U.S. airport security officers targeted in ID theft

A Massachusetts couple has been charged with stealing the identities of dozens of Transportation Security Administration officers, who screen passengers and baggage at U.S. airports. A Federal Grand jury accused Michael Derring, 48, and Tina White, 47, on Wednesday of conspiracy and aggravated identity theft, alleging they stole personal information including the Social Security numbers of dozens of TSA workers at Boston's Logan International Airport. While there was no indication the information was passed to any militant group that might be planning an attack, the case suggests federal officers are vulnerable to identity theft.

The TSA is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Prosecutors said that, between July 2008 and December 2009, the couple obtained information on TSA workers from a relative of Derring's who worked as a contractor for TSA's human resources department at the airport in Boston. The grand jury alleged Derring and White used the identities to obtain electricity, cable television, telephone and other services for themselves, relatives, friends and customers. Some of White's customers were relatives and friends of state prison inmates, the indictment said.

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Irish Drug Gang Armed With Rocket Launchers

Two rocket launchers and an assault rifle were seized today by detectives targeting the activities of a criminal gang. Nine kilos of cocaine, with an estimated street value of €630,000, was also discovered in a warehouse in the Clane area of Kildare. Gardai from the Organised Crime Unit searched the premises after four men were charged yesterday under tough laws to combat gangland crime. The army's bomb disposal squad was at the scene. Gardai said officers stopped a car on the Naas Road yesterday and detained two men when a kilo of cocaine was found. Two more men were arrested in a follow-up search operation in the Rathcoole area and all four are being questioned at Clondalkin Garda Station. It is understood the seizures and arrests are linked to a south Dublin drugs gang.

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Terrorists May Have New Focus on Striking U.S.

The failed bombing in New York's Times Square is a possible signal that militant leaders in Pakistan have shifted their focus to targets in the U.S. and other Western countries instead of sticking to their home base, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. The attack, they also warned, could be only the first by terrorist groups that seek to avoid detection by using simpler methods that are more independently planned. U.S. investigators and intelligence agencies are trying to establish whether accused bomber Faisal Shahzad was trained or recruited for the Times Square operation by any Pakistan-based terrorist organization, including the Pakistani Taliban. Shahzad, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, spent five months in Pakistan before returning to the United States in February and preparing his attack. If those suspicions prove correct, it suggests that groups based in Pakistan, including the Taliban along the Afghan border, may be taking on a more global approach after years of focusing attacks largely on government or coalition forces in their region. That focus could stem from the Taliban's continued close association with senior Al Qaeda leaders, who are believed to be hiding in the lawless regions on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan. One counterterrorism official said the groups were "deadly enemies of the United States" BEFORE the U.S. began destroying their leadership, fighters, and camps from the air.

The counterterrorism officials say the Times Square attempt also shows a continuing shift to opportunistic attacks by the Pakistani Taliban and other militant groups that don't have much money for overseas operations. So they use whatever method they can afford, wherever they happen to find a willing operative. As a result, U.S. authorities must figure out how to deal with less predictable patterns of behavior. The officials say one major concern is that terrorist groups could send people to the U.S. to train homegrown extremists instead of people going to Pakistan or elsewhere for training. Juan Zarate, President George W. Bush's former deputy national security adviser, agreed that the Times Square attack may mark a new chapter in the terrorist threat. "The model may be shifting here, in part because they may have made a calculus that it's much more difficult to have a big ticket attack, and secondly, they may have moved to a model of disruption rather than destruction."

• "Officials Consider New Tactics to Keep Pace With Evolving Terror Threat", Fox News, 5/9/10.
  

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Man Found Guilty After Twitter Joke About Blowing Up An Airport

In June 2008, while I was working part time security at a baseball stadium, I was confronted by a belligerent fan who was angered at my request to search his bag, which was and remains standard practice. The fan told me that he had a bomb in his bag and that he hoped it "blew me the [expletive] up". My first instinct was separate his head from the scrawny shoulders it sat on, but instead I gritted my teeth and escorted him to my supervisor and had him banned from the ground for a year. In this day and age, these types of idiotic remarks are not tolerated and in certain circumstances can be deemed very serious indeed. Certainly enough to warrant the intervention of criminal law.

For example: A man who threatened on Twitter to blow up Doncaster airport in England has been found guilty of sending a “menacing electronic communication”. He is thought to be the first person in the United Kingdom to have been arrested for comments on Twitter. He is now the first person to be found guilty for being “menacing” on Twitter. On January 6, 2010, Paul Chambers joked on Twitter “Robin Hood airport is closed,” he wrote. “You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” He was annoyed that snowfall threatened to delay his plans to travel to Ireland on January 15.

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Hijacked Tanker Freed in 22-Minute Gunfight

Russian marines on Thursday freed a Russian oil tanker hijacked by Somali pirates a day earlier in the Arabian Sea in a 22-minute gunfight that saw one pirate killed and 10 others arrested. The 23 Russian sailors on the Moscow University tanker — who cut power to the vessel and spent the 20-hour ordeal holed up in the engine room — emerged unharmed, a Navy spokeswoman told The Moscow Times. President Dmitry Medvedev praised the marines for their quick and professional work and ordered that they be decorated with state medals. He promised that the captured pirates would be punished “under the full force of naval law,” Interfax reported.

Russian officials have not decided whether to bring the detained pirates to Moscow or hand them over for trial to an African court. The state-owned tanker was attacked about 350 nautical miles from Socotra, Yemen, in what was the first hijacking of a Russian-owned ship with a Russian crew in the pirate-infested waters off the coast of lawless Somalia. Communication with the ship ceased at 8 a.m. Wednesday Moscow time, when the captain radioed that two boats carrying gunmen had approached the ship and opened fire. The pirates had warned against any rescue attempt, saying they were holding the crew members hostage and taking the tanker to the Somali coast.

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White extremists linked to World Cup terrorism plot

South African police have charged five white extremists connected to an alleged terrorism plot to target next month's World Cup. Police made a series of raids on properties across the country last month and seized a haul of firearms and explosives. Seven people were initially arrested, but five have been charged with conspiring to engage in terrorist activities. It is alleged the white extremists were planning to detonate bombs in black townships ahead of the World Cup football tournament which kicks off in a month.

Revelations of the plot and the subsequent arrests come in the wake of last month's murder of white supremacist leader Eugene Terreblanche. Meanwhile, the World Cup trophy has begun the final leg of its world tour in the host country South Africa. Thousands of residents queued for hours to catch a glimpse of the trophy at a local sports centre. The 32 teams competing in the World Cup, including Australia, will begin arriving in South Africa later this month. The tournament kicks off on June 11.

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Long Island teens nabbed in plot to bomb school, kill students and faculty

Two Long Island, New York, teenagers were arrested for planning a Columbine—like plot to bomb a school and gun down students and faculty, Suffolk County police said Friday. Christopher Franko, 17, and his 16-year-old gal pal Dana Saltzman planned to carry out the bloodbath at Franko's former school, Connetquot High School in Bohemia, on June 10, cops said. The teen duo spent several weeks searching bomb-making Web sites to prepare for the attack - and were only waiting for Franko to turn 18 to legally buy the firepower needed to carry out their deadly assault, police said.

The couple already had tried to buy a shotgun but were turned down because they were minors. They were going to go back on Franko's birthday on June 8 and buy one, and return on June 9 for another one - and carry out the attack on June 10, said Suffolk County Police Deputy Inspector Michael Shanahan. Franko and Saltzman also exchanged text messages about their noxious scheme to buy the guns and massacre people in the school, police said. But their plan came undone when the boy's social worker alerted police last week that the pair might have been planning an attack, Suffolk County Police Sgt. Bill Doherty said.

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North Korean sub likely sank South Korean warship

Experts say North Korea's submarine fleet is technologically backward, prone to sinking or running aground, and all but useless outside its own coastal waters. And yet many are asking: Could it have been responsible for the explosion that sank a South Korean warship in March? And if so, how could a sub have slipped through the defenses of South Korea, which, with significant American backing, maintains a fleet far more sophisticated than its northern neighbor's? Evidence collected thus far indicates a torpedo hit the Cheonan, killing 46 sailors, and suspicion is growing that it was launched from a small North Korean submarine. That scenario would make it the most serious attack on the South Korean military since the peninsula's war ended in a truce in 1953.

"While the North Korean submarine force reflects dated technology by Western standards, North Korean submarines during wartime would present significant challenges, particularly in coastal areas," according to the Arlington, Virginia-based Global Security think tank. "North Korea has placed high priority on submarine construction programs, which are ongoing despite its economic hardships." Without witnesses or communications traffic to use as evidence, proving North Korea was behind the attack is difficult.

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Terrorism In The U.S. Takes On A UK Pattern

The car bombing attempt in Times Square has been a wake-up call for counter-terrorism officials. For years, the U.S. seemed largely immune to homegrown terrorism, but experts think the recent attack is more proof that has changed. The relative ease with which immigrants could better themselves in America convinced many experts that they were less vulnerable to radicalization. Increasingly, however, the terrorists who are seeking to attack the U.S. — including the Times Square bombing suspect – have been living in America for a while.

It's a problem that has haunted the UK for years. Now it appears to be an issue for the U.S. as well. "What we're seeing is kind of a metastasized al-Qaida," says Phil Mudd, a senior researcher at the Center for American Progress. He was, until recently, the FBI's senior intelligence adviser. "We've seen this in Europe, now we're seeing it here,” Mudd says. “Slowly, you're not only getting al-Qaida operatives conducting operations, you're getting people who have absorbed the message. Who see reports, I am sure, of civilians dying in drone strikes in Pakistan; who see the Pakistani army putting incredible pressure, not only on al-Qaida, but on Pakistani villages — and saying, ‘I want to do something about it.'"

• "Pakistani Taliban Behind Times Square Plot", New York Times, 5/9/10.
• "In Pakistan, a jumbled scaffolding of militancy", Washington Post, 5/9/10.
  

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Pakistani Taliban Are Said to Expand Alliances

The Pakistani Taliban, which American investigators suspect were behind the attempt to bomb Times Square, have in recent years combined forces with Al Qaeda and other groups, threatening to extend their reach and ambitions, Western diplomats, intelligence officials and experts say. A man linked to the Times Square bombing suspect was arrested at the Bat'ha Mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, known for its ties to the group Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Since the group’s formation in 2007, the main mission of the Pakistani Taliban has been to maintain their hold on territory in Pakistan’s tribal areas to train fighters for jihad against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and, increasingly, to strike at the Pakistani state as the military pushes into these havens. Pakistan’s military offensives and intensifying American drone strikes have degraded their capabilities. But the Pakistani Taliban have sustained themselves through alliances with any number of other militant groups, splinter cells, foot soldiers and guns-for-hire in the areas under their control.

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