Osama bin Laden’s spokesman freed by Iran – Long War Journal
Iran has allowed an al Qaeda terrorist who served as Osama bin Laden’s spokesman to return to Afghanistan. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a Kuwaiti preacher who gained worldwide infamy after the September 11 attacks, had lived in Iran since early 2002, and was reportedly held under a loose form of house arrest beginning in 2003.
Mumbai-like terror attack on European cities foiled – Homeland Security Newswire
Western Intelligence agencies have intercepted a terror plot to launch Mumbai-style attacks on Britain and other European countries. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the plot is believed to have moved from the aspirational stage to actual planning.
A new and very interesting concept is growing among a community of dedicated national security professionals. Diplomats, soldiers, law enforcement officers, intelligence operatives, cyber warriors and development specialists are being aided by sociologists, psychologists, and policy academicians. Their unifying concept is that 21st century warfare in the post-9/11 world requires a different viewpoint than what we have applied in the past. This new integrated concept is called Fifth Generation Warfare.
I have spoken recently quite a few times about the possibility of cyber attacks on SCADA systems. Well, now we have had a very high profile one. The Stuxnet worm has infected a large number of PCs involved in industrial control systems. What I do know is that this shows that the so-called experts who have discounted control system attacks as low in likelihood (because they are not fully hooked to the net and because the systems are idiosyncratic) are wrong. It takes a better weapon, and more care to emplace it, but it can be done, and indeed has been.
Secretary Napolitano’s recent Senate testimony focused on the myriad threats to the homeland and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) efforts to address them. She emphasized that the terrorist threat to global aviation continues to be significant. The ultimate goal of both DHS and the international community should be an aviation security regime based on an individualized, threat-based approach using advance information, enhanced targeting, and an interactive system to prohibit boarding or to designate individuals for additional screening measures prior to boarding.
A few weeks ago, Security Debrief hosted a superb session with one of the most intriguing people I have ever met. A former judge, Ms. Shannen Rossmiller characterizes herself as a “cyber operative.” Her function can best be described as a nontraditional intel gatherer for cyber counter intelligence. She works over the Net on jihadi radicalization and recruitment issues, and she is a new cyber warrior on a new battlefield.
As luck would have it, the question of all questions about TSA would not be the first questioned asked. It instead would be the last. Presiding at today’s hearing, Chairwoman Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) had the honor of asking the question on the future of unionizing the Agency’s Transportation Security Officers (TSOs). As regular readers of Security Debrief know, my friend and fellow Catalyst Partner, David Olive and I made a bet about what the first question would be at TSA Administrator John Pistole’s first appearance before the House Homeland’s Subcommittee on Transportation Security & Infrastructure Protection. Unfortunately for me, that question came at the very end of the hearing and not at the beginning, as I had bet.
At a full hearing of the Senate Homeland Security & Government Affairs Committee with DHS Sec. Janet Napolitano, FBI Director Robert Mueller and NCTC Director Michael Leiter, the message delivered was loud and clear. The risk of smaller scale, more individualized attacks by al Qaeda and its sympathizers within the United States is growing. Period. There should be no more blissful ignorance to our operating environment in America. It can not be afforded.
Before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, DHS Secretary Napolitano, FBI Director Mueller and NCTC Director Leiter each underscored the growing threat of homegrown terrorism and warned that there are increasing numbers of Americans inspired by al Qaeda. This summer, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released an English-language magazine, appropriately titled Inspire. This is a dangerous tool, in part because it isn’t masses of jihad-waging Americans that we foresee threatening homeland security – it’s the lone wolf radicalized in secret, which is exactly for whom Inspire was written.
As an article in the Washington Post recently pointed out, India is overhauling its homeland security, and U.S. companies are vying for its business. This story makes all kinds of sense for all kinds of reasons. The strategic partnership between the United States and India has been growing for several years. First, the countries share a common cause on many fronts, especially on battling terrorism. Second, India needs help. One opportunity to build U.S.-Indian CT cooperation would be to “internationalize” the SAFETY Act.
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