• First response

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), bombing survivors have the highest incidence of injury to soft tissue and musculoskeletal systems with the most extreme injury being traumatic amputation, which is reported in up to 3 percent of cases. The Boston Marathon bombings resulted in three fatalities and 264 casualties, with the most severe injuries involving lower extremities of those located closest to the blasts. Blast injuries within civilian populations are rare in the United States, so when they do occur they challenge the medical community rapidly to respond to concurrent evaluation and treatment of many victims.

  • Counterterrorism

    The police at the city of Lombard, Illinois, has cancelled a class on counterterrorism after the Chicago branch of a Muslim advocacy group complained that the Florida-based instructor and his teachings were blatantly anti-Muslim. The instructor has faced similar criticism in Florida. The course was to be taught through the North East Multi-Regional Training group, which trains Illinois police and corrections employees. The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board said it was reviewing the course – titled “Islamic Awareness as a Counter-Terrorist Strategy” – and the materials used in it. The board said that instructor’s qualifications will also be reviewed.

  • Terrorism

    Since he escaped a Yemeni jail in 2006, Nasir al-Wuhayshi, 36, has turned Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) into the most effective component of a more decentralized al Qaeda. The Obama administration has continued, and expanded, the Bush administration’s war on al Qaeda central, destroying the organization’s capabilities and reducing its effectiveness to a point where the remnants of al Qaeda core in Pakistan no longer exercise operational control over terrorist activities carried out in the name of the organization. This has allowed franchise terror outfits to emerge in the Middle East and North and West Africa – and of these largely autonomous organizations, AQAP, under al-Wuhayshi’s leadership, has proven itself the most innovative and technically savvy.

  • Muslim Americans

    The American Muslim Political Action Committee (AMPAC) is organizing what it hopes would be a mass demonstration by American Muslims on 11 September in Washington, D.C. Critics called the demonstration ill-timed, if not downright offensive. Mainstream Muslim American groups describe group members as virulently anti-Semitic “truthers” who question al Qaeda’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. There is little chance a million people would show up for the march: AMPAC, based in Kansas City, Missouri, has just 57 supporters signed up for the 11 September event on Facebook.

  • Egypt

    The Egyptian government said 525 were killed, including 43 police officers, during clashes Wednesday between Egyptian security forces and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood as the Egyptian police and army moved to clear two sit-in camps in which supporters of Mohammen Morsi had been barricading. The Egyptian government has declared a month-long state of emergency throughout the country. The main features of the state of emergency include a curfew which would run from 7:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. in eleven of Egypt’s twenty-seven provinces, including Suez, heavy presence of military units in cities and towns, and restrictions on movement and travel.

  • Egypt

    About 150 Egyptians were killed during the early hours of Wednesday in clashes between Egyptian security forces and armed supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood as the Egyptian police and army moved to clear two sit-in camps in which supporters of Mohammen Morsi had been barricading. Well-organized Brotherhood supporters set police stations and government building on fire in several cities. Brotherhood followers also burned down the Alexandria public library and five churches. The Egyptian government has declared a month-long state of emergency throughout the country. The main features of the state of emergency include a curfew which would run from 7:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. in eleven of Egypt’s twenty-seven provinces, including Suez, heavy presence of military units in cities and towns, and restrictions on movement and travel.

  • Egypt

    About 150 Egyptians were killed during the early hours of Wednesday in clashes between Egyptian security forces and armed supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood as the Egyptian police and army moved to clear two sit-in camps in which supporters of Mohammen Morsi had been barricading. Well-organized Brotherhood supporters set police stations and government building on fire in several cities. Brotherhood followers also burned down the Alexandria public library and five churches. The Egyptian government has declared a month-long state of emergency throughout the country. The main features of the state of emergency include a curfew which would run from 7:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. in eleven of Egypt’s twenty-seven provinces, including Suez, heavy presence of military units in cities and towns, and restrictions on movement and travel.

  • Bioterrorism

    Twelve years after the fall 2001 anthrax attacks, and six years after the 2007 FBI’s determination that Bruce Ivins, a top government anthrax researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the perpetrator of the attacks (Ivins died in 2008 of apparent suicide), lawmakers and USAMRIID scientists insist that the FBI’s conclusions are not supported by scientific evidence – indeed, that some basic scientific facts make the Bureau’s conclusions untenable.

  • Nuclear terrorism

    Some U.S. nuclear facilities are inadequately protected against theft of weapons-grade materials and sabotage by terrorists. Terrorist attacks on vulnerable nuclear facilities could trigger a meltdown or lead to a diversion of bomb-grade uranium. The danger is far from hypothetical since the 9/11 hijackers are known to have considered flying a passenger jet into a U.S. nuclear reactor before they settled on the World Trade Center as their main terror target.

  • Terrorism

    The growing intelligence cooperation between Egypt and Israel was in evidence early Friday when the Israel Air Force (IAF), in coordination with the Egyptian military, used drone strikes to destroy ready-to-launch rockets and rocket launchers on Egyptian territory, killing five Egyptian militants in the process. The rockets were deployed on Thursday in a desert area near the town of Rafah, and were discovered by an Egyptian surveillance fly-over. On Saturday, the Egyptian air force attacked militant positions in the area, killing twelve Islamists.

  • Terrorism

    The attacks on Islamist targets in northern Sinai — by Israel on Friday and by Egypt on Saturday — are but the latest evidence of a growing problem of militancy and terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula, a vast, hard-to-control, lightly populated area consisting of steep mountain ranges and a forbidding desert. The growing al Qaeda presence in the area, the continuing influence of Iranian arms smuggling networks, and the influx of foreign Jihadists make the deteriorating security situation in the peninsula a threat both to Israel and to Egypt. The stipulations of the 1982 Egypt-Israel peace treaty complicate to fight against the militants.

  • Terrorism

    The growing intelligence cooperation between Egypt and Israel was in evidence earlier today (Friday) when the Israel Air Force (IAF), in coordination with the Egyptian military, used drone strikes to destroy ready-to-launch rockets and rocket launchers on Egyptian territory, killing five Egyptian militants in the process. The rockets were deployed on Thursday in a desert area near the town  of Rafah, and were discovered by an Egyptian surveillance fly-over.

  • Terrorism

    Responding to intelligence information about planned terrorist attacks by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), information which led to the closure of twenty-two U.S. embassies in the Middle East and North Africa and a travel warning issued by the Department of State, the Obama administration has launched a series of drone strikes in Yemen over the past ten days.

  • Terrorism

    The government told U.S. District Judge John Koeltl that he does not have the authority to release an ailing disbarred civil rights lawyer who is currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for allowing a imprisoned Egyptian sheik to communicate with his followers. Lynne Stewart, 73, is suffering a recurrence of her breast cancer, but the government says that she is not telling the truth when she says she has only eighteen months to live.

  • Terrorism

    Eleven months after the attack, U.S. federal officials have filed the first charges in the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya on 11 September 2012. Among those charged is Ahmed Abu Khattala, a prominent Libyan militia leader. Others named as defendants were not disclosed. The charges initially were sought in New York months ago, and are still under seal. Attorney General Eric Holder had promised congressional leaders earlier this year that the Justice Department would soon publicize the action the Justice Department would be taking.

  • Terrorism

    Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram, appears to have been deposed by more moderate members of the Islamic group. The change of leadership follows a cease-fire agreement between the Islamic organization and the Nigerian government, reached in talks on 25-26 June. Violence has continued however, and Boko Haram, which since 2009 has been conducting an increasingly violent campaign against the Nigerian government and Western influence in the country, may split as more radical elements decide to create a new militia.

  • Terrorism

    Interpol, in a statement issued from the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France, urged law enforcement agencies around the world to show “increased vigilance,” following prison breakouts over the past nine month in nine countries, including Iraq (22 July), Libya (27 July), and Pakistan (31 July). More than 2,500 terrorists have escaped in these nine prison breakouts.

  • Domestic terrorism

    An FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force has launched an investigating after an animal rights group announced on its Web site that its members cut open fencing around a and releasing more than a dozen pheasants from the aviary at Ash Grove Pheasant Farm and Orchard in Riverside, California. The incident took place 22 July.

  • Terrorism

    The U.S. State Department issued a travel alert Friday warning al Qaeda may launch attacks in the Middle East, North Africa, and several other places. The department also closed twenty-one embassies and consulates this weekend. “Current information suggests that Al Qaeda and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks both in the region and beyond, and that they may focus efforts to conduct attacks in the period between now and the end of August,” the State Department said in a statement.

  • Terrorism

    A Chicago attorney representing a teenager facing terrorism charges raised concerns during a pre-trial hearing about whether expanded surveillance methods were used in her client’s case. This is the second time in less than a month that the issue of expanded surveillance methods was brought up in a Chicago terrorism case.