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« Reply #1100 on: January 13, 2010, 07:56:45 PM »

Al Qaeda planning new attack on the U.S.: report

Last Updated: 7:34 PM, January 13, 2010


U.S. Federal officials have credible new intelligence of plans for another al Qaeda attack on the U.S., NBC reported.<p> </p><br> Officials say they have information that al Qaeda in Yemen is planning another attack but declined to give further details.<p> </p><br> However, they have described the information as "credible" and are considering whether to step up security measures.<p> </p><br> One official has said the news is not surprising, as they had expected further attacks following the failed Christmas Day airliner bombing plot.<p> </p><br>
   
U.S. Federal officials have credible new intelligence of plans for another al Qaeda attack on the U.S., NBC reported.

Officials say they have information that al Qaeda in Yemen is planning another attack but declined to give further details.

However, they have described the information as "credible" and are considering whether to step up security measures.

One official has said the news is not surprising, as they had expected further attacks following the failed Christmas Day airliner bombing plot.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/al_qaeda_planning_new_attack_on_nA5b8h7vg9n4467UKj6wLM#ixzz0cXlmmmos
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« Reply #1101 on: January 13, 2010, 09:19:41 PM »

Q+A-Yemen's al Qaeda wing gains global notoriety

Wed Jan 13, 2010 8:48pm GMT
 
Jan 13 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) showed its ambition to strike outside its base in Yemen when it claimed the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner.

Here are some questions and answers about the group:

WHO ARE ITS LEADERS?

AQAP, which emerged a year ago after a merger of al Qaeda's wings in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, is led by Nasser al-Wahayshi, a Yemeni who was once Osama bin Laden's secretary.

Wahayshi and Qasim al-Raymi, who became AQAP's military chief, were among 23 militants who escaped from a Sanaa jail in 2006, enabling al Qaeda to revive its fortunes in Yemen.

U.S.-Yemeni cooperation had led to the killing of al Qaeda's then leader in Yemen, Abu Ali al-Harithi, in a 2002 drone strike and the arrest of his successor Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal in 2003.

Several Saudi militants have joined the group in Yemen, notably its deputy leader, Saeed al-Shehri, who is a former inmate at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yemeni officials say AQAP has no more than 300 militants, but it may have many more sympathisers in a land where anti-U.S. sentiment is rife. AQAP has sought to forge links with restive tribes in areas where government control is already weak.

 WHAT DOES IT WANT?

AQAP espouses a militant Sunni Islamist ideology that makes violent jihad an obligation for all Muslims.

It has threatened attacks on Westerners to cleanse the Arabian peninsula of "infidels" and seeks the fall of the U.S.-allied royal family in oil superpower Saudi Arabia.

AQAP also wants to weaken or destroy President Ali Abdullah Saleh's government to create safe havens in Yemen from which to launch attacks anywhere from Saudi Arabia to the United States.

It represents a new generation of militants who take a harsher line against Sanaa than their predecessors, who sometimes did deals with the government.

Many Yemenis fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and later in Bosnia, Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq.

WHAT HAS IT ACHIEVED?

 AQAP claimed a suicide bombing that killed four South Korean tourists in March in Yemen's eastern province of Hadramaut.

In August, it sent a suicide bomber posing as a repentant militant to Saudi Arabia, where he narrowly failed to kill the kingdom's anti-terrorism chief Prince Mohammed bin Nayef.

Two AQAP militants were killed in a shootout with Saudi police in October after driving across the border from Yemen on what analysts say was an apparent suicide mission. AQAP said it was behind the alleged attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Dec. 25 using explosives sewn into his underwear.

The group killed two Belgian women and two Yemeni drivers in January 2008 and carried out a twin suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in September that year, killing 16 people.

Al Qaeda also bombed the USS Cole in Aden harbour in 2000, killing 17 sailors. Two years later an al Qaeda attack damaged the French supertanker Limburg in the Gulf of Aden.

WHAT MIGHT IT TARGET NEXT?

Nobody knows, but AQAP has shown itself to be innovative and keen to carry out spectacular attacks.

Saudi Arabia, which in 2006 eventually crushed an al Qaeda armed campaign, is likely to remain firmly in AQAP's sights.

 The United States is another priority target for AQAP, especially as it ramps up support for Yemeni government forces and encourages them to hunt and destroy the militants.

Britain could also be targeted. It plans to host a Jan. 28 conference on how to counter militancy in Yemen and Afghanistan in an initiative denounced by a radical Yemeni cleric.

Yemen's oil and gas facilities, particularly pipelines, and the offices of Western companies operating in the country are among other possible AQAP targets, analysts say.

AQAP could try to attack ships in the Gulf of Aden, where Somali pirates already prey on one of the world's busiest sea lanes, perhaps using suicide bombers in small boats as before.

A leader of Somalia's al Qaeda-inspired al Shabaab force offered this month to send fighters across the Gulf of Aden to help AQAP if the United States attacked its bases in Yemen.

WHAT COUNTER-MEASURES DOES IT FACE?

Yemen stepped up raids on suspected AQAP hideouts with U.S. support shortly before the Dec. 25 airliner attack. It said 60 militants were killed in air strikes and security sweeps, including Wahayshi, Shehri and U.S.-Yemeni Internet preacher Anwar al-Awlaki. None of the deaths has been confirmed.

The United States has said it will not send ground troops to Yemen, but plans to increase its security assistance to at least $150 million this year from $70 million in 2009.

Yemeni forces have been receiving more U.S. support to help them fight AQAP, but much of the military aid has been covert, partly to avert a public backlash against the Yemeni government.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKLDE60A0UM20100113?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

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« Reply #1102 on: January 13, 2010, 09:26:28 PM »

Al-Qaida leader killed in Yemen as security operations intensify
Abdullah Mehdar was killed overnight after being besieged in a house where he had been hiding

Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 13 January 2010 17.01 GMT
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« Reply #1103 on: January 13, 2010, 09:39:37 PM »

Summit to debate risks of delivery of LNG from Yemen

By Andrea Estes
Globe Staff / January 13, 2010


The proposed shipment of liquefied natural gas from Yemen into Boston Harbor starting next month has set off a flurry of meetings among state and local officials seeking to block or delay the deliveries.

With the Coast Guard moving toward a decision, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, whose hometown of Winthrop borders the harbor, has scheduled a safety summit today at the State House to debate the potential risks of allowing ships carrying flammable gas, especially from a country identified as a haven for terrorists, so close to the densely populated metropolitan area.

Expected to attend are US Senator Paul Kirk and Coast Guard officials, as well as representatives of neighboring communities, including Revere, Chelsea, and Winthrop. The president of Distrigas of Massachusetts, the company that is bringing the LNG to its Everett facility, has also been invited.

“Having followed the issue of shipments through the Boston Harbor over the years, I find the developing situation troubling, especially in the context of world and recent events,’’ DeLeo said in an invitation to the summit. “As a representative of Boston Harbor communities, I share with you the concern of the potential risk that these shipments bring.’’

US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has spoken by phone with both Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, aides said, telling them she would review all plans personally and get back to them before a final decision is made.

Patrick and Menino were also briefed by the Coast Guard on safety plans for the huge tankers, which can carry as much as 60,000 metric tons of the liquid gas. Menino had pledged to try to stop the ships from entering the harbor, but an aide said his options are limited.

Yesterday he said the tankers should not be allowed into the harbor until a “complete risk assessment’’ is conducted, even if such an analysis means the shipments cannot begin as planned in February. “We have not seen a complete risk assessment report,’’ Menino said. “There should be time to review its analysis and recommendations and time to implement any enhanced security measures necessary before these tankers are allowed to come through the harbor.’’

Meanwhile, a decision on the deliveries could come soon. The Coast Guard has scheduled a meeting tomorrow of the Area Maritime Security Committee, composed of representatives of agencies that operate in or near the harbor, to review the plans and possibly make a recommendation to the captain of the port, the Coast Guard official who has the final say in whether the shipments can begin.

Distrigas spokeswoman Carol Churchill said company officials have been meeting with Coast Guard and government officials about the Yemeni shipments for more than six months, describing these week’s briefings as “a continuation of those meetings.

“We’ve provided as much information as we can about the security of the cargoes,’’ she said. “Security continues to be a primary focus of the company. We’ve had an excellent safety record since we began importing cargo into Everett in late 1971.’’

Senate President Therese Murray, weighing in for the first time, said if the tankers were arriving in her district she would be “out there fighting for a better alternative, a safer place. You don’t want it coming into a highly populated area.

“The mayor and the speaker are right in bringing it to the people’s attention,’’ she said in an interview. “We’re playing with what could potentially be fire here . . . let’s think of something different.’’

Kevin Burke, the state’s secretary for public safety, last night issued a statement saying state officials are “pleased by the extent and depth of dialogue between local, state, and federal security officials. But we remain concerned and will continue to work with federal officials as they continue their deliberations.’’

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/13/safety_summit_to_debate_risks_of_yemen_shipments/
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« Reply #1104 on: January 13, 2010, 10:33:52 PM »

US military must tighten screening for Islamists: senators

(AFP)

WASHINGTON — The US military must do a better job of uncovering soldiers with violent Islamist leanings for fear they could attack fellow troops, two key senators urged the Pentagon Wednesday.

US lawmakers have worried about missed signals leading up to the deadly November 5 shooting spree at the Fort Hood base in Texas, amid charges the alleged killer, US Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan, had ties to Islamists.

Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and the panel's top Republican, Senator Susan Collins, called for the overhaul in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

In the wake of the Fort Hood attack, the US military should train soldiers "from enlisted personnel to commanders" to recognize and report "the warning signs of violent Islamist extremism," they said.

The letter did not spell out what such warning signs might be, but committee spokeswoman Leslie Phillips said they could include viewing jihadi websites or reading jihadi literature.

They could also include making statements that a service member's loyalty is to fellow Muslims first and to the United States second, or that Muslim-American soldiers have a religious obligation not to fight in conflicts against Muslims and to disobey any related orders, she said.

Hasan is being investigated for his contacts with a radical cleric who blessed the killing spree.

Twelve soldiers and one civilian were killed in the attack. Another 42 people were wounded.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j1IP3cdKxoCt2lLe5k7AomOQ6_UA
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« Reply #1105 on: January 14, 2010, 09:57:17 AM »

Deadly Connections

By Bobby Ghosh Wednesday, Jan. 13, 2010

Pity poor Yemen. Three armed conflicts are being fought in the nation that hugs the southwestern corner of the Arabian Peninsula: there is a separatist insurgency in the south and a fight between the mostly Sunni government forces and Shi'ite rebels in the north, while in the east, home of Osama bin Laden's ancestors, the local affiliate of his network is plotting to undermine the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

So the average resident of Sana'a, Yemen's ancient capital, can be forgiven for regarding Anwar al-Awlaki as just another warmongering imam with a grudge against the West and a deep hatred for the U.S. In fact, until last fall, most Yemenis had never heard of the American-born cleric living in their midst. Those most familiar with him were a small group of Western counterterrorism officials and experts — and even they thought al-Awlaki was of relatively little consequence. (See the top 10 news stories of 2009.)

Not anymore they don't. In the past two months, al-Awlaki's anonymity has been replaced by the glare of U.S. government and media attention — and very likely the searching eyes of spy satellites. His connection to both the Nov. 5 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, and the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a passenger jet over Detroit has persuaded the Obama Administration that al-Awlaki is a big-time bad guy. On Jan. 4, President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, told CNN, "Al-Awlaki is a problem ... He's not just a cleric. He is in fact trying to instigate terrorism." (See pictures of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.)

The Administration is trying to be careful in its assessment of al-Awlaki. Officials recognize that in demonizing a jihadist, they may create a monster they cannot control as the U.S. seemingly did in 2003 when it identified Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi as the top al-Qaeda leader in Iraq at a time when he was little more than a relatively obscure Jordanian terrorist operating north of Baghdad. The notoriety was a bonanza for al-Zarqawi, as mujahedin streamed to join his group. As for al-Awlaki, "the best way to describe him is inspirational rather than operational," says a senior U.S. official. But, as this official points out, "the inspirational element is motivating people to take action. Where do you draw the line?"

Wherever the line between inspiration and operation is drawn, al-Awlaki seems to have come very close to crossing it. White House officials say e-mail exchanges with al-Awlaki may have spurred Major Nidal Malik Hasan to go on a rampage in Fort Hood, killing 13 people. And Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas Day bomber, reportedly told the FBI he had met with al-Awlaki in Yemen. Moreover, research into al-Awlaki's past has now revealed that he had been investigated by the FBI for his connections to al-Qaeda as long ago as 1999. He had met three of the 9/11 hijackers, and his sermons and speeches had turned up in the computers of the 2005 London bombers, terrorist plotters in Toronto in 2006 and the six men who planned an attack on Fort Dix, N.J., in 2007. (See the top 10 crime stories of 2009.)

Put all that together, and it explains why, even before the Christmas Day incident, al-Awlaki was of such interest to the U.S. government that it tried to kill him. On Dec. 24, the Yemeni military, pressed by the CIA, fired rockets into his home south of Sana'a. Al-Awlaki was not the principal target — the top leadership of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was thought to be meeting there — but U.S. officials were hoping the strike would also take out the cleric. He wasn't home.

Made in the U.S.A.
So who is this man whom U.S. counterterrorism officials would like to see dead? Just like bin Laden, al-Awlaki comes from an influential family: one of his relatives is Prime Minister of Yemen, and his father Nasser al-Awlaki was Agriculture Minister and head of the country's biggest university. Like bin Laden, al-Awlaki is soft-spoken, mild-mannered and austere.

The parallels end there. Although bin Laden saw plenty of Western culture in his youth, he seems to have been profoundly uncomfortable with it. Not so al-Awlaki. Now 38, he has lived in the West for more than half his life, speaks fluent English and peppers his sermons with references to Western places and people. A recent lecture on death, for instance, was informed by an old Michael Jackson interview in which the singer said he wanted to "live forever." Hard to imagine bin Laden referring to the King of Pop in a sermon.

Al-Awlaki was born in 1971 in Las Cruces, N.M., where his father was studying for a master's degree at New Mexico State University. The family spent nearly a decade on American campuses. Anwar was 7 when they returned to Yemen, where they lived in a newish Sana'a neighborhood.

A Yemeni government scholarship allowed Anwar to return to the U.S.; in 1991 he enrolled in Colorado State University's civil-engineering program. Friends remember al-Awlaki as a low-key young man who lived modestly in a one-bedroom apartment and drove around Fort Collins in a beat-up old Buick. He prayed at the Islamic Center of Fort Collins but did not stand out as being especially religious and was not active in CSU's Muslim students association.

When he visited Afghanistan in 1993, a journey that fired thousands of young Muslim men with jihadist zeal, the Soviet occupation had ended, and al-Awlaki was depressed by poverty and hunger in the homes where he stayed. "My impression was that he didn't like it there," says Abdul Belgasem, a fellow student at CSU. "He wouldn't have gone with al-Qaeda. He didn't like the way they lived." But at some point, al-Awlaki must have had something of a spiritual awakening. After graduating in 1994, he set aside civil engineering and applied to be imam of the Denver Islamic Society. He got the job because of his grasp of the Koran and his ability to preach in English. "The people there liked his translations," Belgasem says. Two years later, he moved to San Diego to run the larger al-Ribat al-Islami mosque and enrolled in a master's program in education at San Diego State University. It was in San Diego that he had his first brushes with the law: intelligence officials have told TIME that al-Awlaki was twice detained for soliciting prostitutes. (See the top 10 scandals of 2009.)

San Diego, intelligence officials say, was also where al-Awlaki first made contact with jihadists. He was on the board of a charity run by a Yemeni associate of bin Laden; the FBI has said the charity was a fundraising front for al-Qaeda. Officials also say al-Awlaki met with a close associate of Omar Abdel Rahman, the "Blind Sheik" behind the 1993 attempt to bomb New York City's World Trade Center.

These associations remained hidden from most of al-Awlaki's congregants. Many in San Diego remember him as a likable, articulate preacher with moderate views. Ahmad Ibrahim, president of the Muslim Student Association at the University of California at San Diego in 1999-2000, heard al-Awlaki speak on several occasions and says the cleric only occasionally addressed controversial topics like Palestinian suicide bombers. "He had the opinion that ... their mission was acceptable," Ibrahim says but adds, "I don't believe he ever proposed killing civilians." Another worshipper says the congregation wouldn't have tolerated extremist preaching. "[He wasn't] about speaking out against America or Americans. It was all about becoming a better Muslim," says this worshipper, who asked not to be named. "If anyone in our community had known anything about his leanings, we would have reported it."

The al-Qaeda Connection
But intelligence officials say al-Awlaki was leading a double life. In 2000 he met with Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two of the five men who on Sept. 11, 2001, would hijack American Airlines Flight 77 and fly it into the Pentagon. These sources say that al-Awlaki held several closed-door meetings with the hijackers and that they regularly attended his sermons. But although the FBI investigated al-Awlaki's possible al-Qaeda connections before 9/11, it was unable to make anything stick. (See TIME's photo-essay "Double Agents: A Photo Dossier.")

In early 2001, al-Hazmi would follow al-Awlaki to his next mosque, the Dar al-Hijrah in Falls Church, Va. Again, al-Awlaki paired his new job with an academic interest: he began working on a doctorate at George Washington University in Washington and, for good measure, became the university's Muslim chaplain. The double life continued. As in San Diego, al-Awlaki's sermons at Dar al-Hijrah were largely uncontroversial. Indeed, he spoke out against radicals, prompting the New York Times in October 2001 to label him as one of a "new generation of Muslim leader capable of merging East and West." But at the same time, intelligence officials say, he was steadily drawing closer to al-Qaeda: al-Hazmi introduced him to Hani Hanjour, another of the Flight 77 hijackers.

After 9/11, al-Awlaki swiftly condemned the hijackers. A PBS NewsHour program in October 2001 shows him in a sermon criticizing U.S. foreign policy but arguing that it did not justify killing Americans. On the contrary, he told PBS, "Every nation on the face of the earth has a right to defend itself and to bring the perpetrators to justice."

By this time, however, intelligence agencies were looking closely at al-Awlaki's connections to the hijackers. At the home in Hamburg of Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who was a leading figure in the 9/11 plot, German authorities found al-Awlaki's phone number. The FBI questioned the cleric but didn't have enough information to arrest him. In March 2002, he left the U.S. for Yemen. He made one final trip to the U.S. in October of that year and was briefly detained at New York City's JFK airport, but the FBI's attempt to arrest him on the charge of giving false information in a passport application came to nothing. After leaving the U.S., he spent nearly two years in London, returning to Yemen in 2004. He taught at a radical university before being arrested by Yemeni authorities and imprisoned for 18 months. The exact reasons are unknown; he was never charged. Al-Awlaki has blamed the U.S. for pressuring the Yemeni government to detain him and claims the FBI interrogated him in prison. (The FBI did not respond to requests for information about al-Awlaki.)

Terrorism Speaks Your Language
There are dozens of "e-imams" who preach hatred toward the West on the Internet, and some have greater clout among the faithful than al-Awlaki. But his books and CDs have become best sellers, and his YouTube sermons are getting hundreds of thousands of hits. The hype reached new heights recently when the Arabic-language news channel al-Arabiya dubbed al-Awlaki "the bin Laden of the Internet."

What distinguishes al-Awlaki is not his record; other preachers have had demonstrably closer links to al-Qaeda and jihad. It is his target audience. Al-Awlaki aims his sermons at young Muslims mostly living in the U.S. and Britain. This is a group he understands better than any other radical preacher. In his fluent English, he has become that rare specimen: the jihadist cleric who can communicate effortlessly with audiences in the West. His tone and his message can appear seductively conciliatory. Most of his sermons have nothing at all to do with radical ideology; they are simple translations from the Koran and stories about the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Al-Awlaki appeals to Muslim immigrants who worry that their English-speaking children are unable to connect to their faith. "He's lived amid such people, and he understands their dilemmas very well," says Jarret Brachman, author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice and former director of research at West Point's Combating Terror Center. "He's giving them an option, telling them, 'Here's how to be good Muslims when you don't have an imam to turn to.' " (See pictures of the battle against the Taliban.)

Brachman, who monitors jihadist websites, reckons that al-Awlaki's sermons are "totally harmless nine times out of 10 ... but in the 10th, he starts to breathe a little fire." Much of the brimstone can be found in his blog posts, in which al-Awlaki states baldly that Islam and the West are in conflict and argues that all Muslims should join the holy war. In a how-to guide titled "44 Ways to Support Jihad," he says, "Jihad today is obligatory on every capable Muslim. So as a Muslim who wants to please Allah it is your duty to find ways to practice it and support it."

Most of the "44 ways" involve helping the mujahedin, or holy warriors: giving them money, praying for them, sponsoring their families and encouraging others to join the jihad. Believers are also urged to be physically fit, learn to use arms and spiritually prepare for holy war. Al-Awlaki stops short of telling his readers to go out and fight unbelievers. Instead, he suggests it is enough to have the "right intention" and to pray for "martyrdom." But later in 2009, al-Awlaki's tone grew more strident. "I pray that Allah destroys America and all its allies," he said in a blog post. "And the day that happens, and I assure you it will and sooner than you think, I will be very pleased." If al-Awlaki merely exhorted his audience to jihad, he might have gotten no more than passing attention from Washington. But intelligence officials and counterterrorism experts insist that he is no longer content to preach. His association with AQAP, which may be the terrorist network's most ambitious franchise, has brought al-Awlaki closer to the practice of terrorism. "Over the past several years, he has gone from propagandist to recruiter to operational player," a counterterrorism official tells TIME. "He is clearly moving up the terrorist supply chain."

The exact nature of al-Awlaki's operational role remains in dispute. "There's nothing to suggest that he's sitting down and planning attacks," says Ben Venzke of IntelCenter, a private intelligence contractor. "But his connections to Hasan and Abdulmutallab show that he does more than just make some jihadist literature available online. His role is more important than that." Granted, al-Awlaki lacks combat experience. But Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, believes that the cleric has a strong influence on operational issues. "He plays a role in setting a strategic direction for AQAP," he says. "He's telling them, 'Attacking the U.S. homeland should be one of our priorities.' " Is that reason enough for the U.S. to try to take al-Awlaki out? "Absolutely, yes," says Hoekstra. "This is a guy who is encouraging and organizing people to kill Americans." The counterterrorism official agrees: "Taking him off the street would deal a blow to [AQAP]." (See TIME's tribute to people who passed away in 2009.)

That sounds reasonable. But even if the U.S. is right in identifying al-Awlaki as a present danger, getting to him won't be easy. Since the missile strike on his house, the preacher is thought to have gone into hiding among his tribe in Shabwa province. The Yemeni government, already burdened with its three civil wars, is unlikely to start a fourth with the al-Awlakis.

That leaves a U.S. drone strike as the most likely option. There is a precedent for that, but also an unpleasant reminder that al-Awlaki is not the first man brought up in the West — and will surely not be the last — who threw in his lot with jihadists. For in November 2002, one of the first ever drone operations took place in Yemen, killing, among others, Ahmed Hijazi, a suspected al-Qaeda operative. He was an American too.

— With reporting by Mark Thompson, Massimo Calabresi and Caitlin Duke / Washington, Rita Healy / Fort Collins, Teri Figueroa and Jill Underwood / San Diego and Heather Murdock (GlobalPost) and Catrina Stewart / Sana'a

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1953426-1,00.html
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« Reply #1106 on: January 14, 2010, 10:24:57 AM »

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN
Fast-tracking teens to al-Qaida
Ads in U.K. promote lectures from Muslim extremist


Posted: January 14, 2010
12:30 am Eastern

LONDON – A new method of fast-tracking teenagers into al-Qaida has been discovered by intelligence agents in the United Kingdom who say the inflammatory sermons from a radical Muslim even have been advertised on a powerful television channel, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

Psychologists for the MI5 agency say the words from radical Anwar al-Awlaki are targeting teens and the lectures, containing titles such as "Stop Police Terror," "Brutality Forwards Muslims" and "It's a War Against Islam," direct the youth toward al-Qaida.

It's been reported that MI5 found that the Islam Channel, a free-to-air English-language channel, has been advertising
the sermons on disk, and they have been played in mosques all over the country.

Who finances the channel isn't known, but MI5 agents have not ruled out that money comes through Arab banks.

The channel itself boasts it is "a trustworthy soured for the two-million plus population of Muslims in Britain."

Originally recorded and produced in Sanaa, Yemen, the sermons are retailing in the U.K. for under $10.

The Security Service also has established that among the purchasers is Umar Farouk Abgdulmutallab, the man suspected of trying to blow a Detroit-bound jet with hundreds of passengers out of the sky on Christmas Day.

But the 23-year-old former University College of London student was not the only purchaser. FBI interrogators also have learned that U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused of shooting and killing 13 adults and an unborn child at Fort Hood in Texas in November, also had purchased a set.

John Brennan, the U.S. deputy national security adviser, said there also were "indications there had been contact between Awlaki and Abdullmutallab."

The link Awlaki has with British Muslims has caused deepening concern among moderate Islamic scholars.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121852http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121852
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« Reply #1107 on: January 14, 2010, 10:38:17 AM »

The Obama Administration's Counterterrorism Policy at One Year

Daniel Benjamin
Coordinator, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism
Keynote Address at the CATO Institute
Washington, DC
January 13, 2010

Good morning. It’s really a pleasure to be here at CATO and back on Massachusetts Avenue’s think tank row – a place I was happy to call home. Today I’m really pleased to have the opportunity to speak to you today about the threats we face today and the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies for confronting them.

One of the critical tests of an administration’s counterterrorism policies is to see how they emerge from contact with a genuine terrorist event. The attempted Christmas Day bombing nearly cost several hundred people their lives on Northwest Flight 253. We had a very close call. And we are extraordinarily fortunate that no lives were lost. The event was a stark reminder that we are in a constant, pitiless race to head off our foe’s relentless technological advances and confront its ability to deploy a changing cast of recruits.

The President has rightly taken us to task for some key failures – above all in the realm of intelligence analysis and watch-listing. Other shortcomings are obvious – we need to have on line the screening techniques and technologies for a new generation of explosive devices. We are working those issues aggressively now.

Equally important, the events of Christmas day demonstrated that some of the understandings that underlay how we organized ourselves for counterterrorism needed updating. Other events in the latter half of 2009 have also underscored how some of our operating assumptions were no longer adequate. Let me name the most outstanding of these assumptions:

First, we know now that al-Qa’ida affiliates – not just the group’s core leadership in Pakistan – will indeed seek to carry out strikes against the U.S. homeland. We can no longer count on them to be focused exclusively on the near enemy – on the governments in their own countries.

In retrospect, of course, it is abundantly clear that any group that was prepared to become part of the al-Qa’ida network would embrace the essential approach of the mother group. This strategy would lead the group to attempt attacks that would appeal to its target audience of potential sympathizers – they could either be against the near enemy or the far enemy, against us. As I will discuss later, much of our policymaking – especially with regard to the region where this plot was hatched -- has been premised on the conviction that we were headed toward exactly that kind of spread of the threat. But our defensive arrangements – specifically our watchlisting, for example – were not there yet, and that was a clear shortcoming.

Second, for years, we have known about al-Qa’ida’s desire to recruit militants with clean records to deploy against the United States. But we had not experienced any really eye-catching efforts to slip into the country in some time, leading some to speculate that the United States has successfully deterred such operatives from entering our borders.

But as a number of recent events have made clear, we cannot afford to have any sense of false security. As we’ve seen in the last few months in two high-profile law-enforcement cases, individuals who appear to have been trained and handled from the badlands of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan have been operating within our borders. A bus driver, Najibullah Zazi, was trained in Pakistan and now faces charges in federal court for planning to set off a series of bombs in the United States. An indictment that was unsealed in Chicago in December portrays an American citizen–David Headley–allegedly playing a pivotal role in the 2008 attack in Mumbai, which killed more than 170 people and dramatically raised tensions in South Asia. Yes our intelligence and law enforcement tripwires worked. But that is not reason enough for complacency. Because the threat we face is dynamic and evolving.

Let me just say as an aside that the example of David Headley shows al-Qa’ida is not the only group with global ambitions that we have to worry about. Lashkar e-Taiba has made it clear that it is willing to undertake bold, mass-casualty operations with a target set that would please al-Qa’ida planners. The group’s more recent thwarted conspiracy to attack the US embassy in Bangladesh should only deepen concern that it could indeed evolve into a genuinely global terrorist threat. Very few things worry me as much as the strength and ambition of LeT, a truly malign presence in South Asia. We are working closely with allies in the region and elsewhere to reduce the threat from this very dangerous group.

A third myth has also been dispelled: Americans are immune to al-Qa’ida’s ideology. While domestic incidents of radicalization are significantly lower than in many Western nations, several high profile cases demonstrate that we must remain vigilant. The recent arrest of five Americans in Pakistan suggests that AQ is inspiring U.S. individuals to pursue violence. Similarly, the trickle of individuals who have gone to fight in East Africa demonstrates the group’s reach into that region – and even if some go for nationalistic purpose, they are still becoming radicalized later on. The importance of these cases should not be glossed over.

The lesson here is clear. In a long struggle such as the one we’re in, there are few greater perils than intellectual stagnation or bureaucratic stasis. Our foe, as the president said the other day, is a nimble adversary, and we have a “never-ending race to protect our country” and “stay one step ahead.” Because of the flatness of their organization, a high-level of inspiration, and ingenuity, we need to be on our game all the time. We need to keep mind the words of the 9/11 Report, which in this respect got it precisely right: “It is therefore crucial to find ways of routinizing and even bureaucratizing the exercise of the imagination.” This is really the paramount and enduring challenge we face. Staying sharp, innovating our defensive systems and maintaining our intellectual edge – these are all essential.

Now, having observed changes in the threat that demonstrate anew the adaptive qualities of our enemies, I want to add a note of perspective, because we shouldn’t ignore their signs of their weaknesses as well. Let me point out three: 1) Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula claimed credit for the Christmas Day plot. Now, can anyone remember the last time al-Qa’ida or an affiliate claimed credit for a bomb that failed to kill? 2) As our senior intelligence officials have noted, al-Qa’ida in the FATA is under more pressure than ever before. And 3) al-Qa’ida and its supporters are clearly feeling the effect of our work with the international financial community to stop the flow of money to terrorists. Now, as al-Qa’ida affiliates turn to kidnapping for ransom to raise funds, we are urging our partners around the world to adopt a no-concessions policy toward hostage-takers so that we can diminish this alternative funding stream in regions like the Sahel, the FATA, and Yemen. But clearly the point should not be overlooked that their financial circumstances have deteriorated.

We should not score all the points on one side of the ledger. That leads to fear-mongering…blurs the picture…and undercuts our efforts to get our assessments right.

Another challenge we face involves distinguishing what went wrong in the latter half of 2009, specifically on Christmas day, from what did not. In other words, we need to fix the problems that presented themselves and not get into a panic and abandon other parts of our strategy that work. What I’d like to do now is turn from the headlines of the last few weeks to the broader strategy.

Because most of what we are doing is fundamentally sound and will pay off for us in the long term. Let me walk you through it.

If I had spoken to this audience a year or two ago, my view would have been that the United States had developed and was employing great skills at what I call tactical offensive counterterrorism capabilities - taking individual terrorists off the street, and disrupting cells and operations. Yet on the strategic side, I was concerned that we were losing ground in the overall campaign against international terrorism, and in particular that we were failing to trump al-Qa’ida’s narrative. In my roughly eight months in office, my view of our tactical capabilities has been more than borne out. I’m pleased to say as well that I believe that this administration is addressing that critically important strategic gap.

In Afghanistan, the President has put forward a clear plan to constrain the Taliban and destroy the al-Qa’ida core, and the Administration and Congress are putting up the resources necessary to achieve that goal. General McChrystal’s positive comments yesterday suggest that we are making progress there and that we should not succumb to any easy defeatism.

We are working with Pakistan to establish the kind of relationship, based on trust and mutual interests, that will lead to the defeat of radicalism in that country, which has in recent months seen so much bloodshed. We understand the trust deficit, built up over decades between the United States and Pakistan that created the current situation. We know these challenges will not be overcome overnight. But we are on the right track.

We’re also working on those regions outside of South Asia where radicalism has been flourishing. Since December 25, there has been more than a touch of collective hysteria in the press that a new safe haven crawling with terrorists has suddenly appeared in Yemen.

In fact, Yemen was arguably the very first front. If you go all the way back to the last days of the first President Bush’s term in December, 1992, perhaps the very first al-Qa’ida attack happened when operatives tried to bomb a hotel housing U.S. troops in Aden who were en route to Somalia to support the UN mission there. Long before the USS Cole was attacked, there were a number of major conspiracies in the 1990s that were also based in Yemen that pointed at Saudi Arabia. The threat has waxed and waned in Yemen since then but is at a peak right now. Al-Qa’ida has always had a foothold in Yemen, and it's always been a concern.

What I can say, definitively, is that the Obama administration has been focused on Yemen since day one. On my first day at the State Department, the same day that I was sworn in, Deputy Secretary of State Steinberg said to me, "Here are some of the priorities you need to be looking at," and right at the top of the list was Yemen. We've worked very closely and much more effectively with the Yemeni authorities over the last several months, and we're making some progress. The result of that were the forceful actions beginning last month in Yemen that have continued against AQAP – the most serious in years. And I saw today that there is a report of another senior militant being killed in Yemen by government forces.

Our strategy is to build up the Yemeni capacity to deal with the security threats within their own country, but also to mitigate the very acute economic crisis that Yemen is dealing with. Yemen is grappling with serious poverty, as you all know, it is the poorest country in the Arab world and it complicates governance across a country that is larger than Iraq. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula takes advantage of insecurity in various regions of Yemen, which is worsened by internal conflicts and competition for governance by tribal and non-state actors. This is why we must address the problem of terrorism in Yemen from a comprehensive, long-term perspective that considers various factors, including assisting with governance and development efforts as well as equipping the country’s counterterrorism forces. This effort represents a comprehensive approach to security policy and one that we are implementing in cooperation with other countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. The Gulf countries are very concerned, and there have been press reports worth noting, that the UAE, for example, allocating more than $500 million to Yemen.

What we are doing in Yemen is what we are doing in many other countries – building capacity. Consistent diplomatic engagement with counterparts and senior leaders helps build political will for common counterterrorism objectives. When there is political will, we can address the nuts and bolts aspect of capacity building. We are working to make the counterterrorism training of police, prosecutors, border officials, and members of the judiciary more systematic, more innovative, and more far-reaching. Capacity building also includes counterterrorist finance training; it represents a whole-of-government approach. This is both good counterterrorism and good statecraft. We are addressing the state insufficiencies that terrorism thrives on, and we are helping invest our partners more effectively in confronting the threat–rather than looking thousands of miles away for help or simply looking away altogether.

We are also working on what my colleague Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan has called the upstream factors. We need to confront the political, social, and economic conditions that our enemies exploit to win over the new recruits…the funders…and those whose tacit support enables the militants to carry forward their plans. As we look at the problem of transnational terror and its long term implications, we are putting at the core of our strategic policies recognition of the phenomenon of radicalization—that is, we are asking ourselves time and again: Are our actions going to result in the removal of one terrorist with the resulting creation of ten more? What can we do to attack the drivers of radicalization, so that al- Qa’ida and its affiliates finally have a shrinking pool of recruits?

And finally, and vitally, are we hewing to our values in this struggle? Because as President Obama has said from the outset, there should be no tradeoff between our security and our values. Indeed, in light of what we know about radicalization, it is clear that navigating by our values is an essential part of a successful counterterrorism effort. We have moved to rectify the excesses of the past few years by working to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, by forbidding enhanced interrogation techniques, and developing a more systematic method of dealing with detainees. We are also demonstrating our commitment to the rule of law by trying Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other al-Qa’ida operatives in our criminal court system.

The threat is global and our enemies latch on to grievances on behalf of the entire Muslim world, so we must look to resolve the long-standing problems that fuel those grievances. At the top of the list is the Arab-Israeli conflict, and, as you know, President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and Special Envoy George Mitchell are working very hard to resolve that.

Even with their efforts, peace in the Middle East will take plenty of time, and as we know, it will not eliminate all of the threats. But while the big policy challenges matter in radicalization, local drivers are also critical in making individuals vulnerable to the appeal of al-Qa’ida’s ideology and its narrative. We are developing tailored-approaches to alter them – to deal with issues of education, health care, social welfare and economic opportunity that create the conditions of marginalization and alienation, and perceived–-or real–deprivation. In recognition of this, my first step has been to build a unit within my office focusing on what we in the government call “Countering Violent Extremism” in my office to focus on local communities most prone to radicalization. There is a broad understanding across the government that we have not done nearly enough to address underlying conditions for at-risk populations—and we have also not done enough to improve the ability of moderates to voice their views and strengthen opposition to violence.

To be sure, terrorism is a common challenge shared by nations across the globe—one that requires diplomacy—and one that the United States cannot solve alone. The Obama administration has worked hard to reach out and, on the basis of mutual interests and mutual respect, to forge international coalitions. The administration has been working at reinvigorating alliances across the board and reengaging in the multilateral fora concerned with counterterrorism—fora that, in all honesty, were neglected for some time at the many UN entities, the G8, and the vast range of regional organizations that are eager to engage on counterterrorism issues. The net effect of our work has been manifold: We are increasing the pool of donors for capacity building. We are strengthening the international sense of resolve against terror. We are also strengthening global norms so that countries jointly do a better job to build security together.

As December 25 made clear, there is still much to figure out, and there can be no assurance of a future without real setbacks. December 25 certainly underscored the continuing peril we face, the determination of our foes, and the evolving complexity of the overall threat.

Contemporary terrorism has been decades in the making and it will take many more years to unmake it. There is much we still need to learn, especially about how to prevent individuals from choosing the path of violence. But I believe we now have the right framework for our policies, and ultimately, I am confident, this will lead to the decisions and actions that will strengthen security for our nation and for the global community.

Thank you for coming to listen today. I’d be happy to take your questions.

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/rm/2010/135171.htm
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« Reply #1108 on: January 14, 2010, 11:27:27 AM »



NYC: Accused Terrorist Aafia Siddiqui Says Toss Jews From Jury Pool
January 14, 2010

Jury selection in the “Lady Al Qaeda” trial got off to a bizarre start Wednesday with the accused terrorist telling jurors she was “boycotting” - and demanding Jews be excluded from the panel.

“If they have a Zionist or Israeli background…they are all mad at me,” said Aafia Siddiqui, a U.S.-trained neuroscientist charged with attempted murder.

“I have a feeling everyone here is them - subject to genetic testing….They should be excluded if you want to be fair,” she told Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman.

Prospective jurors weren’t present for that outburst, but they were in the courtroom to hear her say, “I’m boycotting the trial…there are too many injustices.”

At another point, Siddiqui repeatedly refused to talk to her own lawyers, saying she didn’t trust them.

“I don’t trust you either,” she told Berman.

She even tried to toss a handwritten note to prosecutors requesting time each day to pray. Berman ruled she could leave the courtroom at 3:30 p.m. for 15minutes of prayer.

Siddiqui, 37, is accused of picking up an M-4 Army rifle and firing two rounds at a team of Americans who tried to question her in Afghanistan on July 18, 2008.

Prosecutors argue she screamed, “Allah Akbar” and vowed to kill Americans before she was wrestled to the ground. She allegedly had two pounds of poisonous sodium cyanide and hundreds of pages of notes and documents on how to build chemical and biological weapons.

The terror guides featured targets including the Statue of Liberty, Wall Street, the Empire State Building and the Brooklyn Bridge, prosecutors said.

Berman ruled the jury can hear about the target list and other handwritten notes but tossed as evidence the chemicals and mass-produced documents from “how-to” terror manuals.

Prosecutors also are barred from bringing up Siddiqui’s alleged ties or sympathies with Al Qaeda because they would create a bias.

http://theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/44840/NYC:+Accused+Terrorist+Aafia+Siddiqui+Says+Toss+Jews+From+Jury+Pool.html
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« Reply #1109 on: January 14, 2010, 12:08:24 PM »

U.S. following credible threat in Yemen

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. authorities are monitoring a credible threat from al-Qaida in Yemen against the United States, officials said.

One official characterized the threat as general in nature and lacked specificity, and a second official said the matter was not a case of "we connected the dots to something imminent," CNN reported Thursday.

The first official said, however, that U.S. learned al-Qaida has already started making adjustments to new U.S. security measures, raising concerns.

The U.S. has some information about time frame, but not about location, sources said.

Other sources told CNN that follow-ups on Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the young Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane on Christmas Day, led to information related to aviation and al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day bombing attempt.

The level of concern is "measurable" a source told CNN, adding, "There is more prickling of the neck hair."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/14/UPI-NewsTrack-TopNews/UPI-18471263488400/
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« Reply #1110 on: January 14, 2010, 12:10:22 PM »

Intel indicates Detroit a random choice

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The choice of a Detroit-bound airplane as the target for a Christmas holiday terror attack apparently was random, a U.S. House panel determined.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said after a closed-door briefing with administration officials Wednesday that intelligence didn't point to a known "Detroit connection," the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said she was told in a separate briefing for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the Motor City "was not specifically targeted."

Congressional hearings into the incident are scheduled for next week.

Since the Christmas Day incident, officials have been trying to determine why accused Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, flew to Detroit from Amsterdam, Netherlands, after flying to Amsterdam from Lagos, Nigeria. Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253 on its decent to Detroit Metro Airport. Other passengers subdued him and the plane landed safely.

Thompson and other lawmakers said they want to ensure such an incident doesn't happen again, the Free Press said. While President Barack Obama tried to assure that stronger steps are being taken to protect the country against another breach, Thompson said he wants to see what the ongoing reviews say, as well as proposals to beef up airport security domestically and internationally.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/01/14/UPI-NewsTrack-TopNews/UPI-18471263488400/
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« Reply #1111 on: January 14, 2010, 05:16:12 PM »

Collins Recommends Ban on "Violent Islamist Extremism" in Military
01/14/2010 12:23 PM ET 

The recommendation is one of several preliminary ones Collins and Connecticut Sen. Joe Leibermen issued yesterday in the wake of a hearing on the November Foot Hood shootings.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins is recommending a ban on "violent Islamist extremism" in the military. The recommendation is one of several in a preliminary report Collins and Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Joe Leiberman issued to the Department of Defense after a hearing on the November Foot Hood shootings, which left 13 people dead at the Texas military base.

Collins, the ranking Republican on the committee says the military should also train service members to "recognize, address and report such extremism." The shooter in the incident, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a military psychiatrist, had previously expressed extremist views.

Collins says the DOD's approach to members of the military who espouse violent extremism "needs to be revised."

"Updating that approach will protect from suspicion the thousands of Muslim-Americans who serve honorably in the U.S. military and maintain the bonds of trust among servicemembers of all religions which is so essential to our military's effectiveness," she and Lieberman say in a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The full text of the letter is below:

January 13, 2010
The Honorable Robert M. Gates
Secretary
U.S. Department of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon, Room 3E718
Washington, DC  20301
 
Dear Secretary Gates:
 
The Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has initiated an investigation into the events surrounding the November 5, 2009, shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, pursuant to the Committee’s authority under Rule XXV(K)(1) of the Standing Rules of the Senate, Section 101 of S. Res. 445 (108th Congress), and Section 12 of S. Res. 73 (111th Congress).  The purpose of our investigation is to assess the information the U.S. Government had prior to the shootings and the actions it took in response to that information. Ultimately, the investigation will identify the steps necessary to protect the United States against future acts of terrorism by homegrown violent Islamist extremists.
 
 We are committed to completing a comprehensive fact-finding investigation concerning the U.S. Government’s failure to identify Major Nidal Malik Hasan as a possible threat and to take action that may have prevented the attacks.  Even at this stage of our investigation, however, it has become apparent to us that DoD’s approach to the threat of servicemembers who adopt a violent Islamist extremist ideology needs to be revised. Updating that approach will protect from suspicion the thousands of Muslim-Americans who serve honorably in the U.S. military and maintain the bonds of trust among servicemembers of all religions which is so essential to our military’s effectiveness.
 
I.              DoD Should Update Its Approach to Extremism in the Ranks Given the Threat of Homegrown Terrorism Inspired by Violent Islamist Extremism.
 
During the past four years, our Committee has conducted an extensive investigation of the threat facing the United States from homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist extremism.  The Committee’s work makes clear – particularly in light of the increased number of attacks, plots, and arrests during 2009 – that the threat of homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist extremism has evolved and is expanding.  In over a dozen incidents in 2009, U.S. citizens or residents sought to mount an attack within the United States, including one who shot two Army recruiters in Arkansas, a number who apparently fought for al-Shaabab in Somalia, seven men in North Carolina who allegedly planned to attack the Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, and several who plotted to bomb a synagogue in New York City. The violent Islamist terrorist threat includes individuals who self-radicalize by visiting Internet websites or reading other propaganda that promotes terrorist causes, i.e., without any connection to or affiliation with an established or recognized group. Efforts to detect and disrupt terrorist activity are complicated when these self-radicalized terrorists operate as “lone wolves.” 
 
This Committee and senior Executive Branch officials have identified domestic violent Islamist extremism as a rising threat.  As Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano recently stated, “We’ve seen an increased number of arrests here in the U.S. of individuals suspected of plotting terrorist attacks, or supporting terror groups abroad such as al Qaeda.  Homegrown terrorism is here.  And, like violent extremism abroad, it will be part of the threat picture that we must now confront.”
 
The Department has previously adopted policies to address servicemembers engaged in certain violent extremist activities. Policies exist that address servicemembers who become involved in both racist activities and criminal gangs.  However, there have been cases of servicemembers becoming radicalized to violent Islamist extremism, including Sergeant Hasan Akbar, who murdered fellow servicemembers at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait in 2003.  Given these events, and the increasing incidence of violent Islamist extremism in the United States, the Department must revisit its policies and procedures to ensure that violent radicalization, whether based on violent Islamist extremist doctrine or other causes, can be identified and action taken to prevent attacks before they occur.
 
Exhibiting signs of violent extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations, including those associated with violent Islamist extremism, is incompatible with military service and access to classified or sensitive information.  An April 2005 report by DoD’s Defense Personnel Security Research Center, Screening for Potential Terrorists in the Enlisted Military Accessions Process, concluded that “the allegiance to the U.S. and the willingness to defend its Constitution must be questioned of anyone who materially supports or ideologically advocates the legitimacy of Militant Jihadism” and that “determination of participation in or support or advocacy of Militant Jihadist groups and their ideologies should be grounds for denial of acceptance into the Armed Forces of the U.S. and denial of access to classified or sensitive information.” As seen in the cases of Major Hasan and Sergeant Akbar, the adoption of violent Islamist extremism has been associated with violence against military personnel and other Americans.
 
We believe that DoD’s approach to countering the threat of violent extremism by servicemembers needs to be updated to reflect the current threat of homegrown violent Islamist extremism faced by the United States.  Even though we have not completed our investigation of Major Hasan’s conduct and his colleagues’ and commanders’ response to him specifically, we make the following recommendations based on our knowledge of the overall threat of homegrown violent Islamist extremism, our careful review of relevant DoD and Army policies, and interviews and testimony of former high-ranking DoD personnel, intelligence, and military officials and briefings by current officials.  We may supplement these recommendations based on the specific facts of Major Hasan’s case and on additional information.


II.                 DoD Should Increase Training of DoD Personnel Concerning Violent Islamist Extremism.
 
Increased training of servicemembers at all levels – from enlisted personnel to commanders – is needed to ensure that they can understand the warning signs of violent Islamist extremism.  Such training will need to be crafted carefully and will likely need to vary by rank. Training should include:
Why exhibiting violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations is incompatible with military service and access to classified or sensitive information.
 The process of violent radicalization, including the warning signs of violent Islamist extremism.
 Servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations are not necessarily members of any established or recognized group. Instead, the servicemember could be a “lone wolf,” having undergone a process of self-radicalization via Internet sites, literature, or videos.
 What violent Islamist extremism is, and how terrorists distort the Islamic faith to promote violence.
 
            Existing DoD policies provide some authority for commanders and other appropriate officials to respond to servicemembers that exhibit signs of violent extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations.  However, commanders should be trained to apply such policies to servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremism and to recognize those signs in a specific servicemember. Relevant policies include but are not limited to:
Army Regulation 600-20, Army Command Policy:  This policy gives every commander broad discretion to prohibit activities by servicemembers in order to preserve good order, discipline, and morale.  Training should ensure that commanders are aware that exhibiting signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations by a servicemember would constitute a threat to good order, discipline, and morale.  The training should explain the difference between religious faith and observance, on the one hand, and violent extremist views, behaviors, and affiliations on the other – albeit recognizing that warning signs of extremist views, behaviors, and affiliations should not be ignored just because they are comingled with religious faith or observance.
 DoD Directive 1332.30, Separation of Regular and Reserve Commissioned Officers:  Training of DoD personnel should clarify that exhibiting violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations by an officer would constitute substandard “attitude or character” for which separation from military service may result.
 
 
III.               DoD Should Revise its Policies to Address Violent Extremism Generally and Violent Islamist Extremism in Particular.
 
             Other DoD policies should be revised to address servicemembers who exhibit violent extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations, including those associated with violent Islamist extremism.
 
            The Department should update DoD Instruction 1325.06, Guidelines for Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces.  The Department originally issued the Instruction in response to Vietnam-era anti-war activities by servicemembers and has updated the Instruction to address servicemembers involved in supremacist activities and criminal gangs. The most recent version of the Instruction prohibits not only servicemember participation in certain organizations but also prohibits “actively advocat[ing] supremacist doctrine, ideology, or causes.” The inclusion of active advocacy broadens the instruction to cover situations in which a servicemember acts alone without involvement with a group. However, the history of the Instruction, combined with the common understanding of the term “supremacist,” suggests that the prohibition is limited to racial extremism. Accordingly, the Instruction should be broadened so that it clearly applies to other types of violent extremism, including violent Islamist extremism.
 
            The Army also should update its Pamphlet 600-15, Extremist Activities. This pamphlet, issued in response to the racially-motivated murders committed by servicemembers at Fort Bragg in 1995 and DoD’s subsequent revision of Instruction 1325.06 in 1996, is heavily oriented toward supremacist activities and other racial extremism.  The pamphlet should be expanded to address servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. Accordingly, the Army should revise the pamphlet to discuss signs of such views, behaviors, or affiliations. In doing so, the Army should specify that servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations, may do so as the result of self-radicalization or as “lone wolves.” The Army should also consider how the Instruction should be revised to prospectively address future threats from other violent extremist ideologies. The other Services should make corresponding changes to their policies and procedures.
 
IV.              DoD Should Ensure that Servicemembers Report Signs of Violent Islamist Extremism.
 
            The Department and the Services should also revise their policies to ensure that servicemembers have a clear obligation to report servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. As General Keane testified before our Committee, “It should not be an act of moral courage for a soldier to identify a fellow soldier who is displaying extremist behavior.  It should be an obligation.”
 
            DoD’s policies do not clearly require that servicemembers report other personnel who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. Neither the version of DoD Instruction 1325.06 on extremism, Guidelines for Handling Dissident and Protest Activities Among Members of the Armed Forces, in effect before the Fort Hood shootings nor the revised directive issued in November 2009 contains a reporting obligation by servicemembers with respect to the types of activities covered by that Instruction. In addition, DoD Instruction 5240.6, entitled Counterintelligence (CI) Awareness, Briefing, and Reporting Programs, includes a requirement that servicemembers report “circumstances that could pose a threat to security of U.S. personnel, DoD resources, and classified national security information.” This Instruction could be read to require reporting of violent Islamist extremist activities by servicemembers. However, the reporting requirements within this policy focus primarily on threats from foreign intelligence services and terrorist organizations. As such, the policy’s main requirement is that DoD personnel report contacts with such organizations, not that they report personnel who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. The Department should revise its policies to ensure that servicemembers understand they have an obligation to report personnel who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations.
 
           Likewise, Army policies are vague regarding the extent of any obligation that Army personnel have to report other personnel who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. Army Pamphlet 600-15 contains a brief reference to servicemembers needing to “report specific indicators [of extremism] to the chain of command.” But the Pamphlet does not detail an individual servicemembers’ reporting obligations or sanctions for noncompliance, and thus contrasts to the highly structured reporting obligation for subversion and espionage under Army Regulation 381-12, Subversion and Espionage Directed Against the U.S. Army (SAEDA). However, even Army Regulation 381-12 does not appear to require that Army personnel report other personnel who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. For example:
 
Army Regulation 381-12’s requirements for reporting “contacts by [Army] personnel with persons whom they know or suspect to be members of or associated with...terrorist organizations” and “active attempts to encourage military or civilian employees to violate laws, disobey lawful orders or regulations, or disrupt military activities” do not seem to address servicemembers who merely exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations and do not encourage other servicemembers to take any specific actions.
 Army Regulation 381-12 also requires reporting of “information concerning any international or domestic terrorist activity or sabotage that poses an actual or potential threat to Army or other U.S. facilities, activities, personnel, or resources.” However, signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations prior to any indication of terrorist activity or sabotage would not appear to trigger this reporting requirement.
 
 
            Accordingly, the Army needs to revise its policies to clearly and unequivocally require that servicemembers report fellow servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations. Concomitantly, the Army needs to ensure that its personnel receive training that clearly outlines their obligation to report indicators of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliation. The training should explain how such activities differ from the exercise of religious faith, including the practice of Islam.  The other Services also should clearly require that their servicemembers report signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations and provide training.

            The threat posed by servicemembers who exhibit signs of violent Islamist extremist views, behaviors, or affiliations raises both personnel and counterintelligence / subversion concerns. The extremism policies referenced above are promulgated by the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness and the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Personnel while the counterintelligence/subversion policies referenced above are promulgated by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army for Intelligence. Senior Department and Service officials should ensure sufficient coordination between the personnel and the counterintelligence/ subversion components of their organizations to ensure that violent Islamist extremism among servicemembers is handled appropriately.
 
           
             Clearly, violent Islamist extremism is highly distinct from Islam, and thousands of Muslim-Americans serve honorably in the military.  We believe that the changes recommended above will not serve to increase scrutiny of these servicemembers’ religious beliefs or practices or to cause tension with their colleagues.  To the contrary: we believe that the opposite will occur. Efforts by DoD to educate its personnel concerning what violent Islamist extremism is and what the warning signs of such extremism are – as distinguished from the practice of the Islamic faith – will increase trust between the thousands of Muslim-Americans serving honorably and their colleagues. Clear policies and training should foster greater respect for Muslim-Americans who serve in the military.  We trust that, given the sensitivity of this issue, DoD will proceed to make the revisions and changes outlined in this letter in a manner that seeks to avoid unintended consequences and interpretations of its new policies and training.
We understand that the Department’s initial review concerning the Fort Hood shooting is scheduled to conclude on January 15, 2010.  We understand that the initial review will focus on the military’s personnel evaluation system; we plan to review that system in the course of our full investigation. We assume that the Department’s overall review will assess the adequacy of the Department’s approach to violent Islamist extremism among DoD personnel and hope that our recommendations as outlined above will be helpful to your review. As mentioned above, we will continue our investigation and may make further recommendations in this area based on the specific facts concerning Major Hasan and any additional information.

 

Sincerely,
 
 
            Joseph I. Lieberman                                                Susan M. Collins         
            Chairman                                                              Ranking Member

http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3483/ItemId/10592/Default.aspx
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« Reply #1112 on: January 15, 2010, 10:20:51 AM »

Report on Fort Hood Said to Fault Army Officers

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: January 15, 2010

Filed at 7:28 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- As many as eight Army officers could face discipline for failing to do anything when the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood rampage displayed erratic behavior early in his military career, two officials familiar with the case said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to refer findings on the officers to the Army for further inquiry and possible punishment. The report on what went wrong in the case of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused in the shootings that killed 13 people at the Texas Army base on Nov. 5, is expected to be released Friday.

Several midlevel officers overlooked or failed to act on red flags in Hasan's lax work habits and fixation on religion, the officials said Thursday. Hasan was an odd duck and a loner who was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical fitness requirements, the review found.

Findings about Hasan and those who supervised him are contained in a confidential addendum to a larger report about the Pentagon's handling of potential extremism in the ranks and readiness to handle the sort of mass casualties Hasan allegedly inflicted.

An official familiar with both documents detailed their findings on condition of anonymity because the larger unclassified report has not yet been released, and the one dealing with Hasan in detail will not be publicly released.

Earlier, another official familiar with the findings said the five- to eight officers who could face discipline were supervisors who knew about Hasan's shortcomings and looked the other way or who did not fully reflect concerns about Hasan in professional evaluations.

The officers supervised Hasan when he was a medical student and during his early work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

Findings about Hasan are limited to a one-page summary in the main report. The report, called "Protecting the Force," concludes that the Defense Department had outdated and ineffective means to identify threats from inside as opposed to outside the military. It also says the department's means of sharing and collating information about a potential troublemaker are inadequate, one official said.

The inquiry also questions whether the Pentagon is fully committed to FBI-run Joint Terrorism Task Forces. The report calls on the Defense Department to fully staff those teams of investigators, analysts, linguists and others so the Pentagon can quickly see information collected across government agencies about potential links between troops and terrorist or extremist groups.

The report found that although emergency response at Fort Hood was generally good, there are gaps elsewhere and sometimes a failure to link emergency response operations on military installations with those in the surrounding communities.

The findings are the result of two months of work by a panel convened by Gates to look for holes in Pentagon policies and procedures revealed by the Hasan case. The review, which was led by retired Adm. Vernon E. Clark and former Army secretary Togo D. West Jr., did not consider whether the shootings were an act of terrorism and did not delve into allegations that Hasan was in contact with a radical cleric in Yemen. Those questions are part of the separate criminal case against Hasan.

Hasan got passing grades and a promotion in part because disturbing information about his behavior and performance was not recorded by superiors or properly passed to others who might have stepped in, the report found.

As Hasan's training progressed, his strident views on Islam became more pronounced as did worries about his competence as a medical professional. Yet his superiors continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks and led to his eventual assignment at Fort Hood.

Recent statistics show the Army rarely blocks junior officers from promotion, especially in the medical corps.

The report does not answer whether intervention by one of Hasan's superiors might have prevented the shootings, one official said. It is possible that full knowledge by some superiors or a more proactive response to disturbing aspects of Hasan's behavior could have either helped him or gotten him fired, that official said, but there is no clear evidence that anything would have been different.

Hasan was often late or absent, sometimes appeared disheveled and performed to minimum requirements. The pattern that was obvious to many around him yet not fully reflected where it counted in the Army's bureaucratic system of evaluation and promotion, investigators found.

Hasan nonetheless earned some good reviews from patients and colleagues. His promotion to major was based on an incomplete personnel file, one official said, but also on performance markers that Hasan had met, if barely.

Hasan showed no signs of being violent or a threat. But parallels have been drawn between the missed signals in his case and those preceding the thwarted Christmas attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner. President Barack Obama and his top national security aides have acknowledged they had intelligence about the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but failed to connect the dots.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/15/us/AP-US-FortHood-Pentagon.html
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« Reply #1113 on: January 15, 2010, 10:24:15 AM »

Video: Ft. Hood warning signs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGARe3QRE9E&feature=player_embedded
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« Reply #1114 on: January 15, 2010, 10:32:21 AM »

Officers May Be Punished for Ft. Hood Rampage

Friday, January 15, 2010

As many as eight Army officers may be punished for failing to heed warning signs and take action against suspected Fort Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Hasan, a U.S. official said Thursday.

First reported in the Los Angeles Times, an official familiar with a Pentagon review of the case, which will be discussed at a briefing Friday, said the officers who face discipline hold ranks of colonel and below.

The review reportedly found that superiors allowed Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, to advance within the ranks despite his failings to meet physical and professional standards. Hasan avoided physical training, was overweight and frequently late, but was seen by superiors as a rare medical officer and thus avoided corrective action.

"Had those failings been properly adjudicated, he wouldn't have progressed," the official told the Times.

Additionally, the Pentagon review into the deadly rampage that killed 13 found that the Defense Department does not do an adequate job of sharing information about internal personnel, and it focuses more on hunting spies than ferreting out extremists.

The Defense Department made public its own review of the rampage earlier this week and found that doctors overseeing Hasan's medical training repeatedly voiced concerns over his strident views on Islam and his inappropriate behavior, yet continued to give him positive performance evaluations that kept him moving through the ranks.

Both reviews seem to point to the fact that supervisors failed to heed their own warnings about an officer ill-suited to be an Army psychiatrist.

Recent statistics show the Army rarely blocks junior officers from promotion, especially in the medical corps.

Hasan showed no signs of being violent or a threat. But parallels have been drawn between the missed signals in his case and those preceding the thwarted Christmas attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner. President Barack Obama and his top national security aides have acknowledged they had intelligence about the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, but failed to connect the dots.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,583083,00.html?test=latestnews
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« Reply #1115 on: January 15, 2010, 11:09:18 AM »

Official: 8 officers could get punished for Fort Hood rampage

By Anne Gearan, AP National Security Writer
WASHINGTON — A US official says a Pentagon inquiry into the case of the alleged Fort Hood shooter could lead to punishment of up to eight Army officers.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to refer findings on the officers to the Army for further inquiry and possible punishment.

An official familiar with a Pentagon inquiry says it finds fault with five to eight supervisors who knew or should have known about shortcomings and erratic behavior of the shooting suspect, Maj. Nidal Hasan. He is accused of killing 13 people in the rampage at the Texas Army base in November.

The officers supervised Hasan when he was a medical student and during his early work as an Army psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The official described the confidential report on condition of anonymity because it has not been made public.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-01-15-Fort-Hood_N.htm
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« Reply #1116 on: January 15, 2010, 01:14:21 PM »

Report Finds Shortfalls in Countering Internal Threats

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan. 15, 2010 – The shooting spree allegedly perpetrated by a self-radicalized soldier of Muslim faith has revealed shortcomings in the Defense Department’s ability to counter dangerous outside influences on the military, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said today.

Gates disclosed this and several other key findings of a broad review he ordered after Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan allegedly killed 13 people in a Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. The conclusions of this preliminary assessment are due out later today.

“The review concluded that [Defense Department] force-protection programs are not properly focused on internal threats such as workplace violence and self-radicalization,” Gates told Pentagon reporters. “The problem is compounded in the absence of a clear understanding of what motivates a person to become radicalized and commit violent acts.”

Gates said he would forward to Army Secretary John McHugh the review’s recommendations on how to hold accountable the Army personnel responsible for supervising Hasan. According to reports, Hasan had displayed behaviors before the shooting that suggested sympathies toward radical Islam, possible red flags that could have derailed the shootings.

Gates tapped Former Army Secretary Togo West and retired Navy Adm. Vernon Clark, a former chief of naval operations, on Nov. 19 to assess the department’s procedures for identifying and responding to potentially dangerous troops within the ranks.

“It is clear that as a department, we have not done enough to adapt to the evolving domestic internal security threat to American troops and military facilities that has emerged over the past decade,” said Gates, adding that the department is still bogged down in a Cold War mentality. “Our counterintelligence procedures are mostly designed to combat an external threat, such as a foreign intelligence service.”

The review describes a military more equipped to investigate and adjudicate criminal conduct such as domestic abuse and gang activities than it is on outside influences posing an internal threat. Further, the current scope of prohibited activities is incomplete and fails to provide adequate guidance to commanders, Gates said.

“[They] provide neither the authority nor the tools for commanders and supervisors to intervene when [Defense Department] personnel at risk of potential violence make contact or establish relationships with persons or entities that promote self-radicalization,” he said. “We need to refine our understanding of what these behavioral signals are and how they progress.”

Noting the department’s lack of ability to gather and disseminate information about possible dangers, Gates underscored the need to establish a senior Defense Department official responsible for integrating force-protection policies throughout the department.

One positive finding Gates shared was the “prompt and effective” initial response at Fort Hood highlighted in the review. Anticipatory planning for such a mass-casualty event paid dividends in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the review found.

“The first responders deserve recognition for the efforts that prevented an awful situation from becoming even worse,” Gates said. “However, the report raises serious questions about the degree to which the entire Department of Defense is prepared for similar incidents in the future especially multiple, simultaneous incidents.”

Gates announced that Paul Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, will rapidly assess the review's findings and recommendations to implement them quickly. Gates set a March deadline for the immediate fixes recommended in the review, and said major institutional changes should be under way by June.

In closing, Gates reiterated his condolences to the victims and families affected by the Fort Hood shooting, and urged commanders at every level to be more attuned to personnel who may be at risk or pose a danger.

“One of the core functions of leadership is assessing the performance and fitness of people honestly and openly,” he said. “Failure to do so, or kicking the problem to the next unit or the next installation, may lead to damaging, if not devastating, consequences.”

Biographies:
Robert M. Gates

Related Sites:
Protecting the Force: Lessons From Fort Hood
Special Report: Tragedy at Fort Hood

http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=57538
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« Reply #1117 on: January 15, 2010, 01:49:23 PM »

Probe of Fort Hood killings says officers erred in supervising suspect
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/01/probe-of-fort-hood-killings-says-officers-erred-in-supervising-suspect/1

'Several' US officers failed in supervising Hasan: probe
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jI5aBq3QcCU743a0XA_0VHZld3QQ

Pentagon finds mistakes by officers over Hasan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/15/AR2010011500428.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Gates: Fort Hood report shows serious internal shortcomings

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gates_fort_hood_report_shows_serious_A5OcPX9IZX00e5iu41HNlO

Gates makes recommendations in Ft. Hood shooting case
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-fort-hood-pentagon16-2010jan16,0,1331448.story

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« Reply #1118 on: January 15, 2010, 03:48:19 PM »


Qassem al-Rimi

Yemeni airstrike kills six Al Qaeda; Qassim Al-Raymi, leader behind Christmas jet plot, may be dead

BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Friday, January 15th 2010, 2:51 PM

WASHINGTON -- A top Al Qaeda plotter may have been zapped in an airstrike Friday, hours after a new U.S. air security alert was issued, prompted by fresh intelligence the group is plotting homeland attacks.

Yemen's government said Qassim Al-Raymi, military commander of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, was the main target of the air raid.

As operations emir and one of the two top AQAP leaders, Al-Raymi is believed by U.S. counterterror officials to have orchestrated the Christmas Day botched bombing of a Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Daily News has learned.

Al-Raymi rebuilt the remnants of the Al Qaeda franchise after escaping a Yemeni prison in early 2006.

Five other thugs were killed in the raid, including three of AQAP's most dangerous operatives, top Yemeni diplomat Mohammed Albasha said in a statement issued by the embassy in Washington.

"Yemeni Air forces carried out an air raid...targeting and destroying two vehicles," Albasha said.

"They're upper mid-level, important guys in Al Qaeda in Yemen," a U.S. counterterror official said of the targets, adding that the killing of Al-Raymi and the others was not yet confirmed.

One AQAP figure who hasn't been scratched off the hit list is U.S. citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki.

He has been targeted by Yemen for his online jihadi preaching and communications with Fort Hood alleged shooter Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and with the alleged Christmas bomber, Abdulmutallab of Nigeria.

There is an increased belief that Abdulmutallab, like Hasan, was in contact by e-mail and maybe in person with Al-Awlaki, the counterterror official told The News today.

Out of fear that there are more suicide bombers like Abdulmutallab heading to airports to catch U.S. flights, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano ordered even tighter air security Thursday.

New intelligence on other suspected operatives has led U.S. officials to fear that AQAP has compressed the time it used to take to recruit, train and dispatch its killers to America's shores.

"It's scary - they're relentless," said a source familiar with the new threats.

While sources continue to say the U.S. has launched its own covert military actions inside Yemen, Albasha said the oil-rich nation is aggressively trying to eliminate the threat on its own. "Today's operation marks the fifth major strike on Al Qaeda positions in less than a month," he said. "The government of Yemen is committed and determined to clear its territories of Al Qaeda operatives."

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/01/15/2010-01-15_yemeni_airstrike_kills_six_al_qaeda_including_qassim_alraimi_in_village_borderin.html#ixzz0ciS42pZD


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« Reply #1119 on: January 16, 2010, 02:14:58 PM »

DOD: Prompt response to Nov. 5 shooting

Posted On: Saturday, Jan. 16 2010 05:20 AM
By Amanda Kim Stairrett
Killeen Daily Herald

Fort Hood's initial response to the Nov. 5 shooting was prompt and effective, the Defense Secretary said Friday from the Pentagon.

Robert Gates discussed the findings from an independent review he ordered in November following the shooting at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center that left 13 dead and more than 30 wounded. Former Army Secretary Togo West and former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark completed this week an independent review of the Defense Department's "policies, programs and procedures for identifying and responding to internal threats," Gates said.

Fort Hood cooperated fully and will review all recommendations, according to a release provided Friday by the III Corps Public Affairs Office, though it is too early to discuss "follow-on actions" until post officials properly review the report.

"We remain deeply committed to providing support to both the soldiers and families affected by this tragedy and to the entire Fort Hood community," the release read. "We are equally committed to ensuring the integrity of the military justice process throughout."

Court-martial process

The Defense Department review is independent from the official investigation into the shooting through the military justice system.

The case is at the Special Court-Martial Convening Authority level, where Col. Morgan Lamb recently named three medical professionals to evaluate the suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and determine whether he is mentally competent to stand trial.

Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, III Corps and Fort Hood commander, explained the process Hasan's case will go through in the military justice system. It is examined on multiple levels and it would be inappropriate for him to comment until it reaches his level at the General Court-Martial Convening Authority, he said Jan. 8.

That likely won't happen until after Cone deploys to Iraq with III Corps, and will then rest upon Maj. Gen. William Grimsley, who will lead the corps in Cone's absence.

Gates said Friday that West and Clark conducted a "serious, thorough assessment."

Because the case is an active criminal investigation, Gates, as Cone did last week, said he couldn't address specifics.

Post prepared

He did say that Fort Hood leaders were prepared for mass-casualty events through emergency-response plans and exercises. The post last conducted a simulated mass-casualty exercise in May, coordinating with off-post fire departments and police stations. The exercise tested responses to a simulated chlorine gas explosion and a suspicious package delivered to an on-post building.

"The first responders deserve recognition for the efforts that prevented an awful situation from becoming even worse," Gates said. "However, the report raises serious questions about the degree to which the entire Department of Defense is prepared for similar incidents in the future especially multiple, simultaneous incidents."

U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, was critical of the Defense Department's report because it didn't contain the term "radical Islam," "proving that strong Congressional action is needed to end the epidemic of political correctness now permeating the federal government," according to a Friday release from his office.

Carter represents District 31, which includes Fort Hood.

He agreed with the report's findings that improvements must be made in the performance of supervisors in identifying those who could become a danger, but "the painfully obvious scrubbing of the report by the administration demands congress move immediately to eliminate any culture of political correctness within (the Defense Department) that discourages those supervisors from taking action against perceived threats."

Contact Amanda Kim Stairrett at astair@kdhnews.com or (254) 501-7547. Follow her on Twitter at KDHmilitary.

http://www.kdhnews.com/news/story.aspx?s=38455
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