• Explosive devices found in New Jersey train station

    An explosive device found in a backpack near the Elizabeth, New Jersey train station exploded as a bomb squad robot tried to disarm it. The bag was discovered in a trash can at 8:30 p.m. Sunday. The blast in Manhattan, and the devices which were found in Manhattan and New Jersey before they exploded, were preceded on the same Sunday by an explosion which went off near a Marine Corps charity run in New Jersey, and the attack by a man who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall.

  • Tracking low-flying unmanned aerial systems in cities

    Airspace for the flying public today is perpetually congested yet remarkably safe, thanks in no small part to a well-established air traffic control system that tracks, guides, and continuously monitors thousands of flights a day. When it comes to small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) such as commercial quadcopters, however, no such comprehensive tracking system exists. And as off-the-shelf UAS become less expensive, easier to fly, and more adaptable for terrorist or military purposes, U.S. forces will increasingly be challenged by the need to quickly detect and identify such craft — especially in urban areas, where sight lines are limited and many objects may be moving at similar speeds.

  • What causes mass panic in emergency situations?

    In emergency situations such as terrorist attacks, natural catastrophes, and fires, there is always a risk of mass panic leading to deadly crowd disasters. But what causes mass panic and where are the danger zones? Because these questions are difficult to study in the real world, researchers exposed experiment participants to an emergency in a three-dimensional virtual environment.

  • Somalia: Al Shabaab weakened but not defeated

    Efforts to weaken the al Qaeda-linked terrorist group al Shabaab in Somalia have had some success over the past five years, but the U.S. campaign there is now in jeopardy, according to a new study. Al Shabaab may resurge if urgent steps are not taken to address the political, economic, and governance challenges at the heart of the conflict, researchers say.

  • Disaster communications: Lessons from 9/11

    What we and the other responders learned on 9/11, under the pressure of a disaster of incredible scale, scope and urgency – not to mention the international media spotlight – went on to spark major changes in U.S. emergency response communication. By ensuring that – no matter what happens – we can communicate with each other, the emergency response community keeps the memory of 9/11 alive in our own way every single day.

  • Terrorist attacks are more likely to succeed if there are more plot participants

    An examination of the relationship between success of terrorist plots and the number of participants and preparatory acts, and the length of the planning process, shows that the more people involved in planning a terrorist attack in the United States, the more likely it is to be successful. The greater the number of preparatory acts required, however, the greater the probability for failure.

  • Linking terrorism with mental illness reinforces stigma, impedes prevention efforts

    An “automatic assumption” to link terrorist acts with mental illness unfairly stigmatizes the millions of people with mental health problems and impedes prevention efforts, psychiatry experts warn. They explain that terrorist groups and networks seem to avoid recruiting people with mental health problems, “probably because they share some of the same stigmatized views as the rest of society and see people with mental health conditions as unreliable, difficult to train, and a security threat.”

  • Case study offers insights for more effective countering violent extremism (CVE) campaigns

    New research offers insights into the psychological motives and mechanisms that radicalize a person to commit violence. The new study takes a detailed look at Momin Khawaja, a convicted terrorist who was arrested in 2004 in connection to a U.K. bomb plot, and offers some possible implications for countering violent extremism (CVE). The researchers argue that in addition to fitting a “caring-compelled” profile of lone-actor terrorists, Khawaja is an early example of a Western foreign fighter.

  • U.S. destroys large ISIS chemical weapons manufacturing facility

    The U.S. on Monday destroyed an ISIS chemical manufacturing facility in Iraq, which posed a “significant chemical [weapons] threat.” Footage of Monday air strikes showed twelve aircraft hitting a sprawling industrial site in Mosul. The hits were followed by huge explosions in multiple buildings and storage facilities. The buildings were quickly engulfed by flames, and heavy plumes of dark smoke rose into the air. USAF spokesman said that fifty individual targets were hit in the attack.

  • U.S. spending on war on terror since 9/11 to reach $4.79 trillion in 2017

    In 2002, Lawrence Lindsey, George W. Bush’s chief economic adviser, estimated that the cost of waging war in Iraq would not exceed $200 billion. As the fifteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approach, the United States has spent or taken on obligations to spend more than $3.6 trillion in current dollars on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria and on the Department of Homeland Security. The total expenditure for the wars in the Middle East and the war on terror rises to $4.79 trillion when dedicated war spending for the coming fiscal year is added in, along with the nearly $32 billion requested for the Department of Homeland Security for 2017.

  • Command under attack: What we’ve learned since 9/11 about managing crises

    Major disasters pose difficult challenges for responders on the ground and for higher-level officials trying to direct operations. Some events are novel because of their scale, while others involve challenges that no one may ever have envisioned. Communities need to bring their response agencies together regularly to plan and practice. This can develop and maintain knowledge and relationships that will enable them to work together effectively under the high stress of a future attack or disaster. Any community can do this, but many have not. Where training and practice have taken place, these tools have worked. They can be improved, but the most important priority is getting more communities to practice using them more regularly, before the next disaster. One important way this nation can honor the victims of 9/11 is by using these lessons to create the conditions for even better coordination in future events.

  • ISIS instructs soccer referees in Syria to enforce Sharia laws, not FIFA rules

    ISIS has outlawed soccer referees in its Syrian strongholds because they implement the rule set by FIFA (the world governing soccer federation) “in violation of the commands of Allah.” Local ISIS commanders had drawn up a list of Sharia-inspired soccer rules detailing, for example, how players who were injured during a game can be compensated by their opponents.

  • 15,000 French citizens are in the process of being radicalized: French PM

    France’s prime minister Manuel Valls warned on Sunday that some 15,000 French citizens could be in the process of being radicalized. His warning came a day after the police arrested a 15-year-old boy at his Paris home in order to thwart a planned weekend terrorist attack.

  • Hundreds of children under 10 in the U.K. were “at risk of extremism” last year

    In just one year, the U.K. government’s Channel de-radicalization program has received reports of more than 350 children under the age of 10 who were “at risk of extremism.” The Channel program earmarks such youngsters for mentoring by program’s specialists. In total, 4,611 people were referred to the program between June 2015 and June 2016 — a 75 percent increase compared with the previous year, when there were 2,632 referrals.

  • FARC rebels apologize for kidnapping 27,000 Colombians

    In a video recording released late Sunday, Colombia’s Marxist FARC rebels have apologized for the “great pain” they caused by kidnapping thousands of people and holding them for ransom to fund their 52-year war against successive Colombian governments. Official figures show that some 27,000 people were kidnapped between 1970 and 2010. In addition to kidnapping, the FARC used extortion and the drug trade to finance its campaign. On 24 August the leadership of the FARC igned a formal agreement with the Colombian government to put an end to South America’s longest war.