Friday, March 20, 2009

The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

The Latest from National Terror
Alert Response Center

Police Departments Keeping Public Informed On Twitter

Posted: 19 Mar 2009 11:17 PM PDT

Public safety officials are finding the use of sites to be not only speedy,

but also a convenient way to distribute press releases, Amber alerts,

road closings and suspect descriptions.

Bruce Frazier, public relations specialist for the Dalton Police

Department in Dalton, Georgia, said the way in which Lakeland

police utilized Twitter is exactly what he envisioned when his

department started using the site a few weeks ago.

His department has a blog and Frazier said he learned the value
of being able to keep the public updated quickly in
October after a bombing at an area law firm.

“[The bombing occurred] across the street from an elementary
school,” he recalled. “I was on the scene there pounding away on

my PDA trying to send out press releases letting people

know what was going on with the evacuation, what they needed

to do to pick up their kids.”

“If we had been using something like Twitter, it would have
been something quick that I could have been able to
send something out from my PDA.”

via Source

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Missing Somali-Americans Back in U.S. After Overseas Terror Mission

Posted: 19 Mar 2009 11:10 PM PDT

Many of the Somali-American men who were recruited to join an

Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group overseas have returned to the

United States, according to a source familiar with an FBI

investigation into the matter — but the FBI still has not revealed

publicly if it is pursuing arrests in the case.

“Some of the guys who were missing aren’t missing anymore,” the
source said. “Some of them got blown up and some of them came

back, and some of them are still there [in Somalia].”

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20
Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area who traveled

to war-torn Somalia, where some of them trained and
fought with an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group known as al-Shabaab,

according to counterterrorism officials.

Asked to characterize how many of those men are now back on
American soil, the source would only say that “several” have

returned. Federal authorities believe the men went to Somalia to

join al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate

Somali government since 2006.

Usama bin Laden weighed in Thursday on the battle. In an
audiotape posted online, the Al Qaeda leader urged
Somalis to fight against the Somali government, insisting,

“The war which has been taking place on your soil these past

years is a war between Islam and the international crusade.”

via FOXNews.com