Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread 5

CNN ^ | March 12, 2004

[thecabal]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This week's deadly train bombings in Spain will not lead to a rise in the U.S. color-coded terror threat alert system, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Friday.

"Based on the current intelligence, we have no specific indicators that terrorist groups are considering such an attack in the U.S. in the near term," said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

[WestCoastGal]

Does anyone have access to subscription service for Kansas City Star....I hate having to sign up with all these different papers. There is a story that looks interesting.

Central Americans grasp for ride on `train of death'
Kansas City Star (subscription), MO - 5 hours ago
... It is here that the ride begins on the so-called "train of death" to the United States. Many will return without their money, their limbs or their lives. ...

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=train+of+death

[WestCoastGal]

Is anyone keeping track of train incidents? Are there any volunteers? We have bio covered and Texas refineries are covered. It sounds like it was the "Silver Meteor" that was named in the threat.



Bomb Threat Stops Amtrak Trains

POSTED: 4:26 pm EST March 30, 2004

Amtrak says a bomb threat forced it to stop one of its trains in North Carolina this morning.

The northbound Palmetto stopped at the station in Selma before lunch after the threat was received. Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black says there were 144 passengers onboard the train, which was allowed to proceed after a delay of what he described as several hours.

Two other trains were stopped on the East Coast. Both were the Silver Meteor and both were en route to New York.

One of the trains was stopped in Sebring, Florida, near the beginning of its 27-hour run. The other Silver Meteor was stopped in Philadelphia. Nothing was found in either search and the trains were allowed to resume.

[Honestly]

I signed up for free subscription and got the article:

---

Posted on Tue, Mar. 30, 2004



Central Americans grasp for ride on `train of death'

BY HUGH DELLIOS
Chicago Tribune

TAPACHULA, Mexico - (KRT) - As midnight approaches, the dark train yard appears almost empty and lifeless. The streetlights cast long, spooky shadows across the tracks.

Yet, as time passes, first impressions fade as one begins to detect occasional flurries of activity behind the boxcars on the sidings. Sure enough, as a train horn sounds in the distance, the yard comes alive. From the shadows and side streets, hundreds of illegal Central American immigrants emerge and begin jockeying for the best seats atop the tanker roofs and between the cars.

It is here that the ride begins on the so-called "train of death" to the United States. Many will return without their money, their limbs or their lives.

"We rely on God to protect us," said a Honduran, 20, whose band of wide-eyed friends carry little more than a bag of tortillas for the long trip.

For poor Central Americans fleeing poverty back home, the train is the easiest and cheapest route to the American dream. They have just crossed into Mexico over the Guatemala border, and Texas lies less than 1,000 miles away.

Few of them make it.

Many are arrested by Mexican agents on patrols or at random checkpoints. At least half will be assaulted, either by bandits or corrupt police, officials say. And stories are legion about abuse of women along the way.

Others are horribly maimed when they nod off and fall from the tanker car roofs. Or when thieves toss them off for fun. Or when they try to reboard after a police checkpoint and their grip on the ladder fails as they run along the tracks.

"When you don't get a good grip, your feet arrive first," said Hector Tulio, 40, and he knows firsthand.

Tulio, the father of five, has lived for three months at the Jesus el Buen Pastor del Pobre y del Migrante shelter in Tapachula. He is waiting to see whether the shelter director can raise $3,400 for a pair of prostheses to replace the legs he lost beneath the train.

Many of the newly legless end up at the shelter in the care of Olga Sanchez, who has cared for them ever since she overcame a battle with cancer 13 years ago.

Sanchez, 46, said about 30 arrive each month at the shelter, which is built for 15. While most used to be accident victims, she said that in the past three years the majority have been victims of bandits and "mara" gangs.

Among the 29 in her care this month were seven amputees, most of whom had lost parts of both legs. Another was recovering from five bullet wounds. The most recent arrival had a machete wound down to the bone in his right forearm.

Mauricio Martin Lopez, 17, a Guatemalan, said he fell sleep atop the train. He had been at the shelter for a month as Sanchez tried to raise $4,200 for his prostheses.

The shelter is a sad, idle place, except when Tulio plays the guitar in the evenings, or when the smiling Sanchez swings through the door after one of her all-day outings to solicit funds.

As Sanchez sorts through a stack of photos of the patients, she finds one of Tulio when he first arrived, bloody bandages around his not-yet-amputated lower legs, his toes poking out. Seeing the photo makes Tulio visibly agitated, and he begins nervously twisting a bandanna around his wheelchair arm as he fires off a stream of thoughts and words about God and accepting fate except he didn't know he would have to lose all his mobility, but it's OK now, he has forgotten his anger, he insists.

The man with the five bullet wounds, Jorge Ramirez, 44, announces he would never take the train.

"Because of fear," he said, motioning with the edge of his open palm across his leg as if slicing it off, only to quickly look up, embarrassed under the hard gazes of the amputees sitting around him.

In the train yard, the immigrants collect in little clutches, planning where best to scramble onto the rolling freight train.

For an hour or so, several local police vehicles circle the yard like sharks. They don't approach, though, possibly because of the presence of Grupo Beta, immigration patrols that watch over the migrants and warn them of the dangers.

Minutes before the train arrives, the state police show up, rifles pointing, and arrest 30 of the immigrants, as the others scamper temporarily back into their hiding places. The 30 are carted off, to be deported the next day by bus.

Then the freight train is rolling through, carrying a load of sugar for McAllen, Texas, and the immigrants are scaling the ladders and hanging off the sides. The scene resembles old sepia-colored photographs of soldiers on the move during the Mexican Revolution.

As the train picks up speed, a middle-aged woman runs stumbling over the ties, frantic to catch up to the rest of her party already on board.

This time, she makes it.

---

© 2004, Chicago Tribune.

[little jeremiah]

Placemark.

[Indie]

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Explosions and fire rocked BP Plc's 447,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery and chemical plant complex in Texas City, Texas on Tuesday evening, Houston-area television stations reported.

The cause of the fire appeared to be accidental, but a detailed examination of the area hit by the fire would not be made before morning, television and radio reports said.

BP has been maintaining high security at its Texas City refinery after the FBI warned last week of a security threat to refiners in the area. The fire involved a gasoline-producing unit at the third-largest U.S. refinery, BP spokeswoman Annie Smith told WB network affiliate KHWB-TV.

Media reports said the explosions rocked the refinery shortly after 7:00 p.m. CST and the plant was still burning.



Other refineries in Texas City were not being evacuated even though residents of the city located 30 miles south of Houston were ordered to remain indoors until shortly after 9:00 p.m. CST.

Valero Energy Corp. spokeswoman Mary Rose Brown said the company's 210,000-bpd refinery about a mile from the BP complex continued to operate, though emergency crews were standing by to assist BP firefighters.

Marathon Ashland Petroleum also operates a 72,000 bpd refinery in Texas City, which is on the Texas Gulf Coast.

BP Texas City security officials received the FBI notification along with all the other refiners in Texas, the spokeswoman had said last Thursday. Cities where the refineries are located were also told of the threat.

Security experts have said refineries located near highways and waterways, like many plants in Texas, Louisiana and California, are more vulnerable to possible attack.


©2004 Reuters Limited.

[rickylc]

A follow up on the measles story. People on a plane that landed in Detroit a week or so ago had the measles. Some of them ended up in Iowa.

Health Official Confirms 'Measles Outbreak'

snippet:

DES MOINES, Iowa -- State health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that there is a third confirmed case of measles in Iowa.

This third case was connected to an air traveler on a March 12 Detroit-to-Cedar Rapids flight. The traveler had come from New Dehli, India.

Friday, the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory confirmed that a second person had measles. That case was also connected to the March 12 passenger.

Iowa Department of Public Health's Dr. Patricia Quinlisk called it a "measles outbreak."

No names or hometowns have been released, but health officials said the latest case brings the disease closer to the Des Moines metro area.

[WestCoastGal]

ping for medical news

Thanks Rick!!

[rickylc]

If anyone is still around, Doug Hagmann of NEIN is on C2C now talking about the kitty hawk.

[WestCoastGal]

Thanks for getting that. I had a feeling it could be another way for terrorists to enter the country. Either this way or the other way in the article I posted about the train robbers along the border. If they can steal things and run across the border then it works the other way around as well.

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

http://www.albayan-magazine.com/
http://www.almokhtsar.com/html/burning/
http://www.almokhtsar.com/html/news/1424/10/05/11/13353.php
http://www.almokhtsar.com/html/news/1424/06/22/2/9499.php
http://www.palestine-info.info/arabic/index.shtml
http://www.muslm.biz/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=28
http://www.saaid.net/monawein/index.htm
http://islamicaudiovideo.com/

[Honestly]

I've been tracking train incidents in my area. The latest one on Sunday by Topeka was pretty big. This link also has other relevant information:

http://www.ble.org/pr/news/headline.asp?id=9939

This article from the Kansas City Business Journal on February 20th laments about three derailments in two weeks:

http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2004/02/16/daily44.html?t=printable

February 20, 2004
BNSF tracks have third derailment in two weeks
A third derailment in two weeks dumped train cars bearing military vehicles from Burlington Northern Santa Fe's tracks on Friday, but a spokesman for the track owner said there's no trend evident in the accidents' circumstances.

The cause of Friday's Union Pacific crash near Southwest Boulevard just inside Kansas remained unknown by afternoon, BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg said.

"It had just come onto our track," he said

Union Pacific has "trackage rights" on the double-tracked BNSF route between Downtown and Paola, Kan.

Forsberg said that one of the two tracks would be repaired and reopened by early evening Friday but that it would take longer to move the eight derailed cars from the other track and fix the rails.

On Feb. 9, about 10 cars of an Amtrak train derailed on another BNSF track in Wyandotte County, where the investigation has focused on a connection between two tracks after analysts ruled out malfunction of the Amtrak equipment as a potential cause, Forsberg said.

A "track-side monitor" registered a fault in one of the 10 coal cars that derailed Feb. 16 in Lenexa, Forsberg said. The alert came too late to stop the train, however.

Forsberg said BNSF's derailment rate is about 2.9 per million miles of train traffic a year, compared with an industry average in 2002 of 3.75, according to the Federal Railroad Administration. In the 1980s, the rate was about 14, he said.

"We're a very, very anal-retentive industry when it comes to safety," he said.

This link has pictures of the army train that derailed on February 21st and dumped tanks and fuel:

http://www.news-leader.com/_saturday/0221-Traincarry-19815.html

And finally, from the Federal Railroad Administration, here is a link to Total Accident/Incidents. I found quite a bit of info navigating around this link, but the stats are pretty old.

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/Default.asp?page=stats.asp

[Honestly]

Good night, stay safe.

[WestCoastGal]

Wow, that's a lot of information. Good job on keeping track of the trains off the track. :-)

I'm bookmarking to read tomorrow, calling it a night.

Thanks for all your hard work and great information. Hopefully we can keep one step ahead of them!!


One side note, I just went for a walk with the dog. It was so quiet outside, no cars,no people (old folks go to bed early) the sky was clear and beautiful, there was a slight wind blowing....it was very eerie and peaceful at the same time. I thought no one can take this beautiful country away from us no matter what they do. We are ready to fight them even if it's only here on this thread by gathering as much information as we can and if by the grace of God we latch onto one small piece of the puzzle we have done as much as we can. At least we did something!!

[flowergirl]

Would everyone please pray for my 2 daughters, as 1 is flying to Boston on April 10th. She is a nanny and is taking the 2 little boys she cares for to see their Mom in Boston. Their baby sister is in a hospital there, she has a rare disease. Prayer for her would be nice too, her name is Corley(9 months old) Also my other daughter is flying to Italy on may 17th for a 10 day graduation trip gift from my mom. Both these locations make me nervous as they keep popping up on this thread.I covet your prayers for my daughter's safety:) As well as our great nation!!!I try to remember my tagline:)

[JustPiper]

Ah,but what about the BP refinery fire tonight in Texas?

[JustPiper]

Boy, I sure understand your rant on this my friend! This issue burned me out! Have you seen my homepage here at FR? Check out the links Indie ;)

[JustPiper]

The FBI is treating the tampering as a terrorism investigation.

Sure don't see that admission!

[JustPiper]

I just finished reading State of the Union by Brad Thor and at the end by the acknowledgments he wrote the following:

Author's Note:

Scores of KGB and Russian military intelligence officials who have defected to the United States over the last 15 years claim that the Soviet Union hid numerous man-portable, suitcase-sized nukes in caches across America .
Both the FBI & CIA have expended vast amounts of money and manpower to to locate these caches (which they also believe contain cash, radios,pistols and other items necessary to support Russian sleeper agents positioned throughout America) but have come up empty. (In this book you would not believe where they are hidden). Though the matter has never been resolved, many in the Dept. of Defense and the intel community still believe these weapons cache exist.

So IMO the sleepers we need to worry about are Russians!

[JustPiper]

I get angry to no end and I am not even a Bushbot, but to blame him and his admin for 911, when he was only in for 8 friggin' months is assinine! He is running as a wartime President and they believe this is how they can beat him, HA! Think again you dimwit libs...his numbers are UP since Clarke spewed!

[JustPiper]

Very busy newsday, hope this helps! Miss you back ;)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1096779/posts?page=4541#4541