Posts Byadmin - 8/856 - Terrorism.com
Shoe-Bomber Set to Be Sentenced in U.S.
January 30, 2003 | adminRichard Reid, a British-born follower of Osama bin Laden, will learn on Thursday how many years he must spend behind bars for trying to bring down a transatlantic flight with explosives stuffed in his shoes. Despite a last-ditch attempt by Reid’s lawyers to delay his sentencing, Chief U.S. District Judge William Young was still scheduled to proceed with a sentencing hearing beginning at 2 p.m. EST. Reid, 29, a petty criminal who converted to Islam while in a British prison, faces between 60 years and life in prison after he pleaded guilty to trying to bring down American Airlines Flight 63 on Dec. 22, 2001, as it flew to Miami from Paris. Full Story
U.S. Says It Would Help Saddam Find Place of Exile
January 30, 2003 | adminThe United States said on Wednesday it would help Iraqi President Saddam Hussein find a place to go into exile if he left the country to avoid war. “If he were to leave the country and take some of his family members with him and others in the leading elite, … we would I’m sure try to help find a place for them to go,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told a news conference. “That certainly would be one way to avoid war,” he added. Powell, speaking after talks with Pakistani Foreign Minister Mian Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, declined to speculate on whether Saddam and his followers could have immunity from prosecution, saying it was not just a matter for Washington. Full Story
D.I.Y. Tools That Leave Spam D.O.A.
January 30, 2003 | adminThe trickle of unsolicited commercial e-mail that started a few years ago had long since become a tsunami, but I realized that my problem had reached an absurd extreme when I got the spam about stopping spam. Scrolling through my various mail accounts, I routinely waded through countless unwanted messages advertising pornographic Web sites, and dozens upon dozens of missives trying to tempt me into clicking for loans, credit cards, inkjet cartridges, miniature race cars and opportunities to enlarge body parts that I don’t even have. Buried in the mess were one or two messages I actually wanted or needed to read, but I could barely find them amid the dross. When I accidentally deleted a message and new-baby picture attachments from an old college roommate, though, I knew it was time to take out the trash. Full Story
In Net Attacks, Defining the Right to Know
January 30, 2003 | adminAs electronic sieges go, the so-called Slammer worm that attacked the Internet last weekend fell short of calamitous. Although the rogue program hit tens of thousands of computers and clogged parts of the network all over the world, Slammer paled in comparison with Code Red, the worm that attacked the White House Web site in 2001. By Monday, most of the patching of systems had been accomplished and few traces of Slammer remained. Yet some companies were hit worse than others, notably Bank of America, which discovered that thousands of its ATM’s could not dispense cash. And when bank officials disclosed hours later on Saturday that Slammer had created the problem, it highlighted an old debate in the world of computer crime: to tell or not to tell. Full Story
City Offers New Spying Rules in Exchange for More Leeway
January 30, 2003 | adminIn a last-minute proposal to settle a dispute over spying on terror suspects, city officials said in federal court yesterday that the police would promise to adopt new guidelines to protect civil liberties if the court lifted a 20-year-old order that limits police surveillance and undercover operations. But, in final arguments before Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. of United States District Court in Manhattan, civil liberties lawyers rejected the offer, calling it an empty gesture. “What they say they will do is entitled to no consideration in this matter,” Jethro M. Eisenstein, one of the lawyers, told the judge. The arguments came on a motion by the city to do away with most of the provisions of a consent decree that ended a 1971 suit over harassment of political advocacy groups by the Police Department’s “red squad,” as it was then known. The judge gave no timetable for his decision. Full Story
Indonesia Clears Top Islamic Militant in Attacks on Christians
January 30, 2003 | adminAn Indonesian court acquitted a prominent Islamic militant leader today on charges of inciting Muslims to attack Christians on the religiously divided Maluku Islands. The cleric, Jaffar Umar Thalib, the head of a paramilitary group called Laskar Jihad, walked free to chants of “Allahu akbar!” (God is great!) from his followers. In contrast, two Christian separatist leaders were each sentenced two days ago to three years’ imprisonment for subversion during the violence on the Malukus, in which thousands of people have been killed. The verdict could give renewed vigor to Islamic radicals who have been on the defensive in Indonesia since the terrorist blast in Bali last October, analysts said. Full Story
Security Officials Considering Plan to Combine Terror Forces
January 30, 2003 | adminMoving quickly on President Bush’s plan to create a national terrorism threat center, national security officials said today that they were considering moving all counterterrorism operations at the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. into the same building. The idea goes beyond the concept Mr. Bush announced on Tuesday night in his State of the Union address for creating a national terrorism threat center, and it would carry tremendous symbolic weight for two agencies often at odds in coordinating operations. “There are obviously advantages to having two of the main agencies in the fight against terrorism being located together,” a government official said. “There will be meetings and discussions to determine if that makes sense.” Officials emphasized that the idea was in the discussion stage, but they said that George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, had talked recently about whether it could work. Under one plan, the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. would move their counterterrorism operations — and their several thousand employees — to Northern Virginia to help create the terrorism center. Full Story
U.S. Focuses on Iraqi Links to Group Allied to Al Qaeda
January 30, 2003 | adminAfter months of scouring for hard evidence of a connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda, the Bush administration is focusing on possible links between Saddam Hussein and Islamic extremists who may have produced poisons in northern Iraq and a Qaeda terrorist leader who spent time in Baghdad last year. Those suspected ties are at the heart of the administration’s latest attempt to demonstrate an Iraqi-Qaeda connection as it tries to persuade the American public and the world that Mr. Hussein’s government must be ousted. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is expected to present the evidence of the connection to the United Nations Security Council next Wednesday. Administration officials, relying on largely dated and previously disclosed information, have said they believe there may be a link between Ansar al-Islam, an Islamic extremist group operating in a remote section of northern Iraq, and the Baghdad government. The organization has been fighting Kurdish groups that oppose the Iraqi regime. Full Story
Terrorism analysis center would merge information
January 30, 2003 | adminPresident Bush’s plan for a new government center that would analyze potential terrorist threats could take months to develop, U.S. officials said Wednesday. But civil libertarians already are questioning the appointment of the CIA director to oversee the center’s work with foreign and domestic intelligence. As outlined in Bush’s State of the Union address Tuesday, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center would become a repository for all terrorist-related intelligence. The information would be analyzed by officers from the CIA, the FBI and the departments of Homeland Security and Defense. Administration officials say consolidating such information collected by various U.S. agents will ensure that material is shared across the government, and will provide a more accurate picture of threats against the government. Such information generally has been investigated separately, with the FBI handling domestic issues and the CIA focused on foreign intelligence. Full Story
Deported American woman lands at LAX
January 30, 2003 | adminAn American woman deported by Russia after allegations that she contacted al Qaida, offering help in attacking Hollywood targets, arrived Wednesday night at Los Angeles International Airport, where FBI agents were waiting to question her. Local television reports showed her Aeroflot plane, Flight 321 from Moscow, landing at around 9:30 p.m. PST at LAX. The Aeroflot office in Los Angeles confirmed that the flight had landed and declined to release any information about its passengers. Megan McRee “will be interviewed by agents once she gets off the plane,” Laura Bosley, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Los Angeles, told United Press International. McRee, 35, has not been charged. Russia deported her after accusing her of establishing contact with al Qaida and other Islamic extremist groups and offering to prepare for and take part in terrorist attacks on the United States. Full Story