Moscow - Russian officials investigating a bomb attack on the country's most vital rail connection on Tuesday said they were seeking information on two suspects seen on the rail line by passengers prior to the blast, news agency Interfax reported citing Interior Ministry officials. Experts had drawn up sketches of the suspects based on eyewitness descriptions.
The remote-detonated blast late Monday blew the Moscow-St Petersburg Nevsky Express, one of Russia's most modern trains, off the tracks as it travelled at around 180 kilometres an hour with 251 people on board.
Investigators said remains of a homemade bomb with the force of two kilos of TNT were found. The blast left a metre-and-a-half-deep crater at the Novograd Veliki site near Malaya Vishera 500 kilometres north of Moscow, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Excerpted
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/93573.html
FBI, ICE disputes impede terror probes
Aug.14.2007
WASHINGTON — Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ignored or dropped leads and at times entire cases involving terrorist activities because of disputes with the FBI, says a report by federal officials released Monday.
In examining 10 cases that began at ICE and were taken over by the FBI, the inspectors general of the Homeland Security and the Justice departments found that seven suffered from lack of cooperation until they were taken over by the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which the FBI controls. The report cited delays and refusals by the FBI involving investigative actions that needed court approval, which led ICE agents to avoid leads and cases that would have required FBI involvement.
"We were ... extremely troubled that ICE agents would say that their agents declined to undertake a case of potential national security significance for such petty reasons," the inspectors general wrote. Still, they said, "while the hostility to the FBI's dominance in the field of terrorist financing investigations is palpable, we have no direct evidence that any ICE agent has actually been derelict."
The report, which was dated July 2, was posted online Monday by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a member of the Judiciary Committee. He had asked the inspectors general to examine the effectiveness of an agreement between the Homeland Security and Justice departments aimed at addressing the coordination of terrorist financing investigations. Using a hypothetical example, the report said, if a case involved two leads — one involving illegal drugs and the other involving terrorism — an agent would pursue the drug lead in order to avoid working with the FBI. In such cases, the agent did not always forward the terrorism lead to the joint task force, the report said.
Excerpted
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-08-14-fbi-immigration_N.htm
Perhaps I’m losing my mind, but I swear I just heard Shepard Smith (pretty boy on FOX News) say that Michael Vick (NFL/pit bull guy) swore allegiance to al-Qaeda.