The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

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• Pakistans Next Fight – Taliban Leader Baitullah
  Mehsud
  
  
• Mexico Seizes 1 Ton of Cocaine Hidden In Frozen
  Sharks
  
  
• North Korea May Launch Missile Toward Hawaii in
  July
  
  
• Fort Detrick Finds More Than 9,220 Unaccounted
  Vials

Pakistans Next Fight – Taliban Leader Baitullah Mehsud Posted: 17 Jun 2009 11:55 PM PDT No one has contributed to Pakistan’s slide into chaos over recent years more than Baitullah Mehsud. From his base in the wilds of South Waziristan, the leader of the Pakistan Taliban has overseen the killing of more than 1,200 civilians and several hundred soldiers through brutal means, including suicide bombings, kidnappings and beheadings. He has been accused of masterminding the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in late December 2007. In late March, Washington announced a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, describing Mehsud as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator.” And over the past week alone, he claimed responsibility for five separate terrorist attacks, including the bombing of a luxury hotel in Peshawar and the killing of a vocal anti-Taliban cleric in Lahore. (See pictures of the hotel blast in Peshawar.) Now Pakistan is taking the fight to Mehsud’s mountainous stronghold, ordering an expansion of its current offensive against Taliban fighters in the Swat valley. Read Full Article This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

Mexico Seizes 1 Ton of Cocaine Hidden In Frozen Sharks Posted: 17 Jun 2009 11:50 PM PDT Mexico’s navy has seized more than a ton of cocaine stuffed inside frozen sharks, as drug gangs under military pressure go to greater lengths to conceal narcotics bound for the United States. Armed and masked navy officers cut open more than 20 shark carcasses filled with slabs of cocaine after checking a container ship in a container port in the southern Mexico state of Yucatan, the navy and Mexican media said Tuesday. “We are talking about more than a ton of cocaine that was inside the ship,” Navy Cmdr. Eduardo Villa told reporters after X-ray machines and sniffer dogs helped uncover the drugs. Read Full Article This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

North Korea May Launch Missile Toward Hawaii in July Posted: 17 Jun 2009 11:45 PM PDT North Korea may launch a long-range ballistic missile toward the U.S. state of Hawaii in early July, Japan’s Yomiuri daily said on Thursday, citing Defense Ministry analysis and U.S. intelligence. The paper said the Defense Ministry believes the launch is most likely to take place between July 4 and July 8. The ministry has declined to comment on the report. The paper also said that the missile was likely to fly over Japan’s Aomori Prefecture toward Hawaii, but would not be able to reach the main islands. The missile, thought to be a long-range Taepodong-2, would be launched from the country’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said Japan’s best-selling newspaper. North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on May 25, accusing the U.S. and South Korea of aggressive intentions. Pyongyang said on Wednesday that it would meet any attack with “one thousand-fold retaliation.” Following the underground test, the United Nations widened an arms embargo and authorized ship searches in an attempt to disrupt the communist state’s nuclear and missile programs. Source This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

Fort Detrick Finds More Than 9,220 Unaccounted Vials Posted: 17 Jun 2009 11:31 PM PDT An inventory of potentially deadly pathogens at Fort Detrick’s infectious disease laboratory found more than 9,000 vials that had not been accounted for, Army officials said yesterday, raising concerns that officials wouldn’t know whether dangerous toxins were missing. After four months of searching about 335 freezers and refrigerators at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, investigators found 9,220 samples that hadn’t been included in a database of about 66,000 items listed as of February, said Col. Mark Kortepeter, the institute’s deputy commander. The vials contained some dangerous pathogens, among them the Ebola virus, anthrax bacteria and botulinum toxin, and less lethal agents such as Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus and the bacterium that causes tularemia. Most of them, forgotten inside freezer drawers, hadn’t been used in years or even decades. Officials said some serum samples from hemorrhagic fever patients dated to the Korean War. Source – read Full Article This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information.

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