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!

[Rushmore Rocks]

Well now............that's a bit scarey.

[Honestly]

It's not comforting for sure. I don't know how significant it is in the war on terror, but it shows how American interests may not be in the hands of those we think are looking after our best interests.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

Here is an old 2002 article about IH that will tell everyone who Casey is over at IH and who she is not. That question was asked yesterday and speculated about today. Now, back to my dinner! Later, all.

***

Keyboarding Counterspies: Citizen Sleuths Scour Web for Tracks of al Qaeda
By Matthew Cole, Special to Congressional Quarterly
Call him cyber sleuth.

In the days following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Jon Messner, a 45-year-old internet entrepreneur, began closely following news reports about a web site said to be affiliated with al Qaeda. Its name was al-Neda.com, or "the Call."

He decided to poke around, internet-style.

From his apartment in Ocean City, Md., where he runs his own Web-hosting business, Messner used his skills to track down and investigate the al-Neda.com site.

There were some odd things about it, starting with false contact information on the site supplied by its administrator. The false information was a violation of Web domain registration rules, so Messner notified the registration company, called Tucows. He then stepped in and purchased the rights to the domain name.

Now, with access to al-Neda.com, Messner could immediately track all movements to and from the site — until, that is, he was discovered by its original proprietors.

The site quickly went inactive.

Messner called the FBI. He told the agents about his feat, and then volunteered to help them find and track individuals and any other sites linked to al-Neda.com.

Five days later, an FBI computer specialist reached out to Messner.

Messner declined to provide details about what they discussed, but shortly thereafter he created a Web site called ItsHappening.com. And in the 15 months since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, ItsHappening.com has become an Internet hotbed of like minded cyber sleuths who spend hours of their own time trying to track down terrorists on the Web.

His site has attracted a diverse breed of conspiracy and intelligence buffs, ranging from unemployed housewives to computer engineering students.

Clearly, Messner has tapped into a grass roots desire among computer geeks around the country to enlist — digitally, at least — in the war on terror.

A scan of the site reflects some of the typical Web chat-room drivel — vulgarities, childish arguments between chatters and conspiratorial missives. Yet the site also has sections with breaking news and intelligent foreign affairs discussions.

The common bond among regular visitors is a belief that somewhere on the Internet the secrets of clandestine al Qaeda or Hezbollah cells are available to any and all who can read Arabic.

Messner, who uses the handle "Regis," and his fellow cyber sleuths schedule their day around their log in.

They scour endless pages of Arabic posted on extremist web sites, using a Web-based translator subscription tool, looking for intelligence to prevent another large attack.

While the devoted members of ItsHappening believe strongly in their mission, some in the professional intelligence community see the Web site as more of a hobby shop for computer geeks than serious intelligence gathering.

Marginal At Best?
Some intelligence experts are still trying to determine how much helpful assistance Messner and others provide the FBI and CIA.

Some former intelligence officials say it's not clear the kind of activities Messner and his cohorts carry out could put a dent in al Qaeda. Current government sources, meanwhile, would not comment on the validity, or usefulness, of the citizen effort.

FBI spokesman Steven Barry demurred when asked whether intelligence tips from ItsHappening.com users are helpful.

"I'm not going to say it isn't valuable," Barry said. "We continue to welcome any and all public assistance in the fight on terrorism."

But Barry said tips gleaned from al Qaeda propaganda are similar to getting a tip that a "suspicious looking Middle Eastern man was seen on a street and calling it in to us." Anything coming from an unsecured Web site has limited intelligence value, he said.

Messner spends, by his own account, most of his day tracking through sites like jihad.net and al-mojahedoon.net, hoping to find references to future plans.

"My initial intention was not to fight terrorism," Messner said in an interview last week. "It was to learn more about it. I just wanted answers like, ‘Why?' Now I do it in the possible hopes of preventing another attack."

The Web sites scanned by ItsHappening users act as a news forum for jihadists and al Qaeda sympathizers. A quick scan of the Arabic-language sites shows backgrounds of Kalishnakov AK-47 rifles and images of a triumphant Osama bin Laden.

Along the right side of the Mojahadoon.net page are several still photos of Sept. 11 hijackers and East African embassy suicide bombers along with Koranic scriptures. The scriptures are posted in an attempt to justify terrorist attacks and the conquering of U.S. and Israeli interests in the Middle East.

With a translator tool, these postings are easy to read. Discerning their meaning requires little intelligence training.

Although Messner had no experience or training in intelligence prior to his al-Neda.com investigation, his advanced computer skills have become a sleuthing asset. Back in Sept. 2001, he used "snap-back" software, giving him a virtual map of every Web site that a user linked to or from the original al-Neda site. It gave him the potential to follow individuals associated and interested in al Qaeda.

Meanwhile, he says he is amazed at the different types of people who have gravitated to the ItsHappening site.

One such individual is Karen Britto, aka "Casey Britton." Britto is a 43-year-old unemployed mother of three. An information technology specialist living in Toronto, Britto got hooked on ItsHappening.com while looking for employment. She says she had never been part of a Web community prior to then.

Britto also has a personal connection to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. She worked for an online financial publication housed near Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. The economic fallout of the attacks forced the publication to lay her off last year, and she stumbled upon ItsHappening.com while looking for terrorism information.

Since then, Britto's day centers on her computer, with pauses in between to care for her children. She logs in day and night to discuss Iraqi military capabilities or the effects of nerve gas.

"My biggest concern about these [terrorist] web sites are the praises of death," Britton said.

She describes her four to five hours a day scouring Arabic message boards as "assisting the public”

“It gives me a sense of being productive and active in a community," she said.

Three weeks ago, Britto discovered a post on Mojahadeen.net, a Web site which is now defunct, detailing how to avoid electronic surveillance of cell phones.

"I sent that link to the FBI because I thought it was important," Britto said.

Nothing came of the tip, as far as she knows.

Cyberspace Megaphones
Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief, is not convinced of the importance of such finds. He thinks al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations use their Web sites for spreading their message, not operational communications.

"These sites are outlets of propaganda," Cannistraro said. Cyber sleuths, like Britto, he said, "don't have the other pieces of the puzzle. They are working in a vacuum — they have no context, no understanding of the cultural background.

“You have to understand how to value something,” Cannistratro added, “and that takes training and analytic skills."

Even some of ItsHappening.com’s dedicated users feel the same way.

Jonathan Williams, aka "Analyst," says the likelihood of a terrorist providing a plan of attack on an unsecured Arabic Web site is far-fetched

"I don't think it's terribly likely," said Williams, a 34-year-old graduate computer-engineering student from Iowa, "that we could find something of value on these web forums. But it is interesting to see firsthand the sentiment and hatred."

The site has its share of "quacks" and crazies, Williams says. "There are a lot of illusions about finding someone that is part of a terrorist group. You can almost see someone hunkering down in their bunker, bracing for another attack."

Williams, unlike Britto or Messner, has an intelligence background. Earlier this year, he said he applied for a position at the National Security Agency as a crypto-analyst. He declined to take an NSA offer after going through the background process, he said.

But he still wanted to pitch in.

"After 9/11, I think I share a sentiment with many people to try to help out somehow,” he said. “Additionally, there's a certain fascination to seeing the other side live and in color; sort of like the fascination of watching a train wreck."

Williams believes he found something important a few weeks ago on a Web site with only an IP address — which appears as a series of numbers rather than words in the Web address line.

The site counter on the bottom of the main page tallies nearly 11 million hits. With the help of George Maschke, a friend who is a former Defense Intelligence Agency officer, Williams translated the Web site and discovered a recruiting pitch to Muslims working at or near U.S. military installations on the Arabian Peninsula.

The four-page post asked its readers for information involving military fueling locations, weapons storage, and General Tommy Frank's quarters in Qatar. It also lists in detail various bits of intelligence that could be helpful in planning attacks on American installations.

It also expressed rage about the U.S. presence in the region.

Help or Hype?
"There may be some value in what these people are finding," said former CIA and State Department terrorism expert Larry Johnson of such amateur sleuthing, "but most of it is just hype."

Johnson, who works in risk management and private intelligence, was the deputy director for the State Department’s Office of Counterterrorism. He said there is some chance, however small, that a member of al Qaeda would post something on a public site with useful information. But the problem, he said, is that cyber sleuths do not have enough background in electronic encryption to find anything of value.

"You have to take these people and their claims with a grain of salt," Johnson said.

Whether the cyber sleuths ever come up with anything worthwhile for the FBI may never be known. Messner is sure he found something of value last Friday.

Shortly after waking up, he noticed that al-Neda.com had gone online after months of dormancy. Going through the site, he said he found 23 encrypted images. Using StegDetect software, he was alerted to the presence of hidden files within images of U.S. military planes, pictures of Osama bin Laden, and al Qaeda soldiers firing shoulder-held surface-to-air missiles from the back of a pick-up truck in Afghanistan. Messner said he immediately contacted a source within the FBI who he knew from the original al-Neda.com hijack.

The FBI won’t comment. But Messner's continued obsession with tracing these sites, highlights something else: the efforts some Americans are willing to expend, if only to feel a part of the war on terrorism.

For his own part, Williams acknowledges that the time he spends poking around the Web for al Qaeda is scintillating.

"There is a healthy dose of fun and mystery involved," he said.

“I certainly hope there is nothing we're looking at that the government is not also monitoring."

Source: CQ Homeland Security

© 2002 Congressional Quarterly Inc. All Rights Reserved

[Cindy]

Thank you for the summaries.

[callmejoe]

8/8 looks more like "two bows" to me

[Honestly]

'Tests in Iran'; New missiles being readied
WASHINGTON (Agencies): The United States has determined that North Korea is working on new ballistic missile systems designed to deliver nuclear warheads and that it is testing the technology by proxy in Iran, an official in President George W. Bush's administration said Thursday. Having agreed to a self-imposed test ban, North Korea is sharing technology information with Iran, which carries out missile tests on North Korea's behalf, the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The missile program is based on Russian technology and has been conducted with help from Russian scientists - help the United States thinks may be continuing, the official said.

A leading military publication, Jane's Defense Weekly, reported recently that North Korea was developing two new ballistic missile systems that "appreciably expand the ballistic-missile threat." A version of the missile capable of being launched from a submarine or a ship is potentially the most threatening, the weekly said. Not all of the details of the North Korean program are known to the United States, the administration official told The Associated Press. One important question, he said, is whether the missiles are exactly patterned on a Russian model. Another, he said, is whether the missiles could reach the United States. (snip)

http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/world/view.asp?msgID=3036

[ExSoldier]

I'm taking some time to hash this out so this reply and analysis may come in several parts.

First I have to agree that the command and control has shifted to the second tier and the first is running for their lives. The 2nd tier is no less deadly than the first, in fact, even if we succeed in killing or capturing the big cheese OBL himself, this may in fact energize the 2nd tier to even greater atrocities.

They have to infiltrate by border penetration, too many are on a "watch list" to try and go for visas and legitimate means of entry. The odds are heavily in their favor in crossing the border either north or south. Our neighbors have grown very unfriendly at a deeper level and can not be trusted. Until we get over the PC attitudes and use the military to close our borders the odds that we will shortly be fighting on our own soil.

I think that IMHO, they are not well organized enough to conduct formalized guerilla operations here that have a specific series of targets and sequence with a clear cut goal in mind. That would put them into a situation requiring a protracted and vulnerable logistics "tail." Log operations for such a group is a security nightmare. Safehouses, transportation, semi secure commo, perhaps jobs that provide a semblance of "cover" and of course bank accounts that don't raise suspicions. At least this isn't possible while our sophisticated infrastructure is operating at full efficiency. DISRUPT the infrastructure in a significant manner, nationwide and it's a whole new game.

That requires WMD used on strategic targets and not just for a high body count. Bio can be used to keep the population reeling and panicked, incapable of helping Homeland Security Efforts, while overloading the hospital systems. Chemical attacks, especially a persistant nerve agent, would be used to deny access for limited times to a number of critical installations (which I won't enumerate here) but the bigger the target zone, the more difficult decon ops will be, unless it is very rainy and then there is a danger of groundwater contamination.

As I explained to my wife over a two hour trip the other day, I think there are three types of operators involved in this country right now:

The first level are the big gun guys: WMD specialists and these will be the deep cover guys who are trained in "trade craft" they will have the most secure operation in history. Need to know? Higher than that.

The next level will be cells with specific missions and targets. Some cells will have a network mission and a central handler. These guys are fairly vulnerable to being compromised, even by sheer accident. Take out one of these and it could make big headlines. It depends how many of these are out there. They probably think they're the first level and have no idea of the WMD. If the WMD in fact doesn't exist, then they are the first level. Meaning there would be LOTS of them. They'll be the aircraft hijackers, the truck bombers and the high explosive folks.

The lowest level are also the most difficult to interdict while being the least deadly in terms of "mass" casualities. These are probably the "lone gunmen" type mentalities who penetrated the borders and they'll be the shooters or possibly the suicide bombers. They'll have a universal "GO" code and they will take targets of opportunity at their own discretion, nothing preplanned here. These may number in the tens of thousands if the recent border patrol stats mean anything.

As I come up with anything more, I'll try and "flesh this out."

[freeperfromnj]

Pakistan Intelligence Claims Another Al Qaeda Scalp

Aug. 7, 2004 — ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A senior al Qaeda operative who knew Osama bin Laden and was linked to assassination attempts on Pakistan's president has been arrested in Dubai and handed over to Islamabad, Pakistani intelligence sources said Saturday.

Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a leader of the radical Islamic group Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, was arrested by authorities in Dubai Friday after Pakistan had requested his detention, and handed over to Islamabad Saturday......

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US/reuters20040807_160.html

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

Aug. 7, 2004 11:13 | Updated Aug. 7, 2004 16:07
Terrorist examined Jewish targets in NY
By DOUGLAS DAVIS AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON

An Al-Qaida commander, alleged to be the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, is said to have sent one of his operatives to case potential economic and Jewish targets in New York city at the direction of Al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1091859380402&p=1006688055060

[oceanview]

indeed - especially since the Mall of America is a big terror target.

[Cindy]

I don't shop there.

Does "Mall of America" go by any other name?

[MamaDearest]

We have to be able to protect ourselves for we may not be able to get to an MD for a fresh script!

You have made a good point here. Natural antibiotics are readily available and products like acidolphilus work wonders without all the side effects. No problem stocking up on these things at this point in time.

[Rushmore Rocks]

Thanks, Donna

That answered some of my questions about the site.

[judicial meanz]

Excellent observations!

I wonder how many they need to infiltrate ( even though thats probably important to their goals) when they can recruit in jails and ghettos and get American born operatives? How does that add to the equation?

Just brainstorming here. I read a while back in one of our posts between thread one and sixteen that Al Qaeda wanted to shift the battlefield to the US mainland.

They could definitely use converts as a force multiplier, ready reserve of replacements, or simply for intelligence purposes.

[judicial meanz]

One point about the Ghermezian family.

They may be Iranian born, but they are Orthodox Jews who had to flee Islamic oppression in the aftermath of the creation of the nation of Israel.

I doubt if that would create any loyalty on their part to the Iranian mullahs.

Just an observation I noted in the story

[mindspy]

Target three was the White House or the Capitol building. Doesn't the Capitol Bldg. look like the sketch?

[ExSoldier]

I forgot the goals. Certainly to disrupt the elections with the idea of effecting "regime change." That means the trigger has to be pulled within the next 90 days. That won't be the only pull of the trigger, it'll keep on being pulled until they accomplish as much of their objectives as possible. IF they get what they want in the election, there may be a pause in operations to see how friendly Kerry will prove to be in extracting us from Iraq and the Middle East.

Another goal is to topple this nation from the top of the world stage of power. I think that many of our so called "allies" are hoping for this as well, and are probably providing support to the terrorists in a variety of ways. They're probably hoping we'll be so decimated that in order to maintain any semblance of order we'll be forced to grovel on our knees and beg for help from the UN who will gladly send "Peace Keepers." If that happens, I think we're in deep poo poo.

[judicial meanz]

Bingo


I think you hit the nail on the head.

[Honestly]

Mall of America is a mega-mall in Minneapolis. It's the mall where the daughter of a TMer told her mother that some young ME men had a cell phone kiosk. The daughter's friend was dating one of them. I believe it was GorillaMa. She was going to Venezuela to visit an ailing mother-in-law, so she may not be around to verify this. Anyway, it was in that discussion that it was brought up that the Mall of America is an American icon. I guess it's an Iranian American icon now.

[MamaDearest]

What's not in the virtual tour will be handwritten and documented for later usage most probably. Why not just hand them the keys and let them come in whenever they want. Ooops forgot, that's at Los Alamos!

I've worked for some pretty small dip@$&* companies who have had MUCH better security measures than these major corporations who have access to national security data. It's kind of like burglars sitting at home viewing the interiors of homes for sale, home tour a click away, that they plan to burglarize. One of the old movie stars of long ago said that if everything is exposed, then there's nothing left to the imagination. Regarding public buildings, national buildings and other buildings where terrorists may have specific interest, better they have to use their imaginations than know where everything is.