Posted on 07/14/2008 6:48:41 AM PDT by SMARTY
Contents
Article 1 “Seven Questions: Twilight of the Arab Moderates,” an Interview of Marwan Muasher, Foreign Policy, Web Exclusive, June 2008. Marwan Muasher was at the forefront of efforts to bring peace to the Middle East in the 1990s. Now, the former Jordanian foreign minister has a message for his fellow Arab moderates: Reform, or be wiped off the political map. His new book, The Arab Center, is a firsthand account of his own experience and the efforts of the Arab center to bring about a peaceful end to the Arab-Israeli conflict over the last 20 years. This center is not holding precisely because it is focused only on the peace process. Moderates on peace are not moderates on other issues of concern to Arab citizens. For the Arab center to hold, it needs to apply moderation across the board.
Article 2 “Foe, Not Friend,” by Frank Gaffney, CSP Decision Brief (Center for Security Policy), 16 June 2008. The United States is in mortal peril from a false friend: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The peril emanates from the totalitarian legal-religious-military-political code the Saudis call sharia, and their assiduous efforts to impose it worldwide. The danger is enormously exacerbated by the almost complete failure of American officials at every level of government to acknowledge, let alone act, to prevent the Saudis’ true agenda. We can no longer pretend that Saudi efforts to impose that agenda are consistent with our national security and other interests. And we can no longer tolerate actions by those in the U.S. government aimed at obscuring such behavior, when the practical effect of doing so is to enable it to advance our destruction.
Article 3 “Al-Qaeda Warrior Uses Internet to Rally Women,” by Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet, New York Times, 28 May 2008. In her living room, Malika El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age. But it is on the Internet where she has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name “Oum Obeyda,” she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al-Qaeda. Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika”—an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad.
Article 4 “DHS Notifies Chemical Facilities They Are in High-Risk Category,” by Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security (Congressional Quarterly), 22 June 2008. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will take the second step in its process to regulate facilities that use and store hazardous chemicals this week, sending out letters to 7,000 sites to tell them they have been designated “high risk.” The letters represent the advancement of DHS’ plan to improve chemical security across the board as it tries to eliminate any perception among terrorists that American chemical facilities are soft targets. About 32,000 facilities—ranging from industrial chemical companies to college and university labs to oil and natural gas production plants—enrolled in the automated system and were evaluated in areas including cybersecurity, location, and likely effect of a release. Although representatives from the chemical industry expressed concern about the process, saying the facilities themselves should determine their vulnerability, trade groups expressed support for it.
Article 5 “Review: U.S. Embassies Still Not Secure,” by Matthew Lee, Associated Press in the Washington Times, 23 June 2008. U.S. diplomatic posts fly the Stars and Stripes in capitals around the globe and are among the most high-profile overseas targets for terrorists and protesters. Despite an intensive $4 billion drive to protect U.S. embassies against violence, at least 150 American missions abroad still fall short of security standards put in place after deadly bombings. And it will cost twice that amount to replace or renovate just the most vulnerable of them, according to the figures contained in the U.S. Department of State’s Long-Range Overseas Buildings Plan that was sent to Congress last week. This year alone, embassies in Bolivia, Chad, and Serbia have been attacked or overrun, not to mention the frequent barrages of rocket fire that have landed near the U.S. embassy in Iraq.
Article 6 “Seven Signs of Terrorism Relate to School Security,” by Evelyn Cronce, El Defensor Chieftain (Socorro County, New Mexico), 18 June 2008. Department of Homeland Security studies have shown that the gunmen at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech planned those attacks using the same techniques used by terrorists. People who are aware of the signs of terrorism have reported something suspicious to their local law enforcement agencies and have prevented 25 school shootings in the United States within the last year. Terrorists or gunmen go through seven steps to prepare for their attack. Potential terrorists [1] conduct surveillance, [2] elicit information, [3] test security, [4] acquire supplies, [5] might look out of place, [6] make a test run, and finally [7] get everything into position. People who notice such things should notify police and police should look into each report.
The Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR) has been published weekly since January 2002 by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com). TOSIR issues are intended for non-profit research and educational use only. Quoted material is subject to the copyright protections associated with the original sources.
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1. “Seven Questions: Twilight of the Arab Moderates,” an Interview of Marwan Muasher, Foreign Policy, Web Exclusive, June 2008. [KBTZIslam, KBTRMESADemocracy, KBTPPeace, KBTMMB]. Marwan Muasher is the former foreign minister of Jordan and author of The Arab Center: The Promise of Moderation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008). We quote from http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story4331.php:
Marwan Muasher was at the forefront of efforts to bring peace to the Middle East in the 1990s. Now, the former Jordanian foreign minister has a message for his fellow Arab moderates: Reform, or be wiped off the political map.
Foreign Policy (FP): You’ve just written a book called The Arab Center. What do you mean by the “Arab center,” and what are you trying to get across in the book?
Marwan Muasher (MM): Most people don’t think there is a center in the Arab world. The book is a firsthand account of my own experience and the efforts of the Arab center to bring about a peaceful end to the Arab-Israeli conflict over the last 20 years or so. This center is not holding precisely because it is focused only on the peace process.
Moderates on peace are not moderates on other issues of concern to Arab citizens, such as political reform, governance, and cultural diversity, and moderates on reform are not also always moderates on peace. For the Arab center to hold, it needs to apply moderation across the board.
FP: How would you classify the Muslim Brotherhood, which has its largest branch in Egypt, but also a significant presence in Jordan?
MM: I actually differentiate political Islam into at least three categories.
The first category is the exclusionist types. These are people who are not concerned with negotiation or compromise, people who are at war with the whole world, not just the Western world, but with other Muslims. And these are of course the Al-Qaeda types.
The second is groups that are violent as a result of the occupation of their countries, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza, and have recently started entering the political process.
Then you have your third, which have been peaceful all along, have never carried arms or employed violent tactics, and have been part of the political process all along, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan or the Islamists in Morocco.
You cannot deal with all groups the same way. The first group—the Al-Qaeda types—needs to be fought because they don’t believe in compromise and negotiation. The second group needs to be encouraged to migrate to the third group, to give up their arms and pursue their objectives through peaceful means. And, of course, the third group needs to be accepted as part of the political process.
FP: Many people fear that until you have a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s too soon to open up the political process. What happens if there is genuine political reform and the main beneficiaries are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood?
MM: I don’t subscribe to this. The Arab-Israeli conflict has not been solved for the last 50 or 70 years, and the Islamists and some of the radical opposition have not been weakened by a continuation of the status quo—in fact they have been strengthened by it. Today, the argument in the Arab world is between two schools of thought. One says that if you open up the system, the Islamists come in. The other school of thought, to which I subscribe, says that if you don’t open up the system, the Islamists come in.
FP: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has recently shifted gears and called for renewed dialogue with Hamas on a unity government. Is this a sign that the Palestinian Authority is giving up on the peace process?
MM: I don’t see it as giving up on the peace process at all. If you look at all the polls, a majority of Palestinians want a peaceful, negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Fortunately, the conflict has been negotiated and renegotiated a number of times, and so everyone knows the parameters of what a final settlement will look like. What is needed is the political resolve to make it happen.
FP: As a lot of analysts are pointing out, though, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is dealing with a corruption scandal and is extremely unpopular. Mahmoud Abbas is weak, and U.S. President George W. Bush is leaving in January. How can you foresee that the political resolve will be there this year?
MM: Well, I’m not sure it will be there this year. All I’m saying is that we sometimes forget that when [former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak] Rabin passed Oslo II in the Israeli Knesset, he did so by a vote of 61-59, and Rabin is not considered to be a weak Israeli president. You are never going to face ideal conditions, so I think the time has come for the international community to put forward a solution.
This is precisely the concept behind the Arab peace initiative: Israel would sign a peace deal with all 22 Arab states, in which the security of Israel as well as that of the Palestinians and everyone else is guaranteed by the whole Arab world, and Arab land of course goes back to the three Arab countries. Such an agreement, when put to the test in both camps, would pass overwhelmingly.
FP: If you sat down with John McCain and Barack Obama, what advice would you give the two U.S. presidential candidates about the Middle East?
MM: I would say two things. One is that the best support the United States can give to moderation in the Middle East is through an active engagement in the peace process and bringing that [conflict] to an end very soon. I would also say that if the United States hopes to bring about a settlement, the president needs to do that in his first term, not in his second, when he would be seen as a lame duck by everybody.
FP: And what about on the reform front, on the democratization agenda?
MM: This is really by and large an Arab responsibility. I understand that reform does not happen overnight, and that the radical groups or the political Islamists have a head start of 40 or 50 years over everyone else. But the solution is not a continuation of the status quo. Political systems need to be opened up, even if gradually, but seriously, so that Arabs are given not just two choices, but third and fourth choices as well.
The foregoing is Article No. 1 (TR339A01) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
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2. “Foe, Not Friend,” by Frank Gaffney, CSP Decision Brief (Center for Security Policy), 16 June 2008 (http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org). [KBTSSaudWT] Frank Gaffney is president of the Center for Security Policy. We quote:
The United States is in mortal peril from a false friend: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The peril emanates from the totalitarian legal-religious-military-political code the Saudis call sharia and their assiduous efforts to impose it worldwide. The danger is enormously exacerbated by the almost complete failure of American officials at every level of government to acknowledge, let alone act, to prevent the Saudis’ true agenda. . . .
[Recent lawsuit uncovered details of Saudi government financing of “foreign” jihad]
A recent expose by New York Times reporter Philip Shenon of congressional and independent investigations of the murderous 11 September 2001 attacks describes evidence of financial, logistical, and other material support by Saudi government personnel to the perpetrators of those acts of terrorism. In The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, Shenon suggests that the Bush White House, the FBI, and, not least, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar went to considerable lengths to suppress such evidence.
In the end, what is known is principally circumstantial—notably, a seeming Saudi covert operative in southern California housed and facilitated the movements of two of the 9/11 hijackers, was in frequent communication with a Wahhabi cleric working in the United States under Saudi diplomatic cover, and received before the attacks funds drawn on an account Bandar’s wife used to support “charities.” It nonetheless seems reasonable to conclude that, had these leads been scrupulously pursued rather than covered up, we would have a far better appreciation of the enmity felt towards this country by all too many of our so-called Saudi “friends” and “allies.”
What is more, in a lawsuit brought by the insurance companies who paid out over $5 billion dollars to the victims of the 9/11 attacks, lawyers from the Philadelphia-based firm of Cozen O’Connor are uncovering details of Saudi government involvement in financing “foreign” jihad to keep it out of the Kingdom. Not surprisingly, they have uncovered connections missed by the 9/11 commission.
[Saudi government-supplied textbooks encourage hostility, hatred towards non-Muslims]
That enmity can unmistakably be found, however, in textbooks that the government of Saudi Arabia supplies to religious schools (known as “madrassas”) around the world, including the Islamic Saudi Academy [which] operates in Alexandria, Virginia.
Last week, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) revealed that these texts encourage children to regard non-Muslims and even other Muslims with hostility and hatred and suggests that it is permissible to take “their blood and treasure.” Jihad is described as “the pinnacle of Islam,” without clarifying the term’s meaning to be just a struggle of the spirit—rather than its typical interpretation: holy war.
Importantly, the USCIRF found itself thwarted at every turn by the U.S. Department of State. Foggy Bottom endlessly ran interference for the Saudis: State blithely assured the commission that Saudi Arabia had promised to rewrite its teaching materials so as to eliminate offensive passages. It half-heartedly pressed Riyadh for copies of the textbooks actually used at the Academy, then withheld from the USCIRF the books it did receive.
The proof now in hand, no thanks to the State Department, makes clear the virulently intolerant nature of what the Saudis insist is the authoritative form of Islamic law or sharia. It should be sufficient grounds for acting on an earlier recommendation by the Commission on International Religious Freedom: Close the Saudi embassy-run madrassa in our midst, once and for all. . . .
[Recent Saudi increase in oil production should not be confused with acts of friendship]
Even the Saudis’ reported, new found willingness to increase oil production by half-a-million barrels per day should not be confused with acts of friendship. After all, twice in recent months King Abdullah contemptuously rebuffed pleas from President Bush for just such relief from the damage caused by soaring petroleum prices. Only when that damage appeared likely to trigger a renewed U.S. determination finally to end America’s “addiction to oil” have the Saudis seen any need to bring down prices at the pump.
Fortunately, the latest Saudi gambit may be too little, too late to perpetuate our present enslavement by OPEC, the Saudi-led oil cartel that has been waging economic warfare against the United States for decades and lately with increasingly devastating effects.
Thanks to the likes of Robert Zubrin, author of the highly acclaimed Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil, Fox News’ popular prime-time host Bill O’Reilly, and a growing number of legislators, the American people are awakening to the fact that we have an alternative: Flexible Fuel Vehicles—cars that, at a nominal cost, can use existing technology to run on alcohol-based fuels (such as ethanol, methanol, or butanol), gasoline, or some combination thereof. . . .
As the Saudis are not actually our friends, they will do everything possible to prevent such a development—just as they have assiduously sought to suppress information about other aspects of the seditious, totalitarian agenda they call sharia. We can no longer pretend that Saudi efforts to impose that agenda, here as well as abroad, are consistent with our national security and other interests. And we can no longer tolerate actions by those in the U.S. government aimed at obscuring such behavior, when the practical effect of doing so is to enable it to advance our destruction.
The foregoing is Article No. 2 (TR339A02) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
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3. “Al-Qaeda Warrior Uses Internet to Rally Women,” by Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet, New York Times, 28 May 2008. [KBTTWomen, KBTTSuicide, KBTZRecruiting, KBTSBelgium, KBTREuropeWT] We quote from this item from http://www.nytimes.com:
Brussels—On the street, Malika El Aroud is anonymous in an Islamic black veil covering all but her eyes. In her living room, Ms. El Aroud, a 48-year-old Belgian, wears the ordinary look of middle age: a plain black T-shirt and pants and curly brown hair. The only adornment is a pair of powder blue slippers monogrammed in gold with the letters SEXY.
[El Aroud heads female movement seeking larger role in male-dominated global jihad]
But it is on the Internet where Ms. El Aroud has distinguished herself. Writing in French under the name “Oum Obeyda,” she has transformed herself into one of the most prominent Internet jihadists in Europe. She calls herself a female holy warrior for Al-Qaeda. She insists that she does not disseminate instructions on bomb-making and has no intention of taking up arms herself. Rather, she bullies Muslim men to go and fight and rallies women to join the cause. “It’s not my role to set off bombs—that’s ridiculous,” she said in a rare interview. “I have a weapon. It’s to write. It’s to speak out. That’s my jihad. You can do many things with words. Writing is also a bomb.”
Ms. El Aroud has not only made a name for herself among devotees of radical forums where she broadcasts her message of hatred toward the West. She also is well known to intelligence officials throughout Europe as simply “Malika”—an Islamist who is at the forefront of the movement by women to take a larger role in the male-dominated global jihad.
The authorities have noted an increase in suicide bombings carried out by women—the American military reports that 18 women have conducted suicide missions in Iraq so far this year, compared with eight all of last year—but they say there is also a less violent yet potentially more insidious army of women organizers, proselytizers, teachers, translators, and fundraisers, who either join their husbands in the fight or step into the breach as men are jailed or killed.
[El Aroud’s writing, presence in chat rooms, and background make her magnet for praise]
“Women are coming of age in jihad and are entering a world once reserved for men,” said Claude Moniquet, president of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. “Malika is a role model, an icon who is bold enough to identify herself. She plays a very important strategic role as a source of inspiration. She’s very clever—and extremely dangerous.”
Ms. El Aroud began her rise to prominence because of a man in her life. Two days before the attacks of 11 September 2001 her husband carried out a bombing in Afghanistan that killed the anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massoud at the behest of Osama bin Laden. Her husband was killed, and she took to the Internet as the widow of a martyr. She remarried, and in 2007 she and her new husband were convicted in Switzerland for operating pro-Al-Qaeda Websites. Now, according to the Belgium authorities, she is a suspect in what the authorities say they believe is a plot to carry out attacks in Belgium.
“Vietnam is nothing compared to what awaits you on our lands,” she wrote to a supposed Western audience in March about wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Ask your mothers, your wives to order your coffins.” To her followers she added: “Victory is appearing on the horizon, my brothers and sisters. Let’s intensify our prayers.” Her prolific writing and presence in chat rooms, coupled with her background, makes her a magnet for praise and sympathy. “Sister Oum Obeyda is virtuous among the virtuous her life is dedicated to the good on this earth,” a man named Juba wrote late last year.
[El Aroud under surveillance as she rallies militants, collects unemployment benefits]
The rise of women comes against a backdrop of discrimination that has permeated radical Islam. Mohamed Atta, the 11 September hijacker, wrote in his will that “women must not be present at my funeral or go to my grave at any later date.” Last month, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s second in command, said in an online question-and-answer session that women could not join Al-Qaeda. In response, a woman wrote on a password-protected radical Website that “the answer that we heard was not what we had hoped,” according to the SITE monitoring group, adding, “I swear to God I will never leave the path and will not give up this course.”
The changing role of women in the movement is particularly apparent in Western countries, where Muslim women have been educated to demand their rights and Muslim men are more accustomed to treating them as equals. Ms. El Aroud reflects that trend. “Normally in Islam the men are stronger than the women, but I prove that it is important to fear God—and no one else,” she said. “It is important that I am a woman. There are men who don’t want to speak out because they are afraid of getting into trouble. Even when I get into trouble, I speak out.” After all, she said, she knows the rules. “I write in a legal way,” she said. “I know what I’m doing. I’m Belgian. I know the system.”
That system often has been lenient toward her. She was detained last December with 13 others in what the authorities suspected was a plot to free a convicted terrorist from prison and to launch an attack in Brussels. But Belgian law required that they be released within 24 hours, because no charges were brought and searches failed to turn up weapons, explosives, or incriminating documents.
Now, even as Ms. El Aroud remains under constant surveillance, she is back home rallying militants on her main Internet forum and collecting more than $1,100 a month in government unemployment benefits. “Her jihad is not to lead an operation but to inspire other people to wage jihad,” said Glenn Audenaert, the director of Belgium’s federal police force, in an interview. “She enjoys the protection that Belgium offers. At the same time, she is a potential threat.”
[El Around detained in Afghanistan before Belgian authorities arranged for safe passage]
Born in Morocco, reared from a young age in Belgium, Ms. El Aroud did not seem destined for the jihad. Growing up, she rebelled against her Muslim upbringing, she wrote in a memoir. Her first marriage, at 18, was unhappy and brief; she later bore a daughter out of wedlock. Unable to read Arabic, it was her discovery of the Koran in French that led her to embrace a strict version of Islam and eventually to marry Abdessater Dahmane, a Tunisian loyal to Mr. bin Laden.
Eager to be a battlefield warrior, she said she hoped to fight alongside her husband in Chechnya. But the Chechens “wanted experienced men, super-well trained,” she said. “They wanted women even less.” In 2001, she followed her husband to Afghanistan. As he trained at an Al-Qaeda camp, she was installed in a camp for foreign women in Jalalabad.
For her, the Taliban was a model Islamic government and reports of its mistreatment of women were untrue. “Women didn’t have problems under the Taliban,” she insisted. “They had security.” Her only rebellion was against the burqa, the restrictive garment the Taliban forced on women, which she called “a plastic bag.” As a foreigner, she was allowed to wear a long black veil instead.
After her husband’s mission, Ms. El Aroud was briefly detained by Mr. Massoud’s followers. Frightened, she was put in contact with Belgian authorities, who arranged for her safe passage home. “We got her out and thought she’d cooperate with us,” said one senior Belgian intelligence official. “We were deceived.” Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who was France’s senior counterterrorism magistrate at the time, said he had interviewed Ms. El Aroud because investigators suspected that she had shipped electronic equipment to her husband that was used in the killing. “She is very radical, very sly, and very dangerous,” he said.
Ms. El Aroud was tried with 22 others in Belgium for complicity in the Massoud killing. As a grieving widow in a black veil, she persuaded the court that she had been doing humanitarian work and knew nothing of her husband’s plans. She was acquitted for lack of evidence. Her husband’s death, though, propelled her into a new life. “The widow of a martyr is very important for Muslims,” she said.
[Despite El Aroud’s prominence, it is once again her husband who is seen as bigger threat]
She used her enhanced status to meet her new “brothers and sisters” on the Web. One of them was Moez Garsalloui, a Tunisian several years her junior who had political refugee status in Switzerland. They married and moved to a small Swiss village. There, they ran several pro-Al-Qaeda Websites and Internet forums that were monitored by Swiss authorities as part of the country’ first Internet-related criminal case. After the police raided their home and arrested them at dawn in April 2005, Ms. El Aroud extensively described what she called their abuse. “See what this country that calls us neutral made us suffer,” she wrote, claiming that the Swiss police beat and blindfolded her husband and manhandled her while she was sleeping unveiled.
Convicted last June of promoting violence and supporting a criminal organization, she received a six-month suspended sentence; Mr. Garsalloui, who was convicted of more serious charges, was released after 23 days. Despite Ms. El Aroud’s prominence, it is once again her husband whom the authorities view as a bigger threat. They suspect he was recruiting to carry out attacks last December and that he has connections to terrorist groups operating in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The authorities say that they lost track of him after he was released from jail last year in Switzerland. “He is on a trip,” Ms. El Aroud said cryptically when asked about her husband’s whereabouts. “On a trip.”
[El Aroud source of inspiration for women—tells them to stop sleeping, open their eyes]
Meanwhile, her stature has risen higher with her claims of victimization by the Swiss. The Voice of the Oppressed Website described her as “our female holy warrior of the twenty-first century.” Her latest tangle with the law hints at a deeper involvement of women in terrorist activities. When she was detained last December in connection with the suspected plot to free Nizar Trabelsi, a convicted terrorist and a onetime professional soccer player, and to attack a target in Brussels, Ms. El Aroud was one of three women taken in for questioning.
Although the identities of those detained were not released, the Belgian authorities and others familiar with the case said that among those detained were Mr. Trabelsi’s wife and Fatima Aberkan, 47, a friend of Ms. El Aroud and a mother of seven. “Malika is a source of inspiration for women because she is telling women to stop sleeping and open their eyes,” Ms. Aberkan said.
Ms. El Aroud operates from her three-room apartment that sits above a clothing shop in a working class Brussels neighborhood where she spends her time communicating with supporters, mainly on her own forum, Minbar-SOS. Although Ms. El Aroud insists that she is not breaking the law, she knows that the police are watching. And if the authorities find a way to put her in prison, she said: “That would be great. They would make me a living martyr.”
The foregoing is Article No. 3 (TR339A03) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
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4. “DHS Notifies Chemical Facilities They Are in High-Risk Category,” by Rob Margetta, CQ Homeland Security (Congressional Quarterly), 22 June 2008. [KBTTChem, KBTKRisk] We quote from this article at http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002902984.html:
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will take the second step in its process to regulate facilities that use and store hazardous chemicals this week, sending out letters to 7,000 sites to tell them they have been designated “high risk.”
[DHS has 320 “chemicals of interest”; used computer analysis to determine scale of risk]
The letters represent the advancement of DHS’ plan to improve chemical security across the board. Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection Robert Stephan said he wants to eliminate any perception among terrorists that American chemical facilities are soft targets. “I’m trying to complicate these guys’ lives and get into their heads,” he said. At the end of the regulatory process, he said, “No one’s going to be thinking that.”
According to Stephan, DHS has been working on the first step of the process, defining “high risk,” since the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards regulation went into effect in June 2007. “We’ve been working with industry and others to put a box around what would qualify, strictly speaking, as high-risk chemical facilities,” he said. “We have just completed that analysis and it has gone through the approval process up to the secretary and it has been finalized.”
DHS considers several factors in its analysis, including the consequences to neighboring populations if the chemicals stored at a facility were released, if they exploded, or how easily they could be stolen and weaponized, Stephan said. The department came up with roughly 320 “chemicals of interest” and a computerized “consequence analysis” surveying tool to determine where facilities fit on the scale of risk.
[DHS to add more inspectors, begin compliance inspections as early as February 2009]
About 32,000 facilities, ranging from industrial chemical companies to college and university labs to oil and natural gas production plants, enrolled in the automated system and were evaluated in areas including cybersecurity, location, and likely effect of a release. Stephan said 7,000 made the preliminary cut as “high risk,” a designation that it broken into four tiers of severity. But just because a company now falls into Tier 1, the highest risk, does not mean it will stay there, Stephan said. With the issuance of the letters, DHS is going to move to another round of “vulnerability assessment” surveys. “Whether or not they end up as a final regulated facility depends on the results we see in those vulnerability assessments,” Stephan said.
Those that show they have already made security improvements, or that there are factors such as geography that make them more secure, can move to a lower-risk tier or drop out of the tiered system altogether, Stephan said. Tier 1 facilities will have 90 days to complete their vulnerability assessments, and each lesser tier will get an additional 30 days. At the end of that period, as early as February 2009, DHS will begin compliance inspections. Stephan said the department is deploying 90 additional inspectors into the field for the task.
He said the penalties can be harsh for companies that do not comply with the process. If a facility’s plan does not meet the DHS secretary’s approval, it can be fined up to $25,000 per day per violation or be shut down. And, although much of the regulation involves facilities performing self evaluations, Stephan said there are serious consequences for those who misrepresent their security.
[Requiring entire spectrum of facilities to be secure makes attack on any of them less likely]
Stephan noted that DHS’ regulatory authority under the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards Authority expires in October 2009, and advocated for its continuation. “We think Congress needs to act very aggressively to terminate the so-called sunset clause so that this authority will become permanent,” he said.
Although representatives from the chemical industry who attended a February hearing on the regulations expressed concern about the process, saying the facilities themselves should determine their vulnerability, trade groups interviewed last week expressed support for it. “We’re glad that they’re getting this process rolling,” said Jeff Gunulfsen, senior manager of government relations for the Synthetic Organic Chemical Manufacturers Association. “Our industry has been supportive of this risk-based approach.”
Scott Jensen, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, said his organization wants to see DHS’ authority extend beyond the 2009 sunset. Requiring the entire spectrum of facilities to be secure makes an attack on any one of them less likely, he said. “It’s in everybody’s interest to make sure that everyone is secure,” he said.
The foregoing is Article No. 4 (TR339A04) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
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5. “Review: U.S. Embassies Still Not Secure,” by Matthew Lee, Associated Press in the Washington Times, 23 June 2008 (http://www.ap.org and http://www.washingtontimes.com). [KBTGDOS, KBTTBuildings, KBTTSecurity] We quote:
Despite an intensive $4 billion drive to protect U.S. embassies against violence, at least 150 American missions abroad still fall short of security standards put in place after deadly bombings, the Associated Press has learned. And it will cost twice that amount to replace or renovate just the most vulnerable of them, according to documents reviewed by the AP.
[U.S. diplomatic posts among most high-profile overseas targets for terrorists, protesters]
The push to secure U.S. diplomatic missions began in earnest after bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania a decade ago, assaults that killed 231 people, including 12 Americans. The security effort took on new urgency after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States, which led to government-wide vulnerability reviews.
The results so far suggest there’s a long way to go to bring all the roughly 265 U.S. embassies and consulates up to standard. The State Department says it will need about $7.5 billion to construct new buildings at about 50 posts and $850 million for “major rehabilitation” at 40 others through 2013. The figures are contained in the department’s Long-Range Overseas Buildings Plan that was sent to Congress last week.
In addition, about 60 other embassies and consulates will need to be replaced or will require substantial work by 2018, according to documents accompanying the 450-page plan, which is labeled “sensitive but unclassified” and not to be shared with foreign governments, according to officials familiar with its contents.
U.S. diplomatic posts fly the Stars and Stripes in capitals around the globe and are among the most high-profile overseas targets for terrorists and protesters. From Baghdad to Beijing to Belgrade, they are lightning rods for violence that has claimed the lives of dozens of diplomats over recent decades. This year alone, embassies in Bolivia, Chad, and Serbia have been attacked or overrun, not to mention the frequent barrages of rocket fire that have landed near the U.S. embassy in Iraq.
[Many facilities fail to meet strict requirements implemented after East Africa bombings]
The long-range plan is not a formal request for funding, but more like a wish list of projects deemed critical by specialists in the State Department’s real estate, security, and regional bureaus. It is updated annually, but action on this year’s list is not expected until after the next administration takes office in January. Nearly all of the facilities identified fail to meet at least some of the strict security requirements implemented after the East Africa bombings, officials said. Those include setting buildings significantly back from major roads and reinforcing walls and windows.
Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration has pumped $4.1 billion into embassy and consulate construction, building 57 new facilities that do meet the security specifications. On top of that, the State Department spends about $100 million a year in security upgrades for the more that 16,100 properties it manages around the world.
The foregoing is Article No. 5 (TR339A05) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
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Article 6 Return to TOSIR Cover Page
6. “Seven Signs of Terrorism Relate to School Security,” by Evelyn Cronce, El Defensor Chieftain (Socorro County, New Mexico), 18 June 2008. [KBTTSchools, KBTZTactics, KBTKAlerts] From http://www.dchieftain.com/news/81029-06-18-08.html we quote:
Rudy Holm, protective security advisor for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), told members of the Local Emergency Planning Committee that DHS studies have shown the gunmen at Columbine High School and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) planned those attacks using the same techniques used by terrorists.
[Terrorists, gunmen go through seven steps before an attack]
People who are aware of the seven signs of terrorism have reported something suspicious to their local law enforcement agencies and have prevented 25 school shootings in the United States within the last year, Holm said.
Holm showed a short film that explained the seven steps terrorists or gunmen go through to prepare for their attack. Potential terrorists [1] conduct surveillance, [2] elicit information, [3] test security, [4] acquire supplies, [5] might look out of place, [6] make a test run, and finally [7] get everything into position. Holm said people going about their daily routines who notice any of these things should notify police and police should look into each report.
Relating to school incidents, Holm said plotters usually spend time studying the site and conducting surveillance. They may be using cameras or binoculars to watch. They usually use maps or diagrams to pinpoint security cameras, escape routes, or congested and isolated areas. The second sign could be people trying to ask about operations, capabilities, or people. [Be alert to such questions] as: “Do you see cops around here a lot?” “Are those lights on all the time?” “Do many people work late there?”
[People should be aware of potential plotters; law enforcement should take calls seriously]
People who are engaged in these activities might appear to be out of place or out of their element in doing so. Conspirators will test security. At schools, they might pull fire alarms and watch the flow of traffic, how long it takes emergency personnel to get to the school or how students and staff react. Plotters have been known to repeatedly set off school burglar alarms until law enforcement stops responding to what they believe to be a defective alarm system.
Schemers need to acquire supplies and conduct test runs. People who report a suspicious package should not feel bad if the package turns out to be harmless. Many times this is part of a test run. Law enforcement would need to be aware of the placement of that harmless package for future reference.
Finally, conspirators will get in place before they carry out their plans. Holms stressed that citizens should not attempt to stop an attack by themselves. They should call law enforcement. Law enforcement should take these calls seriously. It could be the last chance to avoid an attack.
The foregoing is Article No. 6 (TR339A06) in the Terrorism Open Source Intelligence Report (TOSIR), No. 339, 10 July 2008, prepared by Interaction Systems Incorporated (isincreports@mindspring.com).
Just find Adnan Shukrijumah and his nuclear cohorts - nothing else matters as much. And prepare contingencies if he’s not found.
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