International News

Pakistanis Gain Against Taliban in Swat (New York Times; Reuters) “After months of televised Taliban cruelties, broken promises and suicide attacks … many Pakistanis are finally turning against the Taliban,” reports the New York Times. “The Pakistani army is gaining in its offensive against Islamic extremists in the Swat valley because public support for the operation is solidifying, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said,” according to Reuters. “… Pakistan launched an offensive to expel Taliban militants from Swat last month in a move welcomed by Western allies worried that the nuclear-armed country was sliding into chaos.… Pakistan has set up camps in the Mardan district for some of the 2.5 million people who fled the conflict zone northwest of the capital, Islamabad.” [View Times article] [View Reuters article]

Acid Attack on Crowd in Hong Kong (Fox News) “An unidentified assailant hurled acid in a busy Hong Kong shopping district, injuring 24 pedestrians including a [4-year-old] girl, police said Tuesday,” according to the Associated Press. “It was the third in a series of acid attacks that have hurt some 100 people.… On the same street last month, 30 people suffered burns when two plastic bottles filled with acid were thrown down into a crowd. Another 46 were injured in a similar attack in that neighborhood in December.” [View article]

Terrorists on Flight 447? (Sky News, UK; ABC News) “Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives” on May 31, reports Sky News. Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, “crashed in the mid-Atlantic en route to Paris during a violent storm. While it is certain there were computer malfunctions, terrorism has not been ruled out.” However, “French and U.S. government sources … told ABC News that no Islamic extremists were aboard flight 447.… [a] French news report” said “that it was possible that the two names on the manifest that matched two names on the terrorism watch list was a coincidence.” [View Sky News article] [View ABC News article]

WHO Declares Swine Flu Pandemic (BBC) The United Nations World Health Organization “has declared a global flu pandemic after holding an emergency meeting,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “… It means the swine flu virus is spreading in at least two regions of the world with rising cases being seen in the UK, Australia, Japan and Chile. The move does not necessarily mean the virus is causing more severe illness or more deaths.” Worldwide, there have been 21,940 cases with 125 deaths, reports WHO—up from 19,273 cases and 117 deaths as of last week. As of Wednesday, the United States had 13,217 confirmed and probable cases of swine flu and 27 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—up from 11,054 cases and 17 deaths as of last week. (See the Quote of the Week.) [View article] [View CDC page] [View WHO page]

Palau Takes Chinese Guantánamo Detainees (New York Times) “The United States has won an agreement to transfer up to 17 Chinese Muslims from the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to Palau, a sparsely populated archipelago in the North Pacific,” reports the New York Times. The detainees are “members of the Uighur ethnic group” (see the April 3 newsletter). [View article]

Nato Troops Strike Afghan Opium Production (Pakistan International News) “Hundreds of British and Afghan troops destroyed a major Taliban drugs hub in night raids in the southern province of Helmand, Afghanistan’s opium and heroin centre,” reports the International News. (See the Aug. 1, 2008, newsletter.) “… The raids were conducted over several days last week with backing from British and Canadian helicopters and US jets.” They destroyed tons of drugs and materials and ten facilities. [View article]

Iraqis Aren’t Buying U.S. Media Campaign (Washington Post) “U.S. military officials and contractors have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on billboards, pamphlets and TV and radio airtime in Iraq over the past six years to burnish the U.S. military’s image, marginalize extremists, promote democracy and foster reconciliation,” reports the Washington Post. “Some campaigns have been designed to encourage Iraqis to turn their backs on insurgent groups and cooperate with the U.S. military and Iraq’s security forces. Others have loftier themes: democratic values, sectarian reconciliation and national pride.… many Iraqis have grown dismissive of the flood of propaganda they know or assume comes from the U.S. government,” such as Baghdad Now, an Arabic-language newspaper: “‘The millions spent on this is wasted money,’ [said] Ziyad al-Aajeely, director of Iraq’s nonprofit Journalistic Freedom Observatory … Baghdad Now is not labeled as a U.S. military publication, although the military acknowledges it is produced by an Army psychological operations unit and distributed for free by soldiers.” [View article]

Real IRA Members Must Pay £1.6M in 1998 Bombing (BBC) “Real [Irish Republican Army] leader Michael McKevitt was responsible for the 1998 Omagh” bombing in Northern Ireland, found Judge Morgan of “the High Court in Belfast after a landmark civil case brought by some of the families of the victims of the atrocity,” reports the British Broadcasting Corporation. “Liam Campbell, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly were also found liable for the attack. Seamus McKenna was cleared. The 12 relatives were awarded more than £1.6m in damages … Morgan also found the dissident republican organisation the Real IRA liable for the bomb in which 29 people and two unborn babies were killed.” [View article]

National News

Dual-Use Technology Easy to Export Illegally, Says GAO “Terrorists and foreign governments regularly attempt to obtain sensitive dual-use and military technology from manufacturers and distributors within the United States,” but the Government Accountability Office found that “sensitive dual-use and military technology can be easily and legally purchased from manufacturers and distributors within the United States and illegally exported without detection,” despite controls by the State and Commerce departments. The GAO in a related report “called for the executive and legislative branches to conduct a fundamental reexamination of the current programs and processes” governing the export of critical technologies. [View dual-use tech GAO summary] [View critical tech GAO summary]

Safety Board Offers Transportation Disaster Courses (Metro Magazine) The National Transportation Safety Board in 2009 “is offering five sessions on transportation disaster assistance,” reports Metro Magazine. “One of the courses is geared toward transit professionals and emergency responders in the event of a transportation disaster. The Family Assistance course (TDA301) is scheduled for October and teaches transportation officials how to work with victims and their families.… Courses also instruct on how to take care of yourself if you are a responder to a disaster scene, how and why site visits are done, victim identification and jurisdiction issues.” Another resource is the Emergency Response and Preparedness Program (see the Website of the Week), “a joint program developed by [the American Public Transportation Association] and the U.S. Department of Transportation.” [View article] [View course schedule]

State and Local News

Gunman Shoots Two in Washington, DC, Holocaust Museum (Washington Times; USA Today) “An elderly man with virulent anti-Semitic views and a 1980s conviction for plotting to take government hostages opened fire Wednesday inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard before being wounded in a gunbattle,” reports the Washington Times. “The man [James von Brunn] … also is the author of Kill the Best Gentiles, a 200-page book denying the Holocaust and praising Hitler,” reports USA Today. [View Times article] [View USA Today article]

New York City Tests Dirty Bomb Detection (WPIX-TV, New York) On Tuesday, “a combination of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Defense, and the New York City Police Department staged [a] joint terrorism drill to primarily test the city’s response to stopping a dirty bomb from entering the city,” reports WPIX. “The massive exercise involved 400 FBI employees and an additional 300 NYPD personnel.… A low-grade radiation device was built for the test”; it had a radiation signature similar to a dirty bomb’s. [View article]

PATH photo

Georgia Man Convicted of Conspiracy to Support Terrorism Syed Haris Ahmed on Wednesday was found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He and his co-conspirators used the Internet to develop relationships and maintain contact with one another and with other supporters of violent jihad in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Pakistan, and elsewhere. [View press release]

More Maryland High Schools Teach Homeland Security (Los Angeles Times) Meade High School, like Joppatowne, also in Maryland (see the Dec. 14, 2007, newsletter), is “one of the first in the nation to offer a four-year course in domestic security,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “… the 90 ninth-graders who chose the new homeland security program this last school year focused on topics torn from the headlines: Islamic jihadism, nuclear arms, cyber-crime, domestic militias and the like.… After two years, the students can choose a related career track—like law, public service or engineering—to prepare for college or a job.” Two more Maryland high schools plan to start homeland security curricula this year. “About 320 colleges and universities have begun awarding graduate or postgraduate certificates or degrees in emergency management, bio-defense and other security-related fields.” [View article]

DHS News

DHS Security Clearance Process Needs Improvement, Says Inspector General (Federal Computer Week) “Senior officials should consolidate the databases used in the application process for security clearances at the Homeland Security Department,” according to Federal Computer Week, citing “a new report from DHS Inspector General Richard Skinner.… the DHS personnel security program could be improved by consolidating the personnel security intake process, standardizing personnel security policies and establishing better relationships among agencies.” [View article] [View report (6.6MB PDF)]

Homeland Security Advisory Council Gets 10 New Members On June 4, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano swore in 16 members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, 10 of them new. The council advises Napolitano. Among the members are Ruth David, president and CEO of Analytic Services, and Jeff Moss, founder and director of the Black Hat and Defcon computer hacker conferences. [View press release]

DHS Offers Stonegarden Grants to Border States and Puerto Rico Fiscal year 2009 Operation Stonegarden grants totaling $60 million are available for 13 border states and the Territory of Puerto Rico to help federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies jointly secure U.S. borders. The grants fund additional law enforcement personnel, overtime, travel, and other related costs. [View press release]

E-Verify Rule Postponed Again (NextGov) The Homeland Security Department has delayed “until September implementing a rule requiring federal contractors to verify that new hires are eligible to work in the United States, the fourth time the Obama administration has postponed the requirement,” reports NextGov. “… U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which manages E-Verify, said the delay will give the administration more time to examine the system and the requirement placed on contractors.” [View article]

Other Federal News

National Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy The strategy, announced June 5, aims to stem the flow of illegal drugs and their illicit proceeds across the Southwest border and reduce associated crime and violence in the region. The Director of National Drug Control Policy will oversee the implementation of the strategy to enhance intelligence capabilities; interdict drugs, drug proceeds, and weapons; prosecute all significant drug trafficking, money laundering, bulk currency, and weapons smuggling or trafficking cases; disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations; enhance counterdrug technologies; and enhance U.S.-Mexico joint counterdrug efforts. [View White House blog]

Private-Sector News

German Terrorism Insurer Boosted by Real Estate Crunch (Bloomberg) “Extremus Versicherungs–AG, the German government–backed insurer set up to cover terrorism-related claims following the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, expects premium income to rise this year as real estate companies seeking funding from banks are forced to buy more coverage,” reports Bloomberg. “‘While premiums have stabilized, we are clearly selling more policies,’ Chief Executive Officer Leo Zagel said.” [View article]

New Upcoming Events (Events are listed for four weeks; after that, they are still on the Upcoming Events page) CBRN Resilience 2009 (July 8-9; London) This conference will cover chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear incidents and such aspects as initial response, decontamination, restoration and recovery, and business continuity. [View event website] (July 30-31; Columbia, MO) This conference brings together K-12 and higher education officials and the first responder community to collectively discuss and learn about relevant safety and security issues, such as threat assessment considerations to avoid violence on school and college campuses, dealing with hyper-vigilance, and lessons learned from Israel. [View event website] Northern Border Highway Carrier Conference (August 19; Buffalo, NY) The conference will cover Free and Secure Trade, sealing, the Automated Commercial Environment and E-manifest, highway carrier minimum-security criteria, validation and revalidation of a highway carrier, activities of Partners in Protection and the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, and more topics specifically for northern border highway carriers. Attendance is limited to people representing highway carriers certified by the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism. [View event website] 2009 Homeland Security Conference (August 31–September 4; Monterey, CA) The theme of the third annual conference and showcase is “mission integration.” Planned panel topics include “Mission Integration Best Practices,” “DHS National Mission Planning and Operations Centers,” “DHS State and Local Mission Planning and Operations Centers,” “Intel/Information Sharing,” and “Border Security.” [View event website] (September 22-24; Tampa, FL) Supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Security Agency, the conference and expo focus on biometric technologies for homeland security, identity management, border crossing, electronic commerce, and other applications in 2½ days of presentations, seminars, and panel discussions with the participation of internationally recognized experts in biometric technologies, system and application developers, information technology business strategists, and government and commercial officers. [View event website]