• Assessing the risk from Africa as Libya loses its chemical weapons

    Libya’s remaining chemical weapons left over from the Gaddafi regime are now being safely disposed of in a German facility. This eliminates the risk of them falling into the wrong hands. But can these same hands acquire weapons of mass destruction from the rest of Africa? The disposal of Libya’s chemical weapons has lowered the risk of weapons of mass destruction in Africa. But we have seen how far non-state actors are willing to go to either produce or steal such weapons. For example, analysts envision militants known as “suicide infectors” visiting an area with an infectious disease outbreak like Ebola purposely to infect themselves and then using air travel to carry out the attack. Reports from 2009 show forty al-Qaeda linked militants being killed by the plague at a training camp in Algeria. There were claims that they were developing the disease as a weapon. The threat WMD pose cannot be ignored. African countries, with help from bilateral partners and the international community, have broadened their nonproliferation focus. They will need to keep doing so if the goal is effectively to counter this threat.

  • Cleaning concrete contaminated with chemicals

    In March 1995, members of a Japanese cult released the deadly nerve agent sarin into the Tokyo subway system, killing a dozen people and injuring a thousand more. This leads to the question: What if a U.S. transportation hub was contaminated with a chemical agent? The hub might be shut down for weeks, which could have a substantial economic impact. Craig Tenney, a chemical engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, is looking for better ways to clean contaminated concrete to reduce that impact.

  • ISIS fired chemical shells at U.S., Iraqi troops near Mosul

    U.S. defense officials say that on Tuesday ISIS has fired a shell containing mustard agent at the Qayarrah air base south of Msoul. U.S. and Iraqi troops use the base for operations against the Islamist group. No U.S. or Iraqi troops were hurt, and none has shown symptoms of exposure. One official told CNN that the agent had “low purity” and was “poorly weaponized.” A second official described it as “ineffective.”

  • Psychology expert: Why extremists use violence in their quest for significance

    The recent attack in New York, which left 29 persons wounded, the bombings in New Jersey and the knife attack in Minnesota serve as a grim reminder that this year of blood and fury carries on. Though incomprehensible to most, these instances of seemingly rampant violence have a compelling rhyme and reason to the perpetrators. They carry out their carnage in full premeditation and after careful preparation. Theirs isn’t crime of passion, or case of temporary insanity. It is, instead, a deliberately chosen path grounded in a confidently held worldview. Based on my research, violent extremism typically requires the presence of three elements that jointly create the terrorist mindset: what I call the “N-triad of radicalization.” The three N’s are need, narrative, and network. Though it might appear random and haphazard, the violence on streets of the world’s cities is psychologically coherent. The combination of individuals’ needs, narratives, and networks forms a combustible mixture ready to explode in mayhem and murder. Taking all three elements into account may offer a reasonable, science-based approach to preventing and reversing radicalization. It may be key to interventions and programs that can stem the tide of violent extremism that seriously threatens the world’s security and stability.

  • Ahmad Khan Rahami’s wife held in UAE for questioning about bomb plot

    The wife of t Ahmad Khan Rahami, the man behind the bombings in New Jersey and New York, left the United States just days before the attack. The woman, whose name has not been revealed, was intercepted by United Arab Emirates authorities on Monday, where investigators are trying to determine whether she was aware of the bombing plot.

  • Hamas threatens Americans after State Dept. labels another leader “terrorist”

    A Hamas militant issued a thinly veiled threat against Americans after the State Department officially designated a Hamas leader as being an international terrorist. The State Department’s designated Fathi Hammad as an international terrorist on Friday, saying that he used his position as a former interior minister “to coordinate terrorist cells.”

  • What is terrorism, and is it getting worse?

    Because terrorism is so sensationalized by the media and oversimplified by authorities, it is important to demystify common misconceptions. Only then can we understand why individuals carry out political violence and put today’s acts of terrorism in historical context. Terrorism is not new. Rather it has a long history – and a historical review of terrorism activity in Western countries shows that terrorism is not worse than before the 9/11 era. The opposite is true. Western Europe, for example, has been experiencing relatively low terrorist activity during the period 2000 to 2016 compared to the period 1970 to 1995. Moreover, terrorism as a tactic does not work well. A researcher who studied 457 terrorist groups worldwide since 1968 found that terrorist groups lasted an average of eight years. No terrorist organizations studied were able to conquer a state, and 94 percent were unable to achieve even one of their strategic goals.

  • NYC terrorist captured: What we know so far

    Ahmad Khan Rahami, the suspect in placing two bombs in Manhattan on Saturday – one of them exploded, injuring twenty-nine people, while the other was disarmed — has been arrested in Linden, New Jersey. He was spotted by residents sleeping in a vestibule next to a bar, and they called the police. Fire was exchanged as the police closed in on him, and two policemen, and Rahami himself, were injured, but not seriously. The Rahami family’s chicken restaurant had problems city ordinances in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and in 2011 the family sued that city and its police department for discrimination and harassment.

  • FBI identifies Manhattan bombs suspect as Ahmad Khan Rahami of New Jersey

    The FBI has identified the suspect behind Saturday Manhattan blast – and the explosive device which was found before it exploded in another Manhattan location – as Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28 — a naturalized American living in New Jersey. He is originally from Afghanistan.

  • 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.