” writes Philip Klein in his American Spectator blog. Fitna “shows passages excerpted from the Koran, and intercuts them with hateful sermons from Imams and images of terrorist acts committed by Islamic extremists.” (See the April 4, 2008, newsletter.) “The hate-charge against Wilders has elevated [his] Party for Freedom to third place in Dutch polls,” writes David Frum in the National Post. [View Spectator blog] [View National Post commentary]

DHS News

Obama Names New FEMA Chief (Reuters AlertNet) President Obama has “picked Craig Fugate, the top emergency response official in Florida,” to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency, reports Reuters. “Fugate coordinated some 23 declared state emergencies in Florida, including four major hurricanes in 2004 and four in 2005.” [View article]

Domestic Nuclear Detection Office Needs Better Planning, Says GAO The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office “is still in the early stages of program development, and has not clearly developed long term plans, with costs and time frames, for achieving its goal of closing” some “critical gaps and vulnerabilities in combating nuclear smuggling … by expanding radiological and nuclear detection capabilities,” reports the Government Accountability Office. “… field evaluations to test radiation detection equipment are still not complete and” the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office and Customs and Border Protection “may not have all radiation detection equipment in place until 2012.” [View GAO summary]

ICE Provides Inconsistent Health Care for Detainees, Says GAO Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “organizational structure for providing health care to detainees is not uniform across facilities,” reports the Government Accountability office. “In fiscal year 2007, 21 … facilities” staffed by the Division of Immigration Health Services “provided or arranged for health care for about 53 percent of the average daily population of detainees, while 508” Intergovernmental Service Agreement “facilities—state and local jails under contract with” Immigration and Customs Enforcement—“provided or arranged for health care for the remaining detainees—about 47 percent of the population.” [View GAO summary]

Better Controls Needed Over State and Local Enforcement of Federal Immigration Laws, Says GAO It is difficult for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “ensure that the program [authorized by Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act] is operating as intended,” reports the Government Accountability Office. “… the objective of the program is to address serious crime, such as narcotics smuggling committed by removable aliens”; however, some program participants are using the authority “contrary to the objective of the program.” (See the Statistics of the Week.) [View GAO summary]

Kootenai Tribe Will Get First Enhanced Tribal Card The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have signed a memorandum of agreement to develop the first Enhanced Tribal Card. It will enable tribe members to establish their identity, tribal membership, and U.S. or Canadian citizenship and will be acceptable for entering the United States by land or sea under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. [View press release]

Other Federal News

Justice Dept. Releases Bush Administration Memos on Domestic Counter-Terrorism (Washington Post) “Internal Bush administration documents released for the first time by the Justice Department” on Monday conferred “broad powers on the president that the Justice Department later deemed flawed and ordered withdrawn,” reports the Washington Post. Several memos approved “the military’s search, detention or trial of civilians in the United States without congressional input … While the Bush administration had previously acknowledged rescinding two of those memos—authorizing the infliction of pain and suffering on detainees and claiming unquestioned authority to interrogate suspects outside the United States—the government’s eventual repudiation or rewrite of the eight other early legal memos was secret until now.” [View article] [View all Bush memos] [View repudiation memo (534KB PDF)]

CIA Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations (New York Times) “The government on Monday revealed for the first time the extent of the destruction of videotapes in 2005 by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that agency officers destroyed 92 videotapes documenting the harsh interrogations of two Qaeda suspects in C.I.A. detention,” reports the New York Times. “The disclosure came in a letter filed by federal prosecutors investigating the destruction of the tapes in November 2005. It had been previously known that officials of the agency had destroyed hundreds of hours of videotaped interrogations, but the documents filed Monday reveal the number of tapes.” [View article]

Los Alamos Lab Has Problems With Plutonium Control but Gets Performance Bonus (Government Executive) “The Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration said [that] inaccurate inventory records at the lab’s plutonium research, development and processing facility raised doubts about the lab’s ability to ‘deter and detect theft and diversion of special nuclear material,’” reports Government Executive. “… Nonetheless, Energy awarded the Los Alamos National Security LLC, the contractor that runs the lab for the government, a performance bonus of $1.4 million last year.” The lab has suffered recurring management problems (see the Feb. 13 newsletter). [View article]

Northern Command Wants More Tunnel-Detection Technology on U.S.-Mexican Border (Federal Computer Week) “More tunnel detection technology and information sharing could help stop smugglers who … have built dozens of cross-border tunnels for illegal entry into the United States,” says U.S. Northern Command, according to Federal Computer Week. “… The command warned that the tunnels could become a prime entry point for threats and recommended increased use of tunnel detection technologies as well as focused intelligence gathering and information sharing to counteract the problem.” [View article]

GAO Cites Lessons From Hurricanes Ike and Gustav The Government Accountability Office has reported on lessons from the recovery following Hurricanes Ike and Gustav. It recommends “creating a clear, implementable, and timely recovery plan,” “providing financial and technical capacity” for jurisdictions “to implement federal disaster programs,” “implementing business recovery strategies,” and “adopting a comprehensive approach toward combating fraud, waste, and abuse.” [View GAO summary]

State and Local News

Ohio Man Gets 20 Years for Supporting Terrorists Christopher Paul, alias Abdul Malek or Paul Kenyatta Laws, “was sentenced to 20 years in prison” last week “for conspiring with others to use a weapon of mass destruction, namely explosive devices, against targets in Europe and the United States,” according to the Justice Department. After joining al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, he returned to Ohio and began recruiting a jihadist group. He also taught “an Islamic terror cell in Germany … to construct bombs, car bombs, and similar devices.” [View press release]

Judge Denies Appeal by Fort Dix Plotters (Newark, NJ, Star-Ledger) “A federal judge in Camden [yesterday] rejected arguments from defense lawyers asking to overturn the convictions of five men found guilty of plotting to attack Fort Dix [NJ],” reports the Star-Ledger. “The five men, immigrants from Albania, Turkey and Jordan, were convicted in December and face life in prison.” [View article]

Some Stimulus Funds Will Flow to U.S. Borders (San Antonio Express-News) “A small but significant chunk of the economic stimulus bill will be spent on the nation’s borders, including $720 million to upgrade land ports, $160 million for Customs and Border Protection inspection systems and radios, and $100 million for expedited development of border barrier technology,” reports the Express-News. “There’s another $10 million to prevent gunrunning to Mexico.” [View article]

Internet Voice Communications Create Interoperability in North Carolina and Virginia (Government Technology) Local law enforcement “agencies in Virginia and North Carolina are working to implement a permanent” solution based on voice-over-Internet protocol “that would link” Internet Protocol, non–Internet Protocol, “and radio networks inside one system,” reports Government Technology. “This would allow officers to talk across jurisdictional lines without ditching the equipment they’ve used for years.” [View article]

Private-Sector News

Scrapped FEMA Trailers Reenter Housing Market (MSNBC) “More than two dozen” of the “travel trailers and mobile homes” purchased by the Federal Emergency Management Agency as emergency housing and later scrapped because they contained high levels of formaldehyde “have turned up in recent weeks at mobile home parks in Missouri and Georgia,” reports MSNBC. The trailers were purchased by the parks’ owner, “KDM Development Corp. of Pittsford, N.Y.,” which paid far more than the scrap value. “So far, 348 mobile homes and about 750 travel trailers have been auctioned” by the General Services Administration. “The word ‘scrap’ is prominent on all sales information and documentation provided to purchasers, and the terms clearly indicate that the units are ‘not intended for habitation.’” [View article]

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. Crisis Leadership for Local Officials (March 14-15, Washington, DC; May 8-9, Chicago; July 13-14, Mobile, AL; September 21-22, Bismarck, ND) The National League of Cities, with a grant from DHS and in cooperation with the International City/County Management Association, offers this in-depth crisis management training for elected and appointed municipal officials who are members of the National League of Cities, have taken IS 700–IS 100, and are familiar with their local emergency operations plan. The seminar will educate them about their role in emergency management and support the National Preparedness Goal of expanded regional collaboration, strengthening information sharing and collaboration, and interoperability communications. [View event website]

New Upcoming Events (After four weeks, events are moved to the Upcoming Events page) Combined Joint Operations From the Sea Maritime Security Conference (March 31–April 2; Sorrento, Italy) The theme of this year’s Combined Joint Operations From the Sea Center of Excellence conference is “Delivering Maritime Security in Global Partnership: Improving Collective Capabilities.” It will highlight developments in regional maritime security partnerships around the world and focus on the information-sharing standardization initiatives under way. [View event website] Defense Industrial Base Critical Infrastructure Protection Conference & Technology Exhibition (March 31–April 3; San Antonio, TX) This year’s theme is sector resiliency, providing defense industrial base critical infrastructure and key resources owners and operators (small business through major corporations), their subcontractors, vendors, and other security partners with insightful information for implementing the critical infrastructure and national preparedness-resiliency concept with sustainable results. The conference will bring together national and local experts and practitioners to discuss the full spectrum of natural and man-made events and the impact those events have on the government and commercial communities. [View event website] Fifth World Congress on Chemical, Biological and Radiological Terrorism (April 5-10; Dubrovnik, Croatia) This symposium will explore the scientific, medical, and policy aspects as well as the effects of terrorism on the community and the individual and on each layer of infrastructure and each echelon of government, along with a look at proliferation. [View event website] (April 6-8; McLean, VA) The theme of this year’s conference is “Security 360—Emerging Threats, Practical Solutions.” It will address terrorism, cybercrime, counterintelligence, information security, operations security, security awareness, economic espionage, insider threats, and information assurance. [View event website] Law Enforcement Intelligence Units Training Conference (April 20-24; Las Vegas) The theme of this year’s conference is “Criminal Intelligence: Improving the Odds.” Training topics include legal issues, domestic and international terrorism, analytic writing and presentation, data mining, open-source research and analysis, and critical thinking. [View event website] (June 21-24; Toronto) This conference brings together experts, practitioners, certifying bodies, and service and product suppliers in emergency management, business continuity, and other disaster management disciplines. [View event website] National Conference on Community Preparedness (Aug. 9-12; Arlington, Virginia) This year’s theme is “The Power of Citizen Corps.” The conference is open to all who are interested in making their communities safer, stronger, and better prepared for all types of hazards. [View event website]

Calls for Papers Contingency Planning & Management East 2009 (October 28-30; Orlando, FL) This training conference on business continuity, security, and emergency management is seeking faculty members. Desired topics include standards, private- and public-sector collaboration, physical and IT security, risk, loss prevention, evacuation, and recovery. The deadline for submissions is April 30. [View call for papers]