Terrorism and counterterrorism

  • FBI increasingly concerned with “sovereign citizen” movement

    Over the past decade, the FBI has grown increasingly concerned with the “sovereign citizen” movement; since 2000, sovereign citizens have killed six police officers and violent battles with law enforcement agents are on the rise; the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center classified the movement as a major threat alongside Islamic extremism

  • The challenge of fighting Lashkar-e-Toiba

    In her debut guest column, Bidisha Biswas, an associate professor of political science at Western Washington University, explores the threat that Lashkar-e-Toiba poses to the United States as well as India and Pakistan and what can be done to stop the extremist group

  • SOUTHCOM deploys radar that sees through foliage, rain, darkness, and dust storms

    Lockheed Martin’s TRACER is a light weight, low-frequency synthetic-aperture radar that can peer through foliage, rain, darkness, dust storms, or atmospheric haze to provide real-time, high-quality tactical ground imagery; U.S. Southern Command has just deployed the penetrating radar to support the Command’s counter-terrorism and humanitarian assistance missions, and disaster relief operations

  • Police wary of suicide attempts at 9/11 memorial

    Aside from the threat of terrorism, the New York City Police Department worries about the risks of suicide at the national 9/11 memorial; The memorial is focused around two sunken granite pools where the World Trade Center towers once stood; some fear that visitors, so overcome by grief, may attempt to commit suicide by throwing themselves into the pools

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  • Thwarting the botulinum neurotoxin

    The botulinum neurotoxin is the most poisonous substance known to man, causing botulism; it can be used by terrorists for deadly attacks; the toxin paralyzes muscle cells by disrupting their connections with the nerves that tell them how and when to move

  • DHS secretary expresses “concerns” over Iranian threats

    Following recent attacks on Israeli officials overseas thought to be perpetrated by Iran and its proxies, DHS secretary Janet Napolitano expressed her concern over potential threats from Iran to domestic targets; speaking before a House panel, Fox Newsreported, Napolitano said the potential for an Iranian attack is “a situation that bears watching.”

  • U.S. places terror sanctions on Iranian spy ministry

    On Thursday the U.S. Treasury Department announced that it had placed sanctions on Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security, accusing it of supporting terrorism, committing human rights abuses against Iranians, and participating in the ongoing suppression of protests in Syria

  • Court: Malaysian woman can sue DHS over No-Fly List

    A U.S. appeals court has cleared the way for a Malaysian woman to file a lawsuit against DHS and the FBI for mistakenly placing her on the No-Fly List and arresting her at San Francisco International Airport in 2005; Rahinah Ibrahim, who has never been accused of any crimes, was arrested and placed in a holding cell for two hours

  • New crime-fighting methods to deter, nab terrorists

    The goal of an emerging field in forensics — chemical forensics — is to use the technology of chemistry to trace weaponized toxic substances and related materials back to their source

  • Legal expert: NDAA does not comply with Constitution

    Shayana Kadidal, the senior managing attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, recently spoke with Homeland Security NewsWire’s executive editor Eugene K. Chow; in the interview Kadidal discusses the legal challenges of closing Guantanamo Bay, the legal consequences of the recently passed National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and the Obama administration’s position on transferring detainees

  • Terrorists focus on five U.S. urban counties, but rural areas not exempt

    Nearly a third of all terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2008 occurred in just five metropolitan U.S. counties, but terrorist events continue to occur in rural areas as well; there are 3,143 counties in the United States; researchers found 65 of these counties to be hot-spots for terrorism, that is, each of these counties experienced a greater than the average number of terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2008

  • Report finds Aero aids torture by transporting suspects

    A recently released report by the University of North Carolina’s law school has reinvigorated protests against Aero Contractors Ltd. for its alleged role in transporting terrorism suspects to secret foreign prisons where they are interrogated and possibly tortured

  • Cameron calls for human rights reforms to aid counterterror efforts

    Following the European Court of Human Rights ruling that the United Kingdom could not deport radical Islamic militant Abu Qatada to Jordan, Prime Minister David Cameron blasted the court stating that human rights laws were in danger of becoming “distorted” and “discredited” because of the court’s decisions

  • Animal rights activists set fourteen cattle trucks ablaze

    Earlier this month fourteen cattle-transportation trailers were set on fire at California’s largest feed yard by an animal rights group; following the attack, the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) released a statement that indicated an anonymous group of activists had executed the attack against the “horrors of factory farming”

  • Torture of USS Cole suspect becomes issue in trial

    At a pretrial hearing, before a Guantanamo Bay military commission, the defense lawyer for one of the accused USS Cole bombers, said his client had been so traumatized by years of torture that he could not meet effectively with lawyers while still shackled