• Midwest extremists arrests evoke memories of OKC bombing

    Unease in Oklahoma; the alleged domestic terror plot by a Michigan-based militia was planned for April, the month of the Murrah blast; David Cid, a former FBI counter terrorism specialist and now the executive director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, formed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing to train law enforcement officers in counterterrorism measures: “In March 2009 we felt something would happen within a year — we missed it by about a month”

  • FBI, DHS investigate "resign within three days" ultimatum sent to 30 governors

    The FBI and DHS are investigating letters sent to 30 governors demanding their resignation within 30 days; “While there does not appear to be credible or immediate threats of violence attached to the letters, we are working with state and local authorities and continue to assess the matter,” the FBI and DHS said in a joint statement

  • Michigan-based militia violent plot investigation included undercover FBI agent

    The Michigan-based Hutaree group planned to kill a large number of law enforcement officers by mimicking the manner in which IEDs are used in Iran and Afghanistan against American soldiers; the purpose was to trigger a wide-spread, violent revolt against the U.S. government; some of information about the group’s violent plans came from an undercover FBI agent

  • Nine in Michigan-based militia group sought Christian uprising in U.S.

    The FBI raids the homes of members of a Michigan-based militia and arrests nine; the group members are charged in plot to wage war with U.S.; the men planned to kill a law enforcement officer and then attack and bomb that officer’s funeral, where there was certain to be legions of law enforcement attending

  • Experts worry about resurgence of radical militias

    Experts say that discontent with the state of the U.S. economy, resentments of illegal immigrants, suspicions that health care-like bills are ushering in an age of “socialism” in America, and unease with the fact that the U.S. president is an African American — all mixed with a volatile brew of conspiracy theories — have swelled the ranks of extremist militia organizations, increased the vehemence of their hate rhetoric, and pushed some of their members to plan violent acts against the U.S. government

  • Russia braces for new wave of terror attacks in metropolitan areas

    Russia’s cities are bracing themselves for a renewed terrorist bombing campaign after two “black widow” suicide bombers launched a rush-hour attack on the Moscow metro killing 38 people and injuring 64; the Monday explosions were the deadliest suicide attacks in Moscow since 2004, when the bombing of a metro train killed 41

  • Moscow explosions: a small blip or long-term drag on the Russian economy?

    The terrorism behind the Moscow subway explosions could become an economic drag on the Russian economy if it changes perceptions of security risks in Russia; research shows that a sustained low-level terror campaign can raise long-term security concerns and hurt economic growth more than even a very dramatic single event: the 9/11 terror attacks punctured America’s sense of domestic security in a single day, but nevertheless, a year after the attacks, the U.S. economy was growing again; on the other hand, two decades of Basque terrorist activity in Spain — activity which caused far fewer fatalities than 9/11 — created a 10 percent drop in per capita gross domestic product in that area of Spain

  • U.K. police targets Internet cafés in anti-terror effort

    The U.K. police are testing a new tool in the fight against terrorism: surveillance of Internet cafés; owners and patrons are asked to watch for — and report to the authorities — suspicious behavior; owners are asked to scan the hard drives in their shop on a regular basis to look for suspicious browsing and communication patterns; monitoring of Internet cafés’ computer use has been tried in several
    countries, including India and the United States; civil libertarians worry that without a clear definition of suspicious behavior or suspicious Web
    browsing, individuals with outside-the-mainstream political or religious views may be targeted

  • First: Private security guards shoot and kill a Somali pirate

    More and more ships sailing through the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden hire private security guards for protection; on Tuesday, private security guards on a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship shot and killed a Somali pirate; the killed pirate was part of a group of pirates using high-speed skiffs controlled by a mother ship

  • Trucking industry says it is prepared for terrorism threat

    Trucking industry says that contrary to a scenario in a recent report on the subject, in which a gasoline tanker is hijacked and disappears, a rigorous daily delivery schedule means an out-of-route tanker would be reported very quickly, with or without tracking gear; industry calls for a single, uniform background checking approach

  • SF fiery crash highlights cities' vulnerability to tankers used as weapons

    More than 800,000 trucks carry shipments of hazardous materials every day across the United States; background checks of those hauling hazardous materials are designed to prevent fugitives, the mentally ill, and those convicted of terrorism, espionage, or murder from obtaining a HAZMAT hauling license; one security expert: “It’s very difficult now to purchase explosives … but it’s not that hard to steal a truck full of gasoline, and you can do quite a bit of damage”

  • Noticeable increase in the number of Americans arrested for al Qaeda-related terrorism

    The domestic landscape of terrorism in the United States is changing: there is no escaping the fact the most alarming thing about a string of recently arrested terror suspects is that they are all Americans; more than a dozen Americans have been captured or identified by the U.S. government and its allies over the past two years for actively supporting jihad; some, according to prosecutors, were inspired by the U.S. involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; others, like the accused Pennsylvania woman, wanted to avenge what they considered an insult to the Prophet Mohammed; many traveled overseas to get terrorist training; some used home computers to foment plots; says a terrorism expert: “There really is no profile of a terror suspect; the profile is broken, [and] it’s women as well as men, it’s lifelong Muslims as well as converts, it’s college students as well as jailbirds”

  • Pentagon contractor said to have set up a private unit to kill militants in Pakistan, Afghanistan

    A U.S. government contractor alleged to have diverted funds to set up a unit of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants; “While no legitimate intelligence operations got screwed up, it’s generally a bad idea to have freelancers running around a war zone pretending to be James Bond,” one U.S. government official said

  • Econo-Jihad: Terrorists increasingly focus doing economic damage to West

    After the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden boasted that he sued an operation which cost al Qaeda $500,000 to finance to inflict a $500 billion damage on the U.S. economy; it was not a mere boast: it was an indication the econo-jihad was an integral part of al Qaeda’s strategy to weaken and defeat the West; “the economic turn actually influences the terrorists’ targets, which have included oil-drilling infrastructures, tourism, international economic institutions and more. Indeed, Islamic terrorism’s future devices will focus on targets that will yield the most economic damage,” one expert says

  • Intelligence experts: Recent attacks on U.S. government buildings are indeed terrorism

    DHS secretary Janet Napolitano said Joseph Stack’s suicide attack on the IRS building in Austin was not an act of terrorism because he acted as a lone wolf; an intelligence think tank’s experts disagree: the definition of a violent act as an act of terrorism has nothing to do with the number of casualties, foreign ties, or absence of a conspiracy; what matters is whether or not the perpetrator’s motivation was to coerce a population or a government to change policy because of political, religious, or ideological beliefs