Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Sixteen

Yahoo ^ | 8-02-04 | AP

[JustPiper]

Credit: The Cabal

The title refers to a daily report given to the president of the United States detailing the most serious terrorist threats against the country. To tackle those threats, the government has formed a top-notch task force to infiltrate the terror cells and cut off the danger.

"Every morning, the president receives a list of the top ten terrorist threats - this list is known as the threat matrix."

We here at FR are trying to be in conjunction with the daily reports around the world that involve threats. We try to provide a storehouse of information that takes hours of research.

YOU be the Judge and get informed.


"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat."

Link to Thread Fifteen

Police Secure Businesses on Terror Alert
NEW YORK - Police searched trucks, blocked streets and posted machine-gun toting officers outside financial landmarks Monday, a day after the government's chilling warning that terrorists might target the buildings with bombs.

"God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers."
-- Jewish proverb

We are the "Stotters" who make ourselves aware of the
enemy who wishes to do us harm.




"What good are the color codes at all if we are suddenly hit with a bio or chem attack? There would be no warning and the danger would be instant."

"Code Red Implications
Code Red - Stay Home and Await Word."
by MamaDearest

Meet It!
Greet It!
Defeat It!

[Tilly]

Yikes!!!

Meant to say ... how much I really DON'T know about the Islam religion!

Sorry, need more coffee!

[texasbluebell]

Yes, a mosque, once again.

[texasbluebell]

Plot to purchase stingers to shoot down planes as been under investigation since last summer, name of mosque in Albany translated means mosque of peace...

Press conf. at 1:30 E.

[Tarheel]

There actually is a 747 which took off from a city in Africa...

Actually it was a 727. The pilot was an Amereican--no one, including his family, has heard from him since. This happened a year ago this past June.

[freeperfromnj]

Bookmark

[appalachian_dweller]

>> I am watching...and loaded. I no longer go anywhere without my 9mm. <<

Me too Bump!

Checking in this morning. Still quiet here.

Hate to admit it, but the latest reports of the nukes did rattle me a bit. Woke up way early this morning, checked the news, went back to sleep.

Haven't caught up quite yet. Will shortly.

[brucecw]

Yes, a mosque, once again.

It perhaps bears mentioning again that for many in Islam, the mosque is not only a religious but also a political institution. In the West this is no longer a familiar concept: although, for example, a disproportionate number of Evangelicals might be Republicans and a disproportionate number of Jews might be Democrats, the social compact has generally come to agree that one's political party affiliation should be left at the door.

So it shouldn't be surprising that you find moderate mosques and radical mosques ... and that often in the latter you might find terrorists and subversives.

For comparison, imagine that the Aryan Nation and the KKK each had their own Christian denomination, as well as more liberal groups such as the Americans for Democratic Action and the ACLU. That would give more of the flavor of the way Islam tends to be organized.

[Mrs. Xtrmst]

The computer files, written in English, narrate the travels of al Qaeda members throughout the buildings, offering step-by-step color commentary in rich detail, sources said.

What nationality is Khan? I understand that many foreigners are completely fluent in English & can use it as easily as their native tongue, but why were his files in English? Others have mentioned the possibility of mis-information. I don't know how clever it is to get caught in a 12-hour gunfight, then captured & hope that your enemy will find the disinformation on your hard drive but it does seem odd that the files weren't in Arabic.

[Mrs. Xtrmst]

Alan Keyes is an amazing speaker. I've had the honor of hearing him speak numerous times & just marvel at the information & arguments he is able to pull up on the spur of the moment. I didn't support him when he ran for president, I was in the Dornan camp, but he is a great man & I would love to see him in Congress.

[Lucy Lake]

This was posted on another thread but is relevant to TM.

Bioterrorism 101
8/5/04 | razoroccam

Posted on 08/05/2004 7:37:37 AM MDT by razoroccam


The anthrax attacks and smallpox scare have thrust bioterrorism into the spotlight. Never before has the average person been so cognizant of the negative potential of research in the biological sciences.

However, the truth is that the scare, though hyped by some accounts, does not adequately convey the danger involved.

The danger is that by altering bacterial and viral DNA, a terrorist could create an agent far more devastating than the bugs featuring in today’s headlines.

And these agents could cause far more damage than nuclear weapons could.

After all, let us not forget that the largest mass casualties in human history were caused by biological weapons - smallpox (which killed approximately 27 million Incas) and plague (which killed about as many Europeans).

"In light of the September 11 tragedy, we can no longer afford to be complacent about the possibility of biological terrorism,” warns a commentary in Nature Genetics. “The revolution in biology could be misused in offensive biological weapons programs, directed against human beings and their staple crops and livestock.”

The 20th century saw seven countries by known count — Britain, France, Germany, Iraq, Japan, the Soviet Union and the US — embark on programs to identify, manufacture and weaponize killer agents. But the next generation of biological weapons may exploit knowledge about genomes, with calamitous effect.

A couple of years from now, there may be as many as 70 pathogens whose genetic code has been cracked.

The genome of cholera, leprosy, the plague and tuberculosis are already in the public domain, as is Staphylococcus aureus that is becoming resistant to antibiotics.

There is fear that a bioterrorist with lots of money and a good laboratory could use this readily available data, inserting or swapping genes in bacteria and viruses to create new, horrifyingly virulent agents.

There are at least two documented cases in which biologists have created doomsday bugs.

One was a strain of the common intestinal bug Escherichia coli that was 32,000 times more resistant to the antibiotic cefotaxime than conventional strains.

The superbug’s creator was Willem Stemmer, chief scientist with Maxygen, a California pharmaceutical research firm, who was exploring the function of resistance genes in bacteria.

The technique used, DNA shuffling, involves shattering multiple copies of a gene and then reassembling them. The process produces a range of daughter genes with the fragments stitched together in subtle but new ways.

The enzymes involved in the re-assembly are prone to errors, leading to mutations, and therefore greater diversity. The daughter genes can then be re-introduced into the bacteria and the resultant bacteria with the desired strains (such as those good as biological agents) selected.

Fragments from different bacteria can be mixed and matched by this technique. Needless to say, the potential of this in the wrong hands is enormous.

In response to an appeal by the American Society for Microbiology, the E.coli created by Stemmer was destroyed.

In another example, Australian scientists Ron Jackson and Ian Ramshaw unwittingly created a vicious strain of mousepox, a cousin of smallpox.

They were attempting to control the population of mice by altering the genes of mousepox to make it more lethal. To create their mouse contraceptive, they took a relatively benign strain of mousepox and added genes for proteins carried on the surface of mouse eggs.

The idea was that cells infected by the viruses would churn out egg proteins, causing female mice to produce antibodies against their own eggs.

To maximize the vaccine’s effectiveness, Jackson and Ramshaw also engineered the virus so that it contained the gene for interleukin 4, a cytokine that boosts antibody production. The IL-4 gene also shut down the mice cellular immune response so they were unable to fight off the virus.

The effect was lethal, with mice that were previously immunized against mousepox dying within days.

The implications for smallpox are obvious and profound - what would happen if the gene for IL-4 was introduced into the smallpox virus?

Would the present vaccines even work?

When the Australian scientists realized the implications of their creation, they destroyed the virus and then went public with their findings to draw attention to the potential abuse of biotechnology.

Biological weapons using recombinant technology are not implausible.

....

In addition, it is possibile that bugs could be tailored to attack certain ethnic groups, based on the genotype of that ethnic group.

Attempts to identify bacteria or virus thus should not only include the ability to detect microorganisms in trace amounts, but also to identify them so as to take appropriate counter measures early.

XX, MD Ph.D Author, Germs of War (Booksurge.com)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1185500/posts

[freeperfromnj]

UK Navy: Al Qaeda Has Plan to Target Shipping

Aug. 5, 2004 — By Stefano Ambrogi

LONDON (Reuters) - Intelligence shows al Qaeda has plans to target merchant shipping in a bid to disrupt world trade, Britain's top navy officer said in an interview published on Thursday.

"We have got an underlying level of intelligence which shows there is a threat," the Royal Navy's First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, was quoted as saying by Lloyd's List maritime newspaper.

The Defense Ministry confirmed West had given the interview in which he reiterated previous warnings about the threat of an attack on the world's commercial fleets.

"What we've noticed is that al Qaeda and other organizations have an awareness about maritime trade ... They've realized how important it is for world trade in general," he said.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, governments and security experts have repeatedly voiced fears about the vulnerability of the shipping industry, which carries more than 90 percent of the world's traded goods.

The British naval chief said Western governments had intelligence that showed extreme groups viewed ships as iconic targets and had plans to blow them up. "We've seen other plans from intelligence of attacks on merchant shipping," he said.

"I can't give you detail on any of that, clearly, but we are aware that they have plans and (that) they've looked at this," West was quoted as telling the paper.

The Defense Ministry said the comments related to existing naval intelligence and were not based on new attack-specific reports. "He did not say that there was any new intelligence to suggest an imminent attack," a spokesman said.

The spokesman said the admiral had chosen to talk about the maritime threat because he was visiting a region of the world -- Gibraltar -- that was heavily reliant on shipping.

MARITIME STRATEGY

West said ports and strategic sea lanes like the Malacca Straits, the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Gibraltar posed the biggest risks as ships stack up in large numbers.

While the threat is not new, the stark nature of the warning by a senior military figure is likely to throw the spotlight back on the maritime industry and efforts to tighten security.

Through the arrests of top suspects, al Qaeda is known to have a maritime arm.

In 2002, extremists linked to al Qaeda attacked the French supertanker the Limburg off Yemen, killing a member of the crew and setting the tanker ablaze.

In October 2000 the bombing of the USS Cole killed 17 U.S. navy personnel.

In 2002, a potential attack was thwarted after a group of Moroccan extremists were caught planning attacks on the Strait of Gibraltar -- the western gateway to the Mediterranean. In April suicide bombers linked to al Qaeda launched three boat attacks close to Iraq's crucial Basra oil terminal and two oil tankers. Three U.S. Navy sailors were killed and others injured.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20040805_134.html

[Bobibutu]

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/m-n/marzullo/2004/marzullo080504.htm

War Gaming Terrorism, Part 5

August 5, 2004


by Tom Marzullo

This is the fifth part of a series of analyses that seeks to partially game out potential terrorist attacks from the terrorist’s point of view, using some of the realistic measures that we know or suspect are available to them. 

What is proposed here is to game out certain basic types of attacks and what the Islamists hope to gain by their conduct.  It will be a sometimes frightening, micro-look at the suppurating lesions on the body politic that have, so far, been seldom seen in our part of the world.  After the basic discussions have been published, we will then look at the potential deployment of these actions against us.  By understanding how such attacks are likely to be used, it is expected that our communities will be better prepared to go to where they are needed.  This is, after all, the very solid basis for how our founders envisioned citizen participation in conflicts.

This series is an opportunity for every citizen, without a military background in guerrilla warfare, to learn of how our sworn enemies work in order that we may be better unified to do something useful about them.  Forewarned is forearmed.

WMDs – Chemical Weapons

When we start into this dialogue, you must first try to free your minds from of the hobgoblin of mindless media hype you have frequently heard… for this is a more dangerous and pervasive problem than you might think.

A very great number of highly effective chemical weapons can be made in a matter of minutes with materials found in our markets, repair shops and industry.  Nor does it take an advanced degree in chemistry to fashion them… We have already found “terrorist cookbooks” in Afghanistan with some such ‘recipes’ that will work and if one can read, use a stove, twist a valve, light a match, pour liquids from one bucket to another, then they are well enough trained for most of what is here.

Yes, there are indeed caches of what we classically think of as ‘chemical weapons’ and some of them are already in the hands of Islamist terrorists.  You would know this if you followed all the news as well, but there have been other matters you elected to pay attention to instead. A WMD mass casualty scenario planned by al-Qaeda has already been thwarted in Jordan.  Transporting more of the same weapons into the US is a relative snap, needing more in the way of housekeeping skills and creative shipping than any specialties of consequence.  Our enemies also have the patience and time on their hands to probe for the weakest chink in our importation armor to send these items through.

But for sake argument, lets suppose that you still believe in Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and the tooth fairy… There are still the domestic sources of chemical weapons, both off-the-shelf and easily manufactured.  While most of these home-brews lack the level of lethality of the more esoteric, chem-lab creations they are quite effective enough for a chillingly efficient application of terror.

Here is where I get to say ‘hello’ to the pro-Islamist sub-set of fans for this series…  Sorry folks, no specialty recipes are to be given here… but a quick trip to your local college campus where there is a Muslim student organization should be able to put you in touch with an undergrad chemistry major of suitable temperament.

I will talk about some mixtures that are very widely known just to whet your appetites.  So let’s settle on chlorine as our toxin-du-jour.  Chlorine was the very first modern military chemical weapon, having been used with decidedly mixed results by the Germans in World War One - as wind direction was less predictable at that point in history, much to their sorrow.

A lethal form of chlorine gas is released by mixing common household ammonia and chlorine bleach, or better still with some HTH (chlorine granules for swimming pools).  When this is released into the air ducts of one of our modern buildings (where the windows don’t open) and suicidal gunmen guard the exits wearing commercially available appropriate respirator/filter combos… Voila!  Mass casualties as a blue-plate special.  Cost?  A half-dozen or so expendable fanatics sent to their reward by police, their gear and some cheap, near universally available chemicals.  The media-created mass terror? Priceless…  Take that Malvo…

In yesterday’s part 4, I alluded to how railroad rolling stock are useful as weapons.  So just how do you think bulk chlorine arrives at factories?  So just where are the rail lines relative to population areas in your region?

Lets turn to that recent theft of that big package of specialty explosives from the police impound lot in California.  One of the items stolen was a quantity of linear shaped-charges, a very useful tool indeed for ripping open the side of railroad tank car.  Add a ‘kicker’ charge on the other side of that tank and another voila!  An effective explosives-driven sprayer.  When rigged with the ever more popular Islamist cell-phone detonator technology, these tankers can be blown at the spot best suited to killing the most citizenry asleep in their suburban beds or running to catch the school bus.

There are literally dozens of such lethal applications I could rattle right off the top of my head and you can bet the farm that the Islamists have folks with my level of knowledge and better.

But using this kind of tactic crosses a very wide, bright ethical line, for us - if not for them.  We all should very clearly understand that political correctness and pacifist notions are very attractive ideals of the West and that they are but a color on the patina of civilization that we seek to smear over the savage that lies within all humans.  Scratch that surface and you find the mother sticking a knife into the throat of the intruder who would kill her child.  And so it goes…

More is yet to come in this series and a summation of how these tactics could be combined in the coming Islamist assault.

Tom Marzullo

Reference:

See Part 1

See Part 2

See Part 3

See Part 4
Tom Marzullo is a columnist/physicist/educator who is a former US Army Special Forces combat soldier and US Navy Submariner with special operations experience in both services. He was the leader of the Internet-based effort by Special Forces veterans that debunked the false CNN/TIME magazine nerve gas story, 'Tailwind' and has provided testimony before the US Senate on military and intelligence matters. He resides in Colorado.

[texasbluebell]

Did anyone see the short segment on Fox a little while ago, about the killer whales in the Gulf?

They're not supposed to be down by Corpus Christi, in warm waters, but should be in cooler waters, like the Pacific NW.

Maybe someone has posted it already, but why are they so far off course. It's apparently very unusual.

[texasbluebell]

The imam of the mosque and the founder of the mosque in Albany are under arrest.

[BriarBey]

What did God do on the 5th day?
****

He put man under a woman's thumb...:)?

[texasbluebell]

It perhaps bears mentioning again that for many in Islam, the mosque is not only a religious but also a political institution.

Yes, we in the west had better get up to speed on this. I think we are too.

The mayor of Albany was just saying not to worry, they've been looking at this for a long time, and will continue to keep on it.

[flutters]

Or are there any LE strangers you can accost on the street and ask?!!!

Donna, I just met several Secret Service Agents. It was sooooo cool. President Bush is expected at the Aladdin Shrine Temple for a town meeting in a few hours. The Temple, the airport, and my shop are all within a mile or so of each other. I stopped at the corner store and thats where I seen all these men dressed in black. I ask one of them who he was with and he said secret service. I talked with him for about five minutes - didn't get any juicy information other than they are being diligent. I told him there would be FReepers outside the Temple supporting our President. He grinned and knew about FreeRepublic.

If there are any young women out there thinking about a career, I'd definitely say try to get in with these guys...handsome, handsome, handsome, well built, and whewwwwwwwwww. What a great start to my day. :)

[flutters]

Thanks Tilly. I love browsing brainyhistory.com there is always something interesting.

[appalachian_dweller]

Just caught up. All the arrests going on could be attempts to disrupt plans in the operational phase. Quite plausible.

Great thinking folks!

[knak]

I don't know if it's been mentioned but apparently Hiroshima wasn't bombed on the 5th, but the 6th.