• Israel's military intelligence: Assad forces used chemical weapons

    Israeli military intelligence for the first time publicly said that the Syrian military used chemical weapons in an attack on civilians on 19 March. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, the head of AMAN’s (Israel’s military intelligence) research division, said that information gathered by Israel’s military intelligence, some of it pubic, some of it not, indicates that the weapon used in the attack outside Aleppo was sarin nerve gas. Brun said the Syrian regime has used sarin gas in several other small-scale attacks. Syria has the world’s largest arsenal of chemical weapons.

  • Improving emergency radio communication

    Radio communications can be unreliable in underground tunnels and other large, complicated structures, posing a safety hazard for emergency responders. New tests of wireless emergency safety equipment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have defined the challenges more precisely and suggest how emergency communications might be improved.

  • Winner announced in the first DARPA FANG Challenge

    The Ground Systems team outpaces more than 200 teams and 1,000 participants, submitting the winning mobility in the Fast Adaptable Next-Generation Ground Vehicle (FANG) Mobility/Drivetrain Challenge, and drivetrain subsystem design and claiming the $1 million prize.

  • Akron University professor teaches students on how to spot terrorist plots

    Professor David Licate, a professor at the University of Akron, wants his students to be aware of those who may be buying bomb-making materials. In his class last Friday, Licate stressed to his homeland security course students that the community needs to look out for warning signs or suspicious behavior in an effort to prevent future tragedies.

  • Lawmakers want to learn more about the 2011 FBI investigation of Tamerlan Tsarnaev

    Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Peter King (R-New York), the former chairman of the committee, sent a letter to FBI director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder, seeking answers about the Tamerlan Tsarnaev investigation by the FBI.In 2011, Russian security authorities requested that the FBI question Tsarnaev on suspicion that he was affiliated with Islamic Chechen insurgents, but after interviewing Tsarnaev and doing a background check, the FBI concluded there was not enough to justify continuing tracking of cTamerlan.

  • Hagel reassures Israel, discusses large arms deal

    U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel arrived in Israel Sunday for his first visit in the country as secretary of defense. Some elements in the pro-Israel lobby in the United States campaigned against Hagel’s nomination, and Hagel went out of his way to assure Israelis that his position on Israel is not what it was portrayed to be. One of the main reasons for Hagel’s visit is to discuss a major U.S. arms deal that would offer Israel missiles for its fighter aircraft – but also plus KC-135 refueling planes which could be used in a long-range strike on a country such as Iran. Until now, the United States refused to sell refueling tankers to Israel.

  • Hawaii debating creation of a state homeland security office

    Lawmakers in Hawaii are discussing the state’s Department of Defense the idea of creating a new homeland security office with. Supporters of the plan say having a DHS office will help improve efforts to prevent terrorist attacks in Hawaii. Critics are not so sure.

  • FBI releases images of bombing suspects

    See video

    The FBI yesterday released videos and photographs of two young men, saying both are suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. The agency warned that the two suspects should be regarded as armed and dangerous. The FBI was also analyzing cellphone tower records to identify positive hits for signs of calls which may have been placed to trigger both explosions remotely. Investigators are also interested in a battery believed to be used in one of the bombs. The battery was likely purchased with a remote control toy and then extracted so it could be used in the bomb. That could potentially make it easier to zero in on a suspect.

  • DHS cuts funds for programs aiming to prevent a McVeigh-like fertilizer bombing attacks

    Timothy McVeigh used two tons of fertilizer and $3,000 of racing fuel to detonate a bomb outside the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The blast killed 168 people. The Obama administration is currently not allocating money or resources to preventing fertilizer bombing attacks like the one McVeigh used, according to a former DHS official with direct knowledge of the department’s budgeting and operations.

  • DHS-funded police gear blurs line between crime-fighting and war-fighting

    DHS is funding the purchase of military gear by Bay Area police departments. Critics of the program say the money allocated for the war on terror is blurring the line between local law enforcement focusing on crime fighting and soldiers fighting in an enemy war zone.

  • Federal security grants to Kansas City cut

    DHS has removed Kansas City from the list of cities receiving DHS grants, which means that the city will now have to rely on its own resources to train local law enforcement on how to predict, spot, and react to terrorist activities.

  • New submarine hunting program reaches milestones

    DARPA’s Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting (DASH) Program has tested two complementary prototype systems as part of its Phase 2 development effort. The prototypes demonstrated functional sonar, communications, and mobility at deep depths.  The successful tests furthered DASH’s goals to apply advances in deep-ocean distributed sonar to help find and track quiet submarines.

  • DARPA shows smaller pixels, smaller thermal cameras for soldiers

    The U.S. military uses long-wave infrared (LWIR) cameras as thermal imagers to detect humans at night. These cameras are usually mounted on vehicles as they are too large to be carried by a single soldier and are too expensive for individual deployment. DARPA researchers, however, recently demonstrated a new five-micron pixel LWIR camera that could make this class of camera smaller and less expensive.

  • Wife of former judge accuses husband of Texas prosecutor killings

    The investigation into the murders of two prosecutors in Texas has taken a strange twist. The wife of a former justice of the peace has come forward, admitting she was involved in the murders of Mike McLelland, his wife Cynthia McLelland, and Mark Hasse, who worked in McLelland’s office.

  • IEDs a growing threat in U.S.: security experts

    Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) killed and maimed so many U.S. and coalition soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the Pentagon was forced to create the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization (JIEDDO).Terrorism experts say that as al Qaeda and its affiliates find it more and more difficult to engage in more spectacular terrorist attacks such as 9/11 and other attacks on aviation, they may resort to low-tech, IED-based attacks.Incendiary IEDs were already the most common weapons used in the 207 terrorist plots and attacks in the United States from 2001 to 2011. Domestic groups, led by the environmental Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front, were responsible for most of the attacks in that 10-year period. Al Qaeda was involved in four such attacks.