Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat

September 11, 2001

-Never Forget, Never Surrender-

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Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat

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The Threat Matrix

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!

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

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"Code Red Implications:
Code Red - Stay Home and Await Word."
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Muslim group takes responsibility for 9-11: 'We are so sorry'

This September 11 marks the third unforgettable anniversary of the worst mass murder in American history.

After September 11, many in the Muslim world chose denial and hallucination rather than face up to the sad fact that Muslims perpetrated the 9-11 terrorist acts and that we have an enormous problem with extremism and support for terrorism. Many Muslims, including religious leaders, and "intellectuals" blamed 9-11 on a Jewish conspiracy and went as far as fabricating a tale that 4000 Jews did not show up for work in the World Trade Center on 9-11. Yet others blamed 9-11 on an American right wing conspiracy or the U.S. Government which allegedly wanted an excuse to invade Iraq and "steal" Iraqi oil.

This is a long read DC but one you'll be glad you read:

KIDS LEFT VULNERABLE TO TERRORISM, CHILD ADVOCATES SAY

BY BRUCE TAYLOR SEEMAN
© 2004 Newhouse News Service
Sept. 15, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Children, with their smaller bodies, tender skin and rapid breathing, are particularly vulnerable to terrorists' darkest plots.

But too little is being done to compensate for their vulnerabilities, medical experts and child advocates say, a charge with increased relevance since the Beslan, Russia, catastrophe showed extremists' willingness to target children.

"Nobody -- not Congress, not the media -- has put the dots together about how bad a shape we would be in if something happened," said Michael Greenberger, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security.

Though there are some signs progress is being made, federal funding intended to crank up the public health system for terrorist attacks has gone flat, critics said, especially when it comes to the unique medical and psychological needs of children.

Many hospitals are inadequately prepared, say medical experts, with no plans to receive or transport large numbers of wounded children, too few child-sized beds or decontamination showers, and uncertain strategies to summon enough pediatric specialists.

In some cases, the problem is a lack of equipment -- not enough child-sized oxygen masks, IV tubes, neck braces and other items.

Not enough terrorism-related medicines for children have been approved by federal regulators, pediatricians say. In a gas attack, for example, the federal drug stockpile would offer a more complete treatment for adults than for children.

On the hopeful side, federal grants in 2004 to hospitals and health departments come with additional emphasis that children be considered in emergency plans. Hospitals, for example, must plan to acquire "portable decontamination facilities" for adults and children before receiving funds from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

A law passed by Congress last December known as "the pediatric rule" now requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to include children in safety and effectiveness tests of new drugs. Another program enacted this year, Project Bioshield, provides incentives for drug research and is expected to produce a child's version of an anti-radiation pill.

And federal officials are buying stocks of a new "pediatric auto-injector" that would help emergency workers quickly deliver antidotes to children caught in a chemical gas attack.

But Dr. Louis Cooper, a Columbia University pediatrics professor, said such efforts have been plodding since the Sept. 11 attacks. "It's been three years, right?" said Cooper, past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. "To the best of my knowledge, no one has tracked to see if the 4,000 hospitals have surge capacity to include kids."

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which formed a task force shortly after the attacks, has urged federal officials to do more. Last year, an expert panel created by Congress -- the National Advisory Committee on Children and Terrorism -- delivered dozens of recommendations to HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson. A spokesman said Thompson told HHS divisions to use the items in planning, but critics said the impact has been modest.

"Many of these things have minimal cost implications," said Dr. David Markenson, deputy director of Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness. "The majority have not been implemented."

Dr. Michael Shannon, Harvard University associate professor and chief of emergency medicine at Children's Hospital in Boston, said child health specialists are still absent from too many state and local planning groups.

"I get e-mail after e-mail from pediatricians in various parts of the country who are concerned about kids in their community. (They) feel vulnerable to a public health emergency. No one is listening to (them) when (they) say, `What are you going to if you have multiple pediatric emergencies?"'

To boost the nation's ability to detect and respond to a crisis, Congress earmarked more funding over the past three years -- about $1.3 billion annually -- for improvements in hospital and state and local health departments, though none is reserved specifically for children.

Shannon believes federal grants should come with line-item mandates for spending on children. "The money is not flowing that way," he said.

The $1.3 billion is about what Congress spends each year for the Patent and Trademark Office or the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

President Bush has proposed a $130 million reduction of the allotment in 2005. Even if funding goes down, recent federal support of public health has been "extraordinary," said William Raub, a deputy assistant secretary at HHS.

"This was a sea change," said Raub, noting that public health has traditionally been a state and local responsibility. "Every state is far better off than where they were three years ago."

Raub agreed more could be done to protect children, but said federal policy makers have adopted a "community-wide" preparedness philosophy so that no group is neglected.

"Children are one set of the population. But there's an equally strong case for the disabled. The elderly are an equally formidable challenge, especially the handicapped and frail elderly."

Public health analysts, meanwhile, say current federal investments will not rescue a public health system that had atrophied before the attacks, let alone ensure protections for children.

Cash-poor local and state health departments in recent years have been forced to curtail immunizations, restaurant inspections and school health programs that could be the first line of surveillance and treatment in a public health crisis, said Shelley Hearne, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a nonpartisan Washington health promotion group.

"The cities and states, and the medical facilities, have a complete understanding of where they need to be," said Greenberger, a former Clinton administration official. "But cities and states are facing the greatest financial crunch since the Great Depression. The federal government has been so busy cutting taxes and focusing on things like the war in Iraq, the resources just aren't available."

James Carafano, a senior fellow for homeland security at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington think tank, said protections for children are inadequate: "If you look at any kind of dangerous environment, casualties are typically disproportionate among the elderly and children. They are the least resilient and most vulnerable."

Doctors have long recognized that children share inherent vulnerabilities. A 2003 article in the journal Advances in Pediatrics summarized concerns:

-- Children dehydrate easily, leaving them at high risk to agents causing vomiting or diarrhea. A biological or chemical attack that causes mild symptoms in adults may send an infant into shock.

-- Because they breathe faster than adults, children would be exposed to greater doses of inhaled agents and die faster.

-- Children might easily be trapped in plumes of chlorine, sarin or other chemical gases because the poisons settle near the ground.

-- Children have more permeable skin than adults, meaning they receive relatively higher doses of agents. They also lose heat fast and could suffer hypothermia after decontamination showers.

-- Their immaturity makes children less likely to understand and escape a crisis. They may even run toward the danger.

In testimony to Congress shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, Dr. Joseph Wright, a pediatric emergency medicine specialist at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C., provided a bleak assessment: Fewer than half of hospital emergency departments had equipment to stabilize ill and injured children, and fewer than four in 10 maintained formal agreements to transfer children for more advanced care.

Progress has not been dramatic, Wright said in a recent interview.

"I can tell you that states have sought to formally mandate that all ambulances have pediatric equipment," he said. "It sounds like a no-brainer. But it costs money."

Dr. Fred Henretig, a pediatrician at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said he worries about not only equipment but also training for emergency workers.

"Would they feel as competent to take care of 150 kids as opposed to 150 adults?" Henretig said. "To give them ventilation support? The right dose of drugs? To get the IVs into critical pediatric patients?"

Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, a Torrance, Calif., emergency physician, said she is occasionally confronted with a child who has shrunken pupils, lips coated in saliva, and clothes soaked with urine.

In most cases, the diagnosis is accidental fertilizer poisoning. But these days she can't help but wonder: Could this signal a chemical attack? Are more sick children on the way?

"You typically don't look at children as targets," said Gausche-Hill, a medical professor at UCLA. "But you have to think they could be."

Source: http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/seeman091504.html

Abu Hamza Al Masri Update:

***

Cleric may face terror charges
Published: 18 September 2004

LONDON: A radical Muslim cleric who is wanted by the United States may be charged soon with offences under Britain's anti-terrorism law, a lawyer for the US government said yesterday.

The lawyer, Hugo Keith, said during a 20-minute extradition hearing in a London court that "a decision (on whether to charge Abu Hamza Al Masri) is likely to be made around about the end of the first week in October."

Lawyers said the Metropolitan Police have passed a file concerning Hamza to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), which will decide whether to charge him under the Terrorism Act 2000.

But Keith, speaking at Bow Street Magistrate's Court, said he was not party to the British decision-making process and did not know whether Hamza, an Egyptian-born British citizen, would be charged.

Hamza, 47, was arrested last month over allegations that he provided support for Al Qaeda-inspired terrorists either through finance, recruiting or logistics.

He was later de-arrested but the investigation was not dropped and the police advice file, based on inquiries over several months and Hamza's interviews with detectives, was passed to CPS lawyers.

Hamza is already facing extradition to face 11 counts of terrorism-related crimes in the US, notably over a hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998 in which three Britons were killed, and an alleged Al Qaeda training camp operating in Oregon in 1999-2000.

If Hamza were charged in Britain, those proceedings would, under Section 88 of the Extradition Act, take precedence over the proposed extradition to the US.

During the hearing before District Judge Timothy Workman, Hamza appeared on a video link from Belmarsh jail where he has been held since May pending the outcome of the extradition proceedings.

Hamza, dressed in a pale blue prison shirt, appeared to be struggling to stay awake as his one good eye appeared to be shut for much of the hearing. Keith said that if Hamza was not charged under British law, an extradition hearing over five days would start on October 19.

© Gulf Daily News

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=91996&Sn=WORL&IssueID=27182

OMG! OMG!
Tutor Abdul Majid Sardar is said to have taken the drastic step after pupils stopped reciting Islamic verses when he left the room.

The school's headteacher is believed to have stepped in after hearing the children's screams ringing out.

Angry parents stormed the school after the incident and attacked the teacher with sticks, according to the Prothom Alo and Bhorer Kagoj newspapers.

This gives new meaning to teacher hit me with a ruler! B****!
______________________________________________________

Here's one:

Suicide bomber bribed way onto Russian plane

ISN SECURITY WATCH (16/09/04) - One of the two Chechen female suicide bombers suspected of blowing up two airborne Russian passenger jets last month had bribed her way onto the aircraft with an airline official, Russian General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov said on Wednesday. Just prior to boarding the aircraft, the two women and two
Chechen men who had accompanied them on a flight to Moscow from the southern Russian city of Makhachkala had been briefly detained by Domodedovo airport police, Ustinov said.

On Thursday, Russian news agencies reported that the airport’s police captain had allowed the suspects to go without any document or baggage checks. The police
captain’s name has not been released. However, Kommersant daily newspaper quoted the officer on Thursday as saying that he had had no legal grounds to detain the Chechens or to search them. After their release, the two female suicide bombers - Satsita Dzhebrikhanova and Amanta Nagaeva, believed to have been from the Chechen capital Grozny - then bought tickets for flights to the southern cities of
Sochi and Volgograd from a scalper at the airport, Armen Arutyunov,for 5’000 Rubles (US$170), Ustinov said. Despite the fact that boarding had already been completed, Arutyunov paid airline official Nikolai Korenkov a 1’000 ruble (US$34) bribe to see that the women got on the plane, according to the prosecutor’s office. The planes crashed almost simultaneously on the night of 24 August, killing all
90 people on board. Korenkov and Arutyunov have been detained and the latter was charged earlier this week with aiding terrorists.

Korenkov's employer, Sibir airlines, defended him on Wednesday, saying that the payment was legal and a routine procedure for late passengers. Dzhebrikhanova and Nagaeva reportedly belonged to a group of four female suicide bombers sent by rebels to Moscow. Five days after the attacks on the planes, a female suicide bomber preliminarily identified as Nagaeva's sister, Roza, blew herself up
outside a downtown Moscow metro station, killing nine passersby. The fourth bomber, believed to be Nagaeva's roommate Mariam Taburova, who disappeared from Grozny together with the sisters, has not been found. The attacks preceded the major hostage-taking raid on a school
in the southern Russian town of Beslan on 1-3 September, in which more than 350 people, including 160 children, were killed. In related news, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated on Thursday his refusal to negotiate with the Chechen rebels, speaking at the CIS summit of leaders of former Soviet republics held in Kazakhstan.

(By Nabi Abdullaev in Moscow)

Source: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND SECURITY NETWORK - ISN
The ISN is an integrated knowledge network
for security and defense policy professionals.
http://www.isn.ethz.ch

If you haven't seen it, here is the full article:

---
U.S. Fears Terrorism Via Mexico's Time-Tested Smuggling Routes

SAN DIEGO — Growing fears that Al Qaeda emissaries are looking to tap into well-worn smuggling routes along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border have led to a security crackdown in recent months as well as new levels of official cross-border cooperation, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say.

Officials say they have no hard evidence of an Al Qaeda presence in Mexico. But intelligence reports, security alerts and other recent incidents have raised fresh concern that terrorists view America's porous southern border as a window of opportunity.

"We are seeing a pattern of terrorist suspects exploring opportunities to get hold of Mexican passports and documents and infiltrating into the U.S. through Mexico," said Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.

A major concern, he said, is that terrorists will use South America as a launching pad to slip into Mexico and ultimately the United States, using smuggling rings or forged documents. Counterterrorism officials said that Islamic terrorist groups have long used the tri-border area of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay as a base for fundraising and recruiting.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have long viewed the Canadian border with concern. It was at a Port Angeles, Wash., border crossing in December 1999 that agents arrested Ahmed Ressam, who was subsequently convicted of plotting with Al Qaeda to bomb Los Angeles International Airport.

Canada has large pockets of Middle Easterners and, compared with Mexico, the border to the north had never been heavily guarded against illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

But according to staff members of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, accused mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed had a keen interest in smuggling Al Qaeda operatives across the Mexican border. Investigators were not able to determine whether he succeeded.

A study of border security released by the commission this summer warns of links between human smugglers and terrorists. Among other concerns, the staff report cites "uncorroborated law enforcement reports suggesting that associates of Al Qaeda used smugglers in Latin America to travel through the region in 2002 before traveling onward to the United States."

Despite extensive surveillance, the border remains porous because of the stretches of desert it crosses and Mexico's established smuggling networks. Some Mexican cities, including Tijuana, have sizable Arab populations, giving rise to a recent history of illegal transit of Middle Easterners across the border.

Several incidents in recent months have raised concerns, though none has been confirmed to be terrorist-related.

Earlier this year, U.S. authorities received information that Saudi-born terrorism suspect Adnan G. El Shukrijumah had been sighted in Honduras. Shukrijumah is believed to have been an Al Qaeda surveillance expert who in 2001 helped case the New York Stock Exchange as a possible terrorist target.

After an investigation failed to turn up evidence that he had been in Honduras, U.S. officials enlisted the help of Mexican officials.

"We have no objective evidence to confirm that he is in Mexico, but the alert was sounded, and we are looking for him," Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, chief of Mexico's task force on organized crime, told reporters. "It is difficult to find someone who, it seems, is a ghost."

In August, U.S. authorities issued an alert for a Middle Eastern man who paid what officials said was an unusually large amount of money to be smuggled into the United States near the border town of Tecate, Mexico. He was last seen getting into a waiting black pickup and driving off into the night. Authorities have declined to release further information, or say how they learned how much he paid to be smuggled into the United States.

Last week, the Justice Department announced the arrests of three Michigan residents on charges of running an alien-smuggling operation that brought some 200 citizens of Iraq, Jordan and other Middle Eastern countries to the UUnited States via South America. There is no allegation that terrorism was involved, although a Justice Department spokesman said officials view the case as "a serious border security issue."

And officials are still sorting out the case of Farida Goolam Mahomed Ahmed, a South African woman arrested July 19 by federal agents in the border city of McAllen, Texas, after swimming across the Rio Grande.

Ahmed had traveled from Johannesburg, South Africa, via Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to London and then to Mexico City about July 14. Authorities said her passport had pages missing and she had an airline ticket to New York. A member of Congress was quoted as saying that she was on a terrorist watch list but officials declined to confirm that information. Farida, 48, remains in custody on charges of violating immigration laws.

Of all the leads about the smuggling of potential terrorists from Mexico into the United States, the most intriguing may be the case of a young Lebanese man who was dropped off at a Chula Vista hospital in June 2002.

The man, near death, showed signs of radiation poisoning, suggesting work with a radiological "dirty bomb."In the end, the radiation symptoms were discounted and the man died of undetermined causes. But the case led to the arrest of the owner of a Lebanese restaurant in Tijuana who last year was convicted of operating a smuggling ring, in league with a Mexican diplomat based in Lebanon. U.S. officials estimated that he arranged for the illegal entry of 80 to 200 Arabs into the United States over a period of months.

Then, in July, federal agents arrested an Egyptian man in Miami on charges that he ran a smuggling ring based in the Middle East and Latin America. Ashraf Ahmed Abdallah, 34, was charged with directing migrants from Egypt and neighboring countries to travel to Latin America, and from there to Guatemala, the base of the smuggling operation, where they would be transported through Mexico for entry into the United States.

Although police have not detained any terrorist suspects trying to enter the United States from Mexico, a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement memorandum obtained by The Times says that the Drug Enforcement Administration developed intelligence that Al Qaeda operatives had been in contact with human and drug smuggling rings in Mexico to gain entry into the United States. Homeland Security officials said they had been unable to confirm the information but took it seriously.

Border security issues in general have caused a renaissance of sorts in U.S.-Mexico relations on immigration. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the United States has been pressing Mexico to tighten security at its airport and borders. The Mexican response has drawn praise from U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza and other American officials, even as officials of both countries acknowledge the impossibility of fully securing the border.

"There's a constant and increasing stream of information sharing," said a U.S. official, who credits the Mexicans with "full cooperation." A Mexican official said Mexico was conducting a "very fluid, transparent" exchange of intelligence with Washington.

Mexico has taken other steps in the face of terrorist threats to the United States. It joined the United States in anti-terrorist training exercises and last year unveiled a plan to deploy 18,000 security personnel to the border.

Over the last two years, the Mexican government has arrested more than 50 former and current immigration agents and officials on charges of collaborating with migrant-smuggling rings.

In February, Mexico upgraded and computerized a system that tracks foreigners entering at the country's five biggest airports. Mexican officials said the system is on alert for 1,710 individuals with some degree of trouble with law enforcement agencies, including about 50 wanted or suspected terrorists.

"What you have is better information of who is coming into the airports, but we still have land borders that are extremely porous to undocumented migrants," said Gustavo Mohar, a migration expert and former Mexican diplomat.

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