Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread 6

Voice of America ^ | 01 Apr 2004 | Nick Simeone

[thecabal]

Link to Thread 5

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US Promises to Punish Those Responsible for Gruesome Iraq Attacks

The top U.S. official in Iraq says Wednesday's gruesome attacks on four American civilians whose burned bodies were put on display in the town of Fallujah will not go unpunished.

"It's going to be deliberate, it will be precise and it will be overwhelming," U.S. General Mark Kimmitt said, speaking to reporters in Baghdad. He warned insurgents in the town of Fallujah to be prepared for U.S. forces to strike back following Wednesday's killing of four American contractors by a frenzied mob that dragged their charred bodies through the streets.

Televised footage of the act has provoked outrage from Americans in the United States and led U.S. administrator in Baghdad Paul Bremer to issue a warning.

"Their deaths will not go unpunished," he promised.

The White House blamed the attacks on supporters of Saddam Hussein. The remains of the four were to be turned over to the U.S. military.

A day after the attack, three American soldiers were injured in another attack near Fallujah, this time when their Humvee struck a roadside bomb.

[4thygipper]

Suspicious Device Forces Evacuation At School

POSTED: 12:50 pm EDT April 22, 2004
UPDATED: 1:50 pm EDT April 22, 2004

MERRITT ISLAND, Fla. -- A suspicious device found on campus at Merritt Island High School forced the entire school to be evacuated Thursday morning. The bomb squad cleared the scene early Thursday afternoon and the students were allowed to return to their classes.

The suspicious device was retrieved and the bomb squad disposed of it. They then brought in several K-9 units to check the campus for other possible devices.

According to officials, the device was an oversized battery connected by wires to a box. There were no explosives found. Apparently, a custodian found it inside an unused locker.

The school evacuated all 1,800 students to the stadium on campus until they were allowed to return to classes around 1:30pm.

http://www.wftv.com/news/3031316/detail.html

[MamaDearest]

Our mother's certainly did bear many crosses and suffering M'Dear

Tolerating my sassy mouth was one of those crosses. You, JP, were probably an exemplary child, just as you are an exemplary adult.

[freeperfromnj]

Thanks for that link. During these times, we need to have our survival skills up to speed.

[MamaDearest]

Have you noticed how often the terrorists make their get-away in a white vehicle?

If memory serves me well, I thought there was a white vehicle described as leaving the scene from the California fires last year as well.

Following is a snip from California's News4 last year:

One man was seen Saturday morning throwing something into roadside brush that caught fire, then he and a companion fled in a white or gray van, officials said. A vehicle similar to the vehicle identified by authorities was found Tuesday. It was parked on a remote road in the high desert.

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

We may see a time where there is no innocents!

[MamaDearest]

That's exactly the button I am pushing too. There is virtually no educating the sheeples - instead we get election ads played so frequently we have them memorized.

I have not seen one ad advising us to be prepared for a catastrophic event that could happen anywhere and anytime. The apparent indifference about "WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW" as opposed to "WHAT MUST BE TOLD" will be a very serious issue. Educating the public about the dangers ahead needs to be more than a topic in the President's speeches. Lives are on the line, preparation needs to commence. After a massive attack, it will be much too late.

[MamaDearest]

Officials say travel to US down sharply because of post 9/11 entry requirements..

IMHO that's a good thing because there are less potential terrorists coming in - although our open borders give them the same possibilities.

[CJ Wolf]

1425?

[all4one]

Additional info. on the "Yellow-Red Overseas Organization" threat.

Asia Eyes Sea Security After Threats, U.S. Warning

Thu Apr 22, 2004 07:11 AM ET By Ed Cropley

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Letters sent to the South Korean and Pakistani embassies in Thailand threatening America's Asian allies sparked fresh security fears on Thursday as Washington told the region to be on alert for attacks on its crowded sea lanes.

Speaking in Singapore, a top State Department official said U.S. authorities had good reason to believe terror groups would target critical shipping routes such as the Malacca and Singapore straits.

Seoul ordered an immediate extension of already heightened security measures at ports and airports in response to a letter signed by a hitherto unknown group calling itself the 'Yellow-Red Overseas Organization'.

"The letter said eight countries with alliances with the United States were being targeted," a Foreign Ministry official said, without elaborating.

Seoul's Yonhap news agency identified the countries as Australia, Japan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and Kuwait, and said the threat was made against "major facilities" from April 20 to 30.

All of the countries have to a greater or less extent helped Washington in its "war on terror." Seoul, which has had 600 military engineers and medics in Iraq since last May, plans to send another 3,000 troops by mid-June.

An official in charge of port security at the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry told Reuters the National Intelligence Service had ordered the alert until April 30.

THREATS TO WORLD TRADE

Apart from the threats to ports such as Pusan, South Korea's second city and one of Asia's busiest ports, U.S. authorities now believe the region's shipping lanes, the arteries of world trade, could be the militants' next target.

"We have begun to focus on the potential of a disastrous maritime terrorist incident," Matthew Daley, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, told a security conference in Singapore.

An attack on the Strait of Malacca would strike at Asia's economic heart. More than a quarter of the world's trade, half of its oil and much of its liquefied natural gas pass through the strait, which divides Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. Continued ...

Link Here

[MamaDearest]

Bingo. I find that by watching the Mexican and Canadian news I've learned a lot more than our media reports here. The videotaping and photography tends to be better as well. We are Pablum fed by our media - that's why we're all here at FR.

[freeperfromnj]

Hey gang - remember the old crop duster alerts? Theeeeey're back

FBI checking crop-dusting planes and pilots, still worried about possible terror use

By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
4/22/04 3:21 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI has questioned more than 3,000 pilots and aircraft owners, most of them in the past year, amid persistent concerns that terrorists might use crop-dusting planes to mount a biological or chemical attack, newly released documents show.

The interviews have not produced any arrests, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity, but have resulted in terrorism investigations that are still under way.

The effort, outlined in documents submitted to the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, is more extensive than previously disclosed and underscores how seriously the threat is viewed by U.S. authorities.

The level of overall terrorist threats against the United States remains extremely high, Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters Thursday. He echoed the assessments of other top Bush administration officials that the summer months present a number of opportunities for attacks, ranging from the Olympics in Greece to the presidential nominating conventions in Boston and New York.

"There is without a doubt in my mind a very serious level of activity in terrorism which concerns me greatly," Ashcroft said at the Justice Department.

Most of the crop-duster interviews were conducted after the March 2003 start of the war in Iraq, which triggered new concerns about terrorists acquiring and using weapons of mass destruction. The law enforcement official who described the initiative, known as the Agricultural Aviation Threat Project, said it was continuing.

The official declined to provide details, but Andrew Moore, executive director of the National Agricultural Aviation Association, said some of the FBI agents had asked whether any of the pilots and owners knew about attempts by foreigners or interests to purchase crop dusters.

"We were a little surprised," said Moore, whose group represents the crop-dusting industry. "Our question was, `Why are you doing it now because you did it after 9/11?"'
Crop dusters were grounded nationwide on two occasions after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Interrogations of al-Qaida suspects, documents found in Afghanistan and actions by some of the Sept. 11 conspirators pointed to an interest by the terror group in using such planes for an attack.

Mohamed Atta, who piloted one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center, and some associates repeatedly visited a fertilizer company in Belle Glade, Fla., to ask questions about crop dusters, investigators have said. Authorities also found information about crop dusters and dispersal of chemicals on the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

In addition, the capture last year of al-Qaida senior leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, turned up information on computer hard drives and in handwritten notes about the toxin that causes botulism and about salmonella bacteria and cyanide. Other al-Qaida documents have discussed anthrax and how to make the toxin ricin from castor beans.

The FBI reviewed a list of some 11,000 agricultural aircraft provided by the Federal Aviation Administration, according to documents provided to the Sept. 11 commission. Working from that list, agents interviewed and did background checks on 3,028 operators and owners of the planes.

The initiative was part of a broader FBI effort known as "Operation Tripwire" that is intended to bolster the intelligence database with a goal of "identifying potential terrorist sleeper cells within the United States" and detecting any pre-attack preparations. The FBI also sought to learn about crop duster capabilities, the law enforcement official said.

Moore said, "We want to do whatever we can to alleviate concerns."

The government has also urged the industry to adopt stringent measures, such as storing aircraft in locked hangars, installing hidden switches to prevent aircraft thefts and securing fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals.

There remain questions about how successful a crop duster would be for a chemical or biological attack. At a minimum, the dispersal devices would have to be modified, Moore said.

In addition, crop dusters are difficult to fly, are barred from operating in urban areas and would have to be loaded with large quantities of a toxic substance -- requiring expertise and the necessary equipment -- to be effective, he said.

Crop dusters could be used in attacks on the U.S. food supply, however.

Mark Wheelis, a microbiologist at the University of California-Davis, said in a recent paper on the subject that a large-scale attack on crops or animal herds would require a large stockpile of toxic substances and would entail a great risk of detection or capture.

A smaller-scale attack, however, could have the effect of sowing fear and destabilizing markets even if the actual damage done was rather small, Wheelis said.

http://www.nj.com/newsflash/washington/index.ssf?/newsflash/get_story.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0654_BC_Terrorism-CropDusters&&news&tradecentercrash

[LayoutGuru2]

What is the URL of the new Global Islamic Media home?

Thanks,

LG2

[Cindy]

Yep...speaking of Earth Day....

[4thygipper]

Crash Investigated As Possible Act Of Terrorism
Truck Crashes Into Fuel Storage Plant

POSTED: 11:42 am EST April 22, 2004
UPDATED: 11:43 am EST April 22, 2004

HUNTINGTON, Ind. -- Huntington Police Chief Terry Stoffel said investigators have not ruled out the possibility that an early Wednesday crash was a terrorist attack that went awry.

Federal authorities have joined the investigation into a stolen truck's crash through a fence that surrounds a northeastern Indiana fuel storage and processing plant.

"I'm not saying it is or it's not an act of terrorism," Stoffel said. "But everything needs to be looked at."

The crash outside the Gladieux Trading and Marketing compound was witnessed by employees from a nearby machine shop, PHD Inc.

Stoffle said they told police they saw one or two people jump from the truck and flee the scene, but were unable to give descriptions of the person or persons.

After the 2 a.m. crash, police found no footprints or anything else at the scene to indicate the direction the truck's occupant or occupants took.

Stoffel said an FBI agent from the Fort Wayne office joined Huntington detectives at the scene Wednesday morning. He said the federal agency will handle the investigation.

"Pretty much, the investigation will be turned over to the people who specialize in this area," Stoffel said.

He said the pickup truck was stolen from an unspecified location in Huntington a few hours earlier.

The truck crashed through the fence, snapped a utility pole guy wire and eventually crashed into two conduits that stopped the vehicle.

Stoffel said he doesn't know if the interior of the truck bears any signs of an occupant being injured, but believes such an injury is possible "just (because of) the ride the vehicle took to crash the fence."

The truck veered off U.S. 24 and jumped a shallow ditch before crashing through the fence. When the guy wire snapped, it whipped into a power line, creating an explosive short-circuit that plunged the tank farm area into darkness, police said.

A mechanic working in a nearby maintenance building told police he saw the truck drive toward the electrically operated main gate. The driver saw it was closed, then drove in a circle around the maintenance building before taking an access road along the edge of the property.

The truck followed the road to a 15-foot earthen dike separating the storage tanks from a refining station. It climbed the dike and stopped when it struck the two low-lying electrical conduits that run parallel to the ground just beyond the lip of the dike.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/3031288/detail.html

[Drago]

The AP "Tallest Trees" story is here...(it is after 1pm EDT now) ;-)
http://www.mlive.com/newsflash/lateststories/index.ssf?/base/national-1/1082550551125250.xml

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1122311/posts

"AK47S WERE BOUND FOR VT."
New York Post ^ | 4/22/04 | MURRAY WEISS


Posted on 04/22/2004 1:51:15 AM PDT by kattracks


ARTICLE SNIPPET: "April 22, 2004 -- A Florida-based arms company is at the center of the international probe into a New York-bound ship seized in Italy while laden with thousands of Kalashnikov assault rifles, The Post has learned.

The AK-47s were apparently bound for Vermont.

Officials have linked Century International Arms Inc. in Boca Raton to the discovery of a cache of 7,500 AK-47s hidden beneath piles of properly labeled arms in several cargo containers confiscated in the port of Gioia Tauro in southern Italy several days ago.

Law-enforcement sources said the shipment came under suspicion about three weeks ago, sometime after the vessel, MS Adnan Bayraktar, embarked from Romania.



Irregularities on customs forms in Italy were the basis for the seizure, sources said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was notified and joined the probe. Investigators determined the ultimate destination of the ship's stash of combat-style weapons was Century's giant warehouse in Fairfax, Vt., near the Canadian border, sources said."

[appalachian_dweller]

Nice catch gipper! This is the kind of activity that I expect to see an increase in as time goes by.

This country has yet to experience it's first homicide bombing. When it happens, there are going to be a lot of very surprised and frighted people. These are the same people who do not wish to discuss such scary topics and would rather keep their head in the sand. We here at The Threat Matrix will not be surprised or frightened. Very angry perhaps, but not surprised.