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House overwhelmingly approves "white list" of non-terrorists
Congress wants DHS to create a “white list” — a database of people who are not terrorists, but are routinely flagged at airports anyway
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MRAPs keep soldiers safe from mines, IEDs on battlefield
The Obama administration wants to send tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan; these troops will need protection from land mines and IEDs; Force Protection, a company producing Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MARP) vehicles, stands to benefit
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Accord reached on intensified campaign against Somali piracy
Nine countries around the Gulf of Aden sign an accord enhancing cooperation in the fight against piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden
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Ireland examines need for radioactive waste facility near Shannon
Terrorists may try to smuggle nuclear materials into the United States through Ireland; Irish government will build radioactive waste facility near Shannon airport in case radiological screening of aircraft bound for the United States discovers such material
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Bomb-proof concrete developed
Liverpool University researchers develop blast-resistant concrete; the Ultra High Performance Fiber Reinforced Concrete is able to absorb a thousand times more energy than conventional mixtures
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Antelopes as soldiers -- cont.
In Vietnam, the United States used Agent Orange to defoliate jungles and deny the Viet Cong cover; in northern Israel, the IDF uses antelopes to eat the foliage to deny Hezbollah fighters cover
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Fake Internet drugs risk lives, fund terrorism
Study finds that 62 percent of the prescription-only medicines offered on the Internet are fakes; some of the fake-drug schemes are operated by terrorist organizations as a means of raising funds
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Israel uses antelopes against Hezbollah
IDF deploys antelopes to Israel’s northern borders to clear the foliage which the military fears could function as cover for Hezbollah fighters
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Beyond fingerprints: The FBI's next generation database
New, mammoth database will include not only enhanced fingerprint capabilities, but also other forms of biometric identification like palm prints, iris scans, facial imaging, scars, marks, and tattoos — in one searchable system
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U.S. Border Protection agency to hire 11,000 in 2009
CBP launches National Career Day around the United States to announce CBP’s goal for hiring approximately 11,000 frontline and mission and operations support positions in 2009
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New car-stopper uses squids' tentacle-based approach
Looking for an answer to stop fleeing cars or suicide trucks hurtling toward their target, an Arizona company developed a tentacle-based device that ensnares the vehicle and brings it to a halt
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40 al-Qaeda terrorists dead after failed experiment with plague weapon
40 al-Qaeda members died after being exposed to the plague during a biological weapons test; test took place in cave hideouts in Tizi Ouzou province, 150 kilometres east of the Algerian capital Algiers
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ETA targets Spanish high-speed rail
After assassinating a high official involved in building the high-speed rail connecting three Basque cities to Madrid, ETA, the Basque separatists group, warns it will use terror to stop the project
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Israel kills Hamas's No. 3 leader
An Israel Air Force strike kills Hamas’s interior minister Said Siam and the head of Hamas security apparatus, Salah Abu Shreh
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U.K. military employs hovering droids in Afghanistan
Hovering petrol-powered prowler patrols to check Afghan ambush alleys so soldiers do not have to; device may be used by law enforcement in urban areas — and future systems may carry weapons
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The long view
Caliph Abu Unknown: Succession and Legitimacy in the Islamic State
Three days after the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State released a short message, announcing the new “emir of the Muslims” as Caliph Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi. Haroro J. Ingram and Craig Whiteside write that “The Islamic State’s leaders are confident the gambit will succeed because the replacement caliph was selected using a process first executed in 2006, and subsequently repeated in 2010 and again this year.”
London Bridge Attack: I Told Ministers We Were Treating Terrorist Prisoners with Jaw-Dropping Naivety. Did They Listen?
Usman Khan, a 28-year old terrorist who on Friday killed two people on the London Bridge before being killed by the police, served time in jail for “terrorist offenses” and was monitored by the British police. Ian Acheson, who, in 2016, at the request of then-Justice Minister Michael Gove, led a team of investigators who wrote a detailed and highly critical report about the way radicalized Islamist terrorists are managed in jail and after their release, writes: “What we found was so shockingly bad that I had to agree to the language in the original report being toned down. With hindsight, I’m not sure that was the right decision.”
London Bridge Attack Follows “Dumbing Down” of Freed Terrorist Scheme – Expert
The architect of the U.K. government program for moving convicted terrorists from prison into the community says the current system lacks the “legitimacy and credibility” required to rehabilitate extremists safely. His assessment follows the attack at London Bridge by convicted terrorist Usman Khan, who was out on license from prison when he killed Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, and injured three others during a meeting of the Cambridge University rehabilitation initiative Learning Together on 29 November.
Telegram: The Latest Safe Haven for White Supremacists
Telegram, the online social networking, may not be as popular in the U.S. as Twitter or Facebook, but with more than 200 million users, it has a significant audience. And it is gaining popularity. ADL reports that Telegram has become a popular online gathering place for the international white supremacist community and other extremist groups who have been displaced or banned from more popular sites.
How to Rehabilitate a Terrorist
The question of how best to rehabilitate terrorists is becoming more acute: As Islamic State’s “caliphate” collapsed, hundreds of fighters and fellow travelers returned to European countries, including Britain – and jails in England and Wales house a churning population of hundreds convicted of terrorist offenses. Keeping terrorists behind bars for too short a time is risky – but so is keeping them for much longer periods. Either way, inmates must be released eventually, writes The Economist. “If extra years behind bars are poorly funded and structured, they ‘risk making bad people worse,’ says Nick Hardwick, an ex-boss of the parole board.”
Blood and Brexit
The Troubles is the name given to the bloody war between Nationalists and Unionists in Northern Ireland, a war which began in the late 1960s and ended with the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. In a tiny country of a million and a half people, over three and a half thousand were killed in the Troubles. Almost fifty thousand were seriously injured. Nick Laird, a Northern Irish novelist and poet who experienced the inter-communal violence as a teenager, writes that unless care is taken, one of the consequences of Brexit might be the resumption of violence.
ISIS Is Experimenting with This New Blockchain Messaging App
The Islamic State has discovered blockchain. The technology which powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum promises to revolutionize almost all facets of society, from payment processing to online voting. David Gilbert writes that now ISIS is actively testing a blockchain-based messaging app that could provide everything it needs to thrive: secure, anonymous communication, a tamper-proof repository for beheading videos and other ISIS propaganda, and perhaps most ominously, the ability to transfer cryptocurrency anywhere in the world.
1. The Killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The 26 October 2019 killing in northwest Syria of ISIS (later: Islamic State) founder and leader Abu Bar al-Baghdadi by U.S. Special Forces brought deserved justice to a brutal terrorist leader, but his killing is not likely to have much of an effect on IS and its appetite for perpetrating acts of violence.
2. A New Era of Terrorism
Five years ago, when U.S. federal and state law enforcement agencies were asked to identify the most serious violent extremist threats they faced in their respective jurisdictions, they all cited far-right, anti-government extremists. Following far-right, white nationalist extremists on the list of threats the United States was facing, these law enforcement practitioners placed Salafi-Jihadi-inspired extremist violence; radical environmentalists; and racist, violent extremism. Law enforcement agencies in Western Europe reached similar conclusions.
ISIS Is Experimenting with This New Blockchain Messaging App
The Islamic State has discovered blockchain. The technology which powers cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum promises to revolutionize almost all facets of society, from payment processing to online voting. David Gilbert writes that now ISIS is actively testing a blockchain-based messaging app that could provide everything it needs to thrive: secure, anonymous communication, a tamper-proof repository for beheading videos and other ISIS propaganda, and perhaps most ominously, the ability to transfer cryptocurrency anywhere in the world.
1. The Killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
The 26 October 2019 killing in northwest Syria of ISIS (later: Islamic State) founder and leader Abu Bar al-Baghdadi by U.S. Special Forces brought deserved justice to a brutal terrorist leader, but his killing is not likely to have much of an effect on IS and its appetite for perpetrating acts of violence.
2. A New Era of Terrorism
Five years ago, when U.S. federal and state law enforcement agencies were asked to identify the most serious violent extremist threats they faced in their respective jurisdictions, they all cited far-right, anti-government extremists. Following far-right, white nationalist extremists on the list of threats the United States was facing, these law enforcement practitioners placed Salafi-Jihadi-inspired extremist violence; radical environmentalists; and racist, violent extremism. Law enforcement agencies in Western Europe reached similar conclusions.
3. The Emergence of Lone-Wolf Terrorism
Recent years saw the emergence of different foreign and now domestic extremist movements — whether motivated by Jihadi preaching or white nationalism — which have adopted and actively advocated via social media a strategy which encourages “lone wolves” to engage in individual acts of violence against a large number of designated enemies.