Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Fifteen

CNN ^ | 07/25/04 | N/A

[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."

Group linked to al Qaeda warns of 'columns of car bombs'

Australia and Italy have received warnings through a statement purportedly from militants linked to al Qaeda that demanded those countries withdraw troops from Iraq.

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



Meet It!
Greet It!
Defeat It!

LINK TO THREAD FOURTEEN

[HipShot]

Wow. Great syntax you chowderheaded twitbird.

[Oorang]

Agreed, although it is, unfortunately, too easy to find online. Couldn't get me near there, no way, no how.

[Honestly]

Powell uses Iraq visit to sound Iran warning

31 July 2004 06:50
Colin Powell, the United States Secretary of State, made a surprise visit to Iraq on Friday and admitted that Washington is becoming increasingly concerned about Iran's attempts to gain influence in the south of the country.

His warning came with pressure mounting on Tehran because of evidence that the regime has flouted pledges to the International Atomic Energy Agency and has re-embarked on a programme to develop nuclear weapons.

Powell's intervention appeared to have been prompted by repeated warnings from Western diplomats that weapons and money have been crossing the border with Iran. Several Shia political parties in southern Iraq are known to maintain links in Iran.

"Iran has the potential of playing a helpful role, but we are uneasy about some of the actions that it [Iran] has been taking in the south," said Powell, who is the first senior US administration official to visit Iraq since the handover of power in June.

"We hope that the Iranian authorities will realise that it is in their interest to have a stable Iraq as a neighbour."

His comments came only days after the Iraqi defence minister told a US newspaper that Iran is his country's "first enemy", accusing Tehran of "blatant interference". (snipped)

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119622

[Honestly]

Uncommon bacteria found in seven babies at Westchester hospital; four have died

July 30, 2004, 10:16 AM EDT

VALHALLA, N.Y. (AP) _ Seven premature babies at a Westchester hospital tested positive for bacteria rarely found in infants, and four of them have died.

The extremely premature babies all suffered multiple medical problems, and two who died were not expected to survive regardless of the bacteria, Westchester Medical Center officials told The Journal News. Some weighed less than a pound.

Dr. Michael Gewitz, director of pediatrics, told the newspaper it was nearly impossible to say whether the bacteria, acinetobacter, contributed to the babies' deaths. He said some just had it on their skin, not in their blood.

The bacteria, which is not uncommon in ailing adult patients, was identified by routine blood cultures about two weeks ago at Westchester Medical Center in a baby who had been transferred from another hospital.

Other babies were checked for the bacteria, and the six who tested positive were isolated, Gewitz said. The surviving babies are being treated with antibiotics.

Twenty-nine other babies tested negative for the bacteria, which spreads by contact. The hospital's neonatal intensive-care unit is a regional center that typically treats the sickest premature infants in the Hudson Valley region.

Acinetobacter infections might cause a fever or other symptoms in adults, but the babies showed no signs of the bacteria's presence, Gewitz said in the newspaper's Friday report. Testing positive for acinetobacter does not mean there is an infection.

"In these babies, it's hard to make that call because they have so many other serious problems associated with their basic illness of being extremely premature," he said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--babydeaths0730jul30,0,1151215,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire

Good night, all.

[HipShot]

Bookmark for later thought.

Nitey-nite

[Cindy]

Goodnight Honestly.

[nwctwx]

I agree, especially when they start the "last warning wasn't legitimate because we didn't issue it" crap.

Yeah. I will say, I put much more credence into the possibility of Abu Hafs al Masri Brigades carrying out an attack than I do with the likes of EOM. ;)

Seriously though, I am interested in today's (Friday's) warning:

"From here in Italy, and from Britain and Bulgaria, and all European countries, we call on all our people to mobilize and prepare to engage in the battle, a new type and style of battle. Prepare to shed blood, let us make it an endless bloody war" It was worth noting that it referenced a 'new type' of battle. I recall reading over the winter that AQ was attempting to create a 'European Army.' If that report was true (I think it initially came from Debka) then we could have a big problem on our hands in Europe in a very short time. The reports I read stated that this 'army' was at least 20,000 strong and people were activelly searching for recruits. That quote above, if taken literally, is quite scary. The 'endless bloody war' section really grabs my attention.

Again, it's so hard to put much into one piece of information but I am quite concerned about Europe in the coming weeks/months. The European threat is probably the most concerning thing on the map right now as far as short term goes. The real question is, will there be simultaneous attacks against Europe and the US. If the story of an 'army' is true, I think they are planning to do several major hits before unleashing the 'ground troops.' With our wide-open boarders, there may be an 'army' here waiting for orders as well...

[nwctwx]

Thanks Godzilla.

ALL : Tomorrow I will be posting a compiled grouping of Godzilla's summaries from July. Please let me know if you would like a ping to this list

[null and void]

Mmmmmmmm... Chowder...

[Cindy]

~~~ NEWS (Updated Daily - Click Here.)

"ARE THEY FOR US OR AGAINST US?" (Updated Daily - Click Here.)

LINKS OF INTEREST (UPDATED DAILY.) (CLICK HERE)

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: "ATTACK ON AMERICA!" (Updated) (Click Here.) ~~~

[tmp02]

zilla, exalent as always! Please keep/put me on your ping list. Thanks.

[tmp02]

I love that pic of the HK. It look like he is wearing the "no bubbles" system.

[tmp02]

zilla, excellent as always! Please keep/put me on your ping list. Thanks.

[jstolzen]

Thanks, Oorang. I really appreciate you offering to help out with the archive idea.

The post lists that Flutters put together at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1178024/posts?page=2780#2780 is exactly what we'd need to do to sort things (Flutters went through the thread and listed the post #s with particularly interesting content, with a short description of what each one was about).

I'm working to mock up a screen that shows how we'd do this and will post it to www.threatmatrix.info "shortly" (which in programming-speak means: anytime between now and a couple of weeks, LOL!) Note: there is nothing at threatmatrix.info now..it's just "reserved" for later.

BTW..what I was saying about Yahoo was only for example..I figured most people were familiar with how articles looked on "my Yahoo" - eg: broken down into nice sections, like: Top News Stories, Entertainment, Sports, etc..I was going to suggest we use this type of idea to have a similarly formatted page, with sections like Incidents, Chatter/Threats, Preparedness, Borders, etc. We would host all of this on our OWN website (www.threatmatrix.info), and Yahoo wouldn't be involved at all.

Of course, we'd continue to use FR just as we do now for the TM. The threatmatrix.info site would just be our "sorted, archived" version of it so that people who want to could easily search on content, sort by date, find things, etc.

I'll keep you guys posted with the latest, greatest and welcome any and all ideas/suggestions/etc!

[jstolzen]

Sorry for the double post here, guys..but I forgot to address this to both Oorang and 'all'..

Thanks, Oorang. I really appreciate you offering to help out with the archive idea.

The post lists that Flutters put together at: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1178024/posts?page=2780#2780 is exactly what we'd need to do to sort things (Flutters went through the thread and listed the post #s with particularly interesting content, with a short description of what each one was about).

I'm working to mock up a screen that shows how we'd do this and will post it to www.threatmatrix.info "shortly" (which in programming-speak means: anytime between now and a couple of weeks, LOL!) Note: there is nothing at threatmatrix.info now..it's just "reserved" for later.

BTW..what I was saying about Yahoo was only for example..I figured most people were familiar with how articles looked on "my Yahoo" - eg: broken down into nice sections, like: Top News Stories, Entertainment, Sports, etc..I was going to suggest we use this type of idea to have a similarly formatted page, with sections like Incidents, Chatter/Threats, Preparedness, Borders, etc. We would host all of this on our OWN website (www.threatmatrix.info), and Yahoo wouldn't be involved at all.

Of course, we'd continue to use FR just as we do now for the TM. The threatmatrix.info site would just be our "sorted, archived" version of it so that people who want to could easily search on content, sort by date, find things, etc.

I'll keep you guys posted with the latest, greatest and welcome any and all ideas/suggestions/etc!

[jstolzen]

Here's one of the summary post from Flutters that I referred to in that last post. (It didn't come through as a clickable link last time for some reason):

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1178024/posts?page=2780#2780

This is the kind of summary info that we could keep to archive off/summarize the posts that we want to keep track of.

[tmp02]

Can't find Osama bin Laden? Perhaps we're not looking in the right place
Jihad Watch ^ | 30 July 2004 | Stella L. Jatras


"For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996. The Egyptian surgeon turned terrorist leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri has operated terrorist training camps, weapons of mass destruction factories and money-laundering and drug-training networks throughout Albanian, Kosovo, Macedonia (FYROM), Bulgaria, Turkey and Bosnia. This has gone on for a decade. Many recruits to the Balkan wars came originally from Chechnya, a jihad in which Al Qaeda has also played a part."

[tmp02]

link:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1182305/posts

[ExSoldier]

"(I think it initially came from Debka)"

DEBKA is the mouthpiece for MOSSAD. When they want to make the world "aware" of something, they use DEBKA.

"a new type and style of battle. Prepare to shed blood, let us make it an endless bloody war"

This struck me as well. "A new type and style of battle" could be referring to WMD, or it could even be referring to conventional warfare using formalized structures like a real army. They've been using guerilla tactics forever, because that is the style best suited to terrorism. In other words, thuggery. I don't think the recruits are going to be of a type that will adapt well to the tactics of conventional warfare. IMHO they would be massacred even by the French. Conventional land warfare is the combined arms arena. Tanks, aviation and infantry all working in perfect concert. Take away any of these well coordinated assets and you face disaster. "Endless bloody war" is just more empty rhetoric, I think.

Nope, "a new type and style of battle" has to refer to methodology of inflicting mass casualties. At least that's my take.

[ExSoldier]

I'm not sure an in-depth discussion of electronic intelligence by somebody really trained in that field; which is to say an operator; is a great idea to put on the thread here. To say that the "walls have ears" here on FR is the understatement of the new millennium.