Irish Republican dissidents have at least four more booby-trap bombs

Four more explosive devices similar to the one used in an attempt to murder Catholic PSNI Constable Peadar Heffron are believed to be in the possession of dissident republicans. The booby-trap bomb used in Friday’s murder bid is thought to have come from a batch of around half-a-dozen devices constructed with the assistance of a former Irish Republican Army explosives expert.

Police in the North believe another one of the devices may have been used in a bomb attack last year when a policeman’s girlfriend escaped serious injury after a device exploded under her car in east Belfast. Detectives have been investigating similarities between the two bomb attacks, both claimed by Oglaigh na hEireann.

The intensification of the dissident campaign coincides with the crisis at Stormont over the transfer of policing and justice powers. The attempted murder of Constable Heffron will have been carried out by dissidents in a bid to further destabilise the peace process and try to dissuade Catholics from joining the PSNI. Last year saw the highest number of people ever applying to join the PSNI. Dissidents will be hoping their campaign of terror will deter those considering applying.

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Google reports China-based attack, says pullout possible

Google said Tuesday the company and at least 20 others were victims of a "highly sophisticated and targeted attack" originating in China in mid-December, evidently to gain access to the e-mail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. "Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective," according to a statement by David Drummond, senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer for Google, operator of the most popular Internet search engine.

Drummond said that as a result of the attacks, Google has decided it is no longer willing to consider censorship of its Google site in China and may have to shut down its site and its offices in that nation. "These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered -- combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the Web -- have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China."

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Mexico Captures Major Tijuana Drug Gang Leader

Mexican police captured a drug kingpin on Tuesday known for having the corpses of tortured rivals dissolved in acid and blamed for much of a surge in violence in the northern border city of Tijuana. In a fresh victory for Mexico's bloody war on drug gangs, Teodoro Garcia Simental was caught in southern Baja California early Tuesday, police said.

Garcia Simental, also known as "El Teo" or "Tres Letras" for the three letters in his nickname Teo, was apprehended when an elite force of some 50 federal police raided an upscale neighbourhood in the beach town of La Paz near the tip of the Baja California peninsula. They searched several houses before finding him.

"No shots were fired. It was a very fast operation. The investigation has been going on for a long time," a police officer who participated in the operation told Reuters. Garcia Simental was handcuffed and swiftly flown to Mexico City. The top smuggler split from the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel to help Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman -- head of the rival Sinaloa cartel and Mexico's most wanted man -- wrest control of key smuggling corridors in northern Mexico.

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The Khost Attack and the Intelligence War Challenge

As Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi exited the vehicle that brought him onto Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009, security guards noticed he was behaving strangely. They moved toward al-Balawi and screamed demands that he take his hand out of his pocket, but instead of complying with the officers’ commands, al-Balawi detonated the suicide device he was wearing.

The explosion killed al-Balawi, three security contractors, four CIA officers and the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) officer who was al-Balawi’s handler. The vehicle shielded several other CIA officers at the scene from the blast. The CIA officers killed included the chief of the base at Khost and an analyst from headquarters who reportedly was the agency’s foremost expert on al Qaeda. The agency’s second-ranking officer in Afghanistan was allegedly among the officers who survived.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor from Zarqa (the hometown of deceased al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Under the alias Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani, he served as an administrator for Al-Hesbah, a popular Internet discussion forum for jihadists. Jordanian officers arrested him in 2007 because of his involvement with radical online forums, which is illegal in Jordan. The GID subsequently approached al-Balawi while he was in a Jordanian prison and recruited him to work as an intelligence asset.

Al-Balawi was sent to Pakistan less than a year ago as part of a joint GID/CIA mission. Under the cover of going to school to receive advanced medical training, al-Balawi established himself in Pakistan and began to reach out to jihadists in the region. Under his al-Khurasani pseudonym, al-Balawai announced in September 2009 in an interview on a jihadist Internet forum that he had officially joined the Afghan Taliban.

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Mexico Cartel Stitches Rival's Face on Soccer Ball

The body of 36-year-old Hugo Hernandez was left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces as a chilling threat to members of the Juarez drug cartel. A note read: ''Happy New Year, because this will be your last.'' To drive home the point, the assailants skinned Hernandez's face and stitched it onto a soccer ball.

The gruesome find, confirmed Friday by Sinaloa state prosecutors, represents a new level of brutality in Mexico's drug war, in which torture and beheadings are almost daily occurrences. Hernandez was taken to Sinaloa after being kidnapped Jan. 2 in neighboring Sonora state, in an area known for marijuana growing, said Martin Robles, a spokesman for Sinaloa prosecutors. The motive for his abduction was unclear. His torso was found in a plastic container in one location; elsewhere another box contained his arms, legs and skull, Robles said. Hernandez's face, sewn onto a soccer ball, was left in a plastic bag near City Hall.

More than 15,000 people have been killed since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels three years ago. While the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana have seen much of the violence, Sinaloa state is Mexico's drug-smuggling heartland and is the birthplace of the leadership of four of the six major cartels. Often, victims are tortured and mutilated, in an attempt to intimidate rivals, officials and others who might represent a threat to the cartels.

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'System Failure' In U.S. Screening For Terrorists

The White House concluded in a report issued Thursday that "a series of systematic breakdowns" contributed to the failure to prevent the failed Christmas Day bombing of a trans-Atlantic airliner bound for Detroit. The unclassified summary of the swiftly completed review said the unsuccessful attack exposed failures when it came to assembling and analyzing disparate pieces of intelligence, as well as gaps in the U.S. government's procedures for placing potential terrorists on federal watch lists.

Obama admitted that spy agencies had collected, but failed to connect, pieces of information that should have led authorities to pay greater attention to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian student who allegedly tried to blow up Northwest Flight 253. "At this stage in the review process, it appears that this incident was not the fault of a single individual or organization, but rather a system failure across organizations and agencies," President Obama said on Thursday.

He ordered a set of changes in counterterrorism procedures, including how the watch list system operates, as well as new efforts to develop more sophisticated explosives detection technology for airport screening checkpoints. The White House review found the complex system of maintaining multiple watch lists "is not broken," but John Brennan, the deputy national security adviser who supervised the review, said the process of feeding information into the watch list system must be strengthened.

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Here's one vote for full body scans

"Today I’m flying for the first time since before Thanksgiving . . . and for the first time since the Panty Bomber tried to light his balls—and then the plane—on fire. And I have one very simple question: Who in their right mind would object to full-body scanners in the airport? I mean, who could be that God-damned dumb?"

This is how Steve Crescenzo begins a missive in Corporate Hallucinations. It is hilarious, very pointed, and in many ways I agree with what he is saying, although I would definitely phrase it differently. Please read the entire article below, I am sure you will enjoy it...

"There are people trying to blow our planes out of the sky. There are people strapping explosives to their genitals. The current security system obviously doesn’t work. Something needs to happen. And yet the ACLU and other morons object to having people go through full body scanners because of “privacy” reasons.

Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz, sponsor of a House bill banning the full-time use of body scanners, told the New York Times that he didn’t think that “anyone needs to see my 8 year old naked in order to secure that airplane.” What an ass. The ACLU calls these body scanners “an assault on the essential dignity of passengers.” What a bunch of asses. We have terrorists trying to blow us out of the sky and people are worried about modesty? It defies logic.

As a nervous flyer to begin with, I certainly don’t care if they send me through a body scanner. Send me through TWO body scanners if you want to. Send me through a row of body scanners. Pat me down. Pat me down again. Lay me flat on a conveyer belt with hundreds of other travelers and send us all through an MIR machine if that will keep the bombs off the planes.

Hell, you can drop a drug-sniffing rat into my pants . . . as long as you’re doing the same thing to everyone else, and doing it twice to the people most likely to try and blow up the plane (yes, Corporate Hallucinations fully supports all racial profiling, when it comes to airports).

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking:
“That’s easy for you to say, Crescenzo. You’re Italian, blessed with an Italian’s anatomy. Who cares if someone scans your entire body and sees the Bald Eagle? You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. “

And you’re also thinking:
“What about all the poor Irish and Japanese people out there, who weren’t so anatomically blessed? What about exposing those folks to the ridicule of heartless TSA workers who run the body scans?"

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Pair suspected of stealing cavity fillings

A man and a woman are behind bars today on suspicion of stealing raw precious metals used to fill cavities from 18 dental laboratories mostly in Orange County, police said. Matthew Marchman, 38, and Shawna Lerer, 29, both of Costa Mesa, were arrested early Sunday morning after a patrol officer saw Lerer sitting in a car outside a lab in the 700 block of North Valley Street near the 5 freeway, said Anaheim police Sgt. Rick Martinez. Marchman, who was walking nearby, discarded a crowbar on seeing the officer, Martinez said. Marchman was arrested and Lerer fled in a Chrysler Sebring but was quickly caught in the industrial complex, Martinez said.

A crime spree began in late November resulting in 18 dental labs – many in Anaheim – being burglarized, Martinez said. Labs in Fullerton, Costa Mesa, Westminster, Los Alamitos, Santa Ana, Orange, Tustin, San Clemente and possibly Walnut were targeted, he said. Two vehicles were stolen during two of the burglaries and later burned, Martinez said. Burglary detectives and the department's crime analysis unit noticed the crime trend. The officer who spotted the suspects was patrolling dental labs. Following the arrests, detectives uncovered a large amount of evidence believed to be linked to many of the dental laboratories burglarized, Martinez said.

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Statewide Anthrax Scare in Alabama

The Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating a statewide anthrax scare in Alabama. Local lawmakers are among the targets.

Eight letters with white powder were sent to five locations:
- Congressman Mike Rogers office at the federal courthouse in Anniston
- Senator Richard Shelby's office at a federal building in Birmingham
- Rogers', Shelby's and Senator Jeff Sessions' offices at the state capitol building in Montgomery.
- Congressman Jo Bonner's offices in Mobile and Foley

The 15th floor of the RSA Tower in downtown Mobile, where one of Bonner's offices is located, was evacuated as a precaution. So was Bonner's office in Foley. It's located in a shopping center on McKenzie Street. More than a dozen businesses in that shopping center, including the News 5 bureau, were also evacuated.

The FBI says all eight letters made reference to anthrax. But so far, all tests have come back negative. The FBI says more letters could be out there.

• CDC. Emergency Preparedness Response: Anthrax
  

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Mexico Captures Alleged Drug Lord

Just two weeks after a chilling reprisal attack for troops' killing of the reputed boss of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, police have captured one of his brothers, sending a strong message that Mexico won't back down in the drug war. The Public Safety Department said in a statement Saturday night that Carlos Beltrán Leyva was arrested in Culiacán, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, where he and several of his brothers were born and allegedly started their gang.On Dec. 16, his brother Arturo, the alleged chief of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, died during a two-hour shootout with marines in the city of Cuernavaca. He was the highest-ranking drug suspect taken down since President Felipe Calderón sent tens of thousands of soldiers and federal police across the country three years ago to fight brutal drug gangs.

Mexican officials in the past have described Carlos Beltrán Levya, 40 years old, as a key member of the gang, but it was unclear if he took over as chief of the cartel after his brother died. A third brother, Alfredo, was arrested in January 2008. At least one other brother, Mario, remains at large and is listed as one of Mexico's 24 most-wanted drug lords, with a $2 million reward offered for his capture. Carlos Beltrán wasn't included on the list, although the Public Safety Department said there had been a warrant for his arrest since 2008. The arrest gave Mr. Calderón back-to-back victories in the drug war and underscored the government's determination to destroy the Beltrán Leyva cartel despite the threat of reprisal attacks.

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