The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

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• Pipe Bomb Closes Hillsdale High School – San
  Mateo
  
  
• Nuclear Attack: Terrorists vs U.S., Are We At
  Risk
  
  
• Warning On Fake Homeland Security Department
  Intel E-mails
  
  
• Pakistani Police – 13 Militants Arrested, Terror
  Plots Foiled
  
  
• White House Sets Up New Terror Interrogation
  Team
  
  
• Al Qaeda Very Capable Of Terror Attack On US
  

Pipe Bomb Closes Hillsdale High School – San Mateo Posted: 24 Aug 2009 11:13 AM PDT UPDATE: Police in San Mateo, California, said Monday that “a potentially very drastic event” at a high school was averted when school personnel subdued a former student who walked into the school armed with pipe bombs, a chainsaw and a 2-foot-long sword. “It had the potential to be a catastrophic incident,” said police Lt. Mike Brunicardi, describing the incident in which two pipe bombs exploded and at least 1,200 students and faculty were evacuated from the Northern California school. No one was injured in the incident, police said. Brunicardi said a 17-year-old former student wearing a nylon vest packed with 10 homemade pipe bombs entered Hillsdale High School in San Mateo about 8 a.m. Monday. He detonated two devices, with smoke setting off the school’s fire-alarm system, before two teachers confronted him. “The suspect was quickly wrestled down by a teacher who, with the help of the principal and another teacher, were able to hold him down until police arrived minutes later,” Brunicardi said. The suspect’s intentions were not clear, police said. Original Story Former student set off pipe bomb. Police flooded the campus of Hillsdale High School in San Mateo Monday morning. Students were seen leaving the area by the hundreds after authorities canceled classes for the day following an explosion on campus. The students gathered at a large black top area behind Abbott Middle School about a block away from the school. That is where the school told parents to pick their children up from school. Police were called to the school at 8:07 a.m. after reports that someone brought a gun on campus. While police were on their way, they heard the report of an explosion. The assistant superintendent for the district Kurt Black said a former student set off some kind of explosive device inside the school. He said it didn’t do any damage and nobody was hurt. Black said the teachers knew the student and somehow were able to take hold of him until police arrived. He is now in police custody. One student who was on campus described the sound of the explosion as “a thousand M-80s going off.” Another student said her teacher ordered everyone to get under their desks after he noticed smoke in the hall. That girl said she saw a guitar case, a chainsaw, a pipe and some brown liquid in the hallway as she ran out of the school. Someone else said he saw a kid running down the hall carrying pipe bombs in his arms with a counselor running after him after he heard what he described as an explosion. KTVU is quoting a source that says police found more than one pipe bomb on campus. Full Article and Video 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. Pipe Bomb Closes Hillsdale High School – San Mateo

Nuclear Attack: Terrorists vs U.S., Are We At Risk Posted: 24 Aug 2009 10:50 AM PDT Few people want to think about the possibility of being successfully attacked by terrorists and/or terror sponsoring nations using nuclear weapons. Many would like to think that the United States government is on top of things and watching all avenues of approach. But, the sad truth is that it isn’t looking everywhere it should be looking. The reality of the situation is that the Department of Homeland Security is grossly overwhelmed. From Customs to the Coast Guard the United States suffers from poor technology, low personnel & equipment numbers, brutal budget restrictions, and poor training programs. The obvious avenues of approach are covered well more to provide the citizenry with a false sense of security than anything else. Confidential discussions with leaders throughout the Homeland Security Network of agencies reveal that the prevention of an atomic attack is not thorough in the United States. In fact, they indicate that nontraditional infiltration and detonation avenues are barely known and those that are known are barely covered. The entire East Coast of the United States is at risk of a nuclear attack, ranging through New York, D.C., Atlanta, and Orlando. With the Secretary of Homeland Security declaring that America is safe from any such attack one is left with asking, “How national security professionals think that it could happen?” A briefing before national security professionals has revealed a particularly spooky scenario. One that is sure to run chills up the spine of anyone who learns of it and how unprepared the United States remains. It is an attack scenario that could occur at any moment and without any warning whatsoever. Naturally, those who know of it within the government are highly reluctant to allow themselves to be named. Let’s go into an imaginary world for a moment. Imagine that a nuclear warhead built in Tehran, Iran and developed jointly by Iran, North Korea, and Russia becomes a multi-megaton reality. With the United States and its allies out of Iraq, Iran has an established transport pipe-line to Syria, a close political and religious ally. Imagine that a Gulfstream or Hawker long-range executive jet is modified internally to carry the warhead on a one way trip to the United States. The aircraft departs Tehran, with its cargo, and lands at a Syrian Air Base located near Damascus for re-fueling and final checks of its deadly cargo. From Damascus, Syria the aircraft flies to an airport inside Bosnia. There, sympathetic officials who have been well compensated pencil-whip a non-existent customs inspection and allow refueling. It is then off again. Traveling across Europe at near sound speeds, the aircraft follows a properly filed and normal flight plan. Its pilots maintain radio contact with various centers and draw no unusual attention to it as it continues on. There are no established radiologic detection mechanisms for aircraft traveling at high or low speeds. Thus, the aircraft and its cargo continue on without detection. Many long range executive aircraft are capable of traveling from countries such as Bosnia or Hungary through to New York and many East Coast Cities, such as Charleston or even Atlanta, without having to refuel. There would be no need to stop in advanced technology capable airports or U.S. allied countries. The aircraft flies normally across Europe, over Greenland, and over Iceland as it moves towards the final destination. Again, it continues to fly without its cargo being detected as U.S. airspace begins to get nearer. According to anonymous sources, there are no aircraft in the skies with super sensitive detectors in U.S. airspace searching for radiological signatures. It is an assumption that has not been directly inferred but hasn’t been squashed or corrected by the DHS, either. People just assume that U.S. technology exists to detect this rather simply approach by enemy force. The reality is that such an approach would happen without hindrance or detection. That is what makes this scenario so worrisome to national security experts, military strategists, and the public in general. When the aircraft enters American Airspace it continues on to whatever city airport, most likely an international airport, it has listed on its flight plan. As it approaches the airport, the co-pilot walks to the back of the plane and performs the final arming processes following the controlled decompression of the cabin. Decompressing the cabin allows a barometric pressure sensitive detonator to have a more accurate reading of altitude. It will detonate the bomb at a given altitude which is detected by air pressure. Altitude is key in maximizing the effect of a nuclear explosion. 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. Nuclear Attack: Terrorists vs U.S., Are We At Risk

Warning On Fake Homeland Security Department Intel E-mails Posted: 24 Aug 2009 10:30 AM PDT E-mails claiming to be from the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence division are making the rounds and DHS is warning that the emails are fakes and contain malicious software. The e-mails actually originated from Internet addresses in Latvia and Russia, according to a three-page alert from the Homeland Security Department’s counterintelligence unit. Read More 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. Warning On Fake Homeland Security Department Intel E-mails

Pakistani Police – 13 Militants Arrested, Terror Plots Foiled Posted: 24 Aug 2009 10:12 AM PDT Pakistani police say they thwarted multiple terror plots by arresting 13 militants with links to al-Qaida or the Taliban during raids in southern and eastern Pakistan. Police said Monday they seized seven men, suicide vests and explosives during a raid in the southern city of Karachi. Authorities said the men belong to the banned al-Qaida-linked Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. The group has previously been suspected of plotting to assassinate government officials, as well as masterminding last year's bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and the bombing of a Shi'ite mosque in 2003. And police in eastern Pakistan say they captured six suspected Taliban militants in Punjab province. Senior police officer Usman Anwar says the suspected militants had planned to attack foreign targets and places of worship. Authorities in both cases say the arrests foiled militants' plans to stage terror attacks. 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. Pakistani Police – 13 Militants Arrested, Terror Plots Foiled

White House Sets Up New Terror Interrogation Team Posted: 24 Aug 2009 10:08 AM PDT President Barack Obama has decided to set up a new, elite terrorist interrogation team, but will limit the techniques it can employ to those already approved for military use — a restriction sure to chafe some who believe tougher tactics should be allowed against America’s most determined adversaries. The announcement comes on the same day that the Justice Department is expected to release a CIA Inspector General report from 2004 that details some of the most extreme interrogation techniques used under the Bush administration, including the use of a mock execution and a power drill to intimidate Al Qaeda operatives. Read More New Terror Interrogation Team at FBI: A Shift for Intelligence Of all the elements of the new terrorism interrogation teams set up by President Barack Obama and announced this morning, among the most important is the fact it will be headquartered at the Federal Bureau of Investigation rather than at the rival Central Intelligence Agency. The new units will include personnel from a wide range of intelligence and law enforcement agencies, according to White House officials. But by bringing the interrogation units into the FBI, it moves them more definitively out from the world of black ops, where they have resided since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Although the FBI has long been the agency responsible for domestic counterterrorism, its bureaucratic DNA has historically focused on gathering information and evidence to be used in federal prosecutions. The CIA, on the other hand, has traditionally been tasked to gather intelligence by any means necessary. Read More 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. White House Sets Up New Terror Interrogation Team

Al Qaeda Very Capable Of Terror Attack On US Posted: 24 Aug 2009 09:54 AM PDT Al Qaeda is still “very capable” of carrying out a terrorist attack on US soil, according to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Mike Mullen said the war in Afghanistan is still vital because al Qaeda is benefiting from the support of Taliban fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I think it (the situation in Afghanistan) is serious and deteriorating and I’ve said that over the last couple of years, that the Taliban insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated,” he said. His warning comes at a time when support for the war in Afghanistan is low in the US. A recent survey by the Washington Post suggested 51% of Americans do not feel the war is worth fighting. Barack Obama has supported the conflict since becoming president and has pledged to deploy an extra 21,000 US troops to Afghanistan by the end of the year. I think the president really has to face the fact that his own leadership here is critical. He really can’t just leave this to Congress, to General McChrystal and say, folks, sort of, discuss this after the report comes in. Read More 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. Al Qaeda Very Capable Of Terror Attack On US

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