04-24-09 Daily Intel Report

1. CIA Confirms: Waterboarding 9/11 Mastermind Led to Info that Aborted 9/11-Style Attack on Los Angeles
Tuesday, April 21, 2009 CNS News By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=46949

Khalid Sheik Mohammad, a top al Qaeda leader who divulged information -- after being waterboarded -- that allowed the U.S. government to stop a planned terrorist attack on Los Angeles. (CNSNews.com) - The Central Intelligence Agency told CNSNews.com today that it stands by the assertion made in a May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that the use of "enhanced techniques" of interrogation on al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) -- including the use of waterboarding -- caused KSM to reveal information that allowed the U.S. government to thwart a planned attack on Los Angeles. Before he was waterboarded, when KSM was asked about planned attacks on the United States, he ominously told his CIA interrogators, "Soon, you will know." According to the previously classified May 30, 2005 Justice Department memo that was released by President Barack Obama last week, the thwarted attack -- which KSM called the "Second Wave"-- planned " 'to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into' a building in Los Angeles." KSM was the mastermind of the first "hijacked-airliner" attacks on the United States, which struck the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia on Sept. 11, 2001…

Banned Techniques Yielded 'High Value Information,' Memo Says
By PETER BAKER New York Times April 22, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22blair.html

WASHINGTON – President Obama's national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists. "High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country," Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday. Admiral Blair sent his memo on the same day the administration publicly released secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of interrogation methods that the Obama White House has deemed to be illegal torture. Among other things, the Bush administration memos revealed that two captured Qaeda operatives were subjected to a form of near-drowning known as waterboarding a total of 266 times. Admiral Blair's assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo released to the media last Thursday. Also deleted was a line in which he empathized with his predecessors who originally approved some of the harsh tactics after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001...

Pelosi won't rule out impeaching judge
By S.A. Miller Wednesday, April 22, 2009 The Washington Times

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3241

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday would not rule out impeachment hearings against federal Judge Jay Bybee over accusations he misled Congress about his role in shaping Bush administration policy that condoned harsh interrogation techniques that critics say amounted to torture. Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said lawmakers must determine whether Mr. Bybee lied during his 2003 confirmation hearings, which won him a lifetime appointment to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "I would not call for his impeachment without knowing what the facts are," Mrs. Pelosi said. "But I do think that the legal opinions, as we are learning now, that were issued by the [Justice Department's] Office of Legal Counsel did not serve our country well and were not based on our country's values." "In terms of his particular situation, I think the important place to look is what he said about that at the confirmation hearings," Mrs. Pelosi told reporters at a breakfast round table hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. Judge Bybee, who as a top Justice Department lawyer signed memos in 2002 giving the legal green light for the CIA to use harsh interrogation techniques, has faced calls for impeachment or his resignation from the bench since the Obama administration made the memos public last week. The memos still were classified when President George W. Bush nominated him to the bench. He was not asked about the memos at his confirmation hearing, but he was asked about the administration's policy concerning detained terror suspects and other policies related to the war on terror. Mrs. Pelosi also endorsed a proposal for a South African-style "truth commission" to get to the bottom of how the Bush administration formed its interrogation policy…

2. Lawyer: USS Cole families each to get $200,000
Associated Press April 22, 2009 05:09AM
http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/lawyer_uss_cole_families_ea...

RICHMOND, Va. -- John Clodfelter won't see a dime of the $13.4 million from Sudan that a federal judge granted to relatives of 17 sailors killed in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole, including Clodfelter's son. But the Mechanicsville man is still thankful for a resolution to the lawsuit he and other family members of the attack's victims filed six years ago against the troubled African nation. The relatives argued successfully that Sudan's government provided support that allowed al-Qaida suicide bombers to attack the Navy destroyer with a bomb aboard a small boat in a Yemen port in 2000. Clodfelter's daughter-in-law and 10-year-old son are among those who will receive at least $200,000 after a federal judge recently released the Sudanese money that had been frozen by the U.S. government. "It's taken so much more time than we thought it should take," he said Tuesday. Twenty-six other parents who sued Sudan were not eligible for compensation, which went instead to their child's spouse or children, a judge in Norfolk, Va., ruled in 2007. "Not one penny can replace the life of my child," said Mona Gunn of Virginia Beach, whose 22-year-old son Cherone was killed in the attack. "The sad thing is, not all family members are receiving compensation. There are mothers and fathers who lost children who aren't going to get compensation, and siblings who lost a brother or sister." The Sudanese government didn't fight the case during a trial, but has refused to pay the families. A spokesman for the Sudanese Embassy in Washington said Tuesday the country had nothing to do with the attack…

3. Swedish man set up militant camp: U.S. prosecutor
Tue Apr 21, 2009 6:57pm EDT Reuters By Christine Kearney

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE53K6EC20090421

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Lebanese-born Swedish man attempted to set up an al Qaeda militant training camp in the United States on the orders of a firebrand Muslim cleric in Britain, a U.S. prosecutor told a U.S. jury on Tuesday. Oussama Abdullah Kassir, 43, who was extradited from the Czech Republic on terrorism charges in 2007, faces multiple charges including supporting al Qaeda by attempting to set up the camp in rural Oregon from 1999 to early 2000 and later setting up websites on explosives and poisons… In opening arguments at Manhattan federal court, prosecutor Michael Farbiarz said Kassir was a follower of Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian-born Muslim cleric in prison in Britain for inciting followers to murder nonbelievers. Armed with Hamza's orders and "a stack of money", Kassir traveled from Europe to Seattle and then 10 hours by car to Bly, Oregon "to establish a training camp for holy war, for jihad," Farbiarz said. "The purpose of the training camp was to train young Muslims to go and do jihad in Afghanistan," he said. "The defendant was a personal follower of Abu Hamza, he admires Abu Hamza." Kassir set up security patrols, helped distribute instructions on how to make bombs and poison, and offered instructions in hand-to-hand combat, including how to slit a person's throat with a knife, but the camp was never properly established, the prosecutor said. He then tried to gain followers at a mosque in Seattle, before traveling to Europe to establish at least three websites that contained manuals such as "The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook" and "The Mujahideen Poisons Handbook," between 2001 and 2005, according to Farbiarz and the indictment...

4. US jails SA man for trying to smuggle arms

April 23 2009 at 06:20AM The Independent (South Africa) By Karen Breytenbach

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3242

A South African man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in the US for conspiring to smuggle illegal military weapons into that country and sell them to a South African posing as a go-between for international terrorist groups. Christiaan Dewet "David" Spies, 37, was convicted in July 2007 on multiple charges that included importing illegal weapons and conspiring to defraud the US government. Sentencing him in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan), Judge Richard J Holwell said it seemed Spies "was not a practised or professional arms dealer but a petty crook who got in over his head". Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment. Reports have quoted Spies as saying during the trial that he became involved in the deals to gain a US green card so he could avoid returning to South Africa. Spies and Armenian businessman Artur Solomonyan, also known as "Alex", both of whom were living illegally in the US, were led to believe their arms buyer would get them fake green cards. Solomonyan was sentenced last month to 22 years in prison...

5. Pirate Suspect Charged as Adult in New York
By BENJAMIN WEISER New York Times April 22, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/nyregion/22pirate.html

The federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan is a towering presence, more than big enough to have handled such history-in-the-making cases involving a Gotti, a Madoff, and several men who have pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden. But now there is the singular case of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse, a Somali who speaks no English, is of uncertain age, and is being prosecuted under a federal law that has not been used in many decades and carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison. On Tuesday, less than two weeks after the government says Mr. Muse and three other men took command of an American cargo ship off the coast of Africa, Mr. Muse was sitting in a packed courtroom, almost swallowed up by a large chair, his left hand bandaged heavily, as lawyers and a federal magistrate judge wrestled for more than an hour just to figure out how old he was. The judge, Andrew J. Peck, over objections of prosecutors and reporters, emptied the courtroom, then listened as Mr. Muse's father, via a telephone hookup from Somalia and through an interpreter, testified that his son was born Nov. 20, 1993 — making him 15. But a New York police detective, Frederick Galloway, who went to Africa as part of an investigative team, told the judge that Mr. Muse, after giving different ages, said he had been untruthful, apologized and said he was "between 18 and 19."…

6. Liberty City 6 terror retrial in final phase

Posted on Thu, Apr. 23, 2009 Miami Herald

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-dade/story/1013144.html

The third terrorism trial of a group of Miami men accused of collaborating with al Qaeda will enter the final stage with closing arguments Thursday and Friday in federal court. The defendants, known as the Liberty Six, were arrested in June 2006 on charges of conspiring with the global terrorist group to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower as well as federal buildings in Miami and other cities. The first two trials ended with hung juries and the acquittal of one defendant, a lawful U.S. resident named Lyglenson Lemorin, who faces deportation to his native Haiti. Closing arguments come after another two-month trial. Prosecutors portrayed the group's ringleader, Narseal Batiste, as a militant who used his Moorish religious organization to recruit followers to destroy the United States. Defense attorneys, who wrapped up their case Wednesday, countered that the prosecution's case was a setup led by an FBI informant who posed as an al Qaeda representative to lure the men into a fictitious terrorism conspiracy...

Air, rail, port, health & communication infrastructure security

IPT NOTE: For more infrastructure news, see Dep't of Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Reports http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/programs/editorial_0542.shtm; Public Safety Canada Daily Infrastructure Report http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/dir/index-eng.aspx; TSA Press Releases http://www.tsa.gov/press/releases/index.shtm

7. New Military Command to Focus on Cybersecurity
By SIOBHAN GORMAN and YOCHI J. DREAZEN Wall Street Journal April 22, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124035738674441033.html

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration plans to create a new military command to coordinate the defense of Pentagon computer networks and improve U.S. offensive capabilities in cyberwarfare, according to current and former officials familiar with the plans. The initiative will reshape the military's efforts to protect its networks from attacks by hackers, especially those from countries such as China and Russia. The new command will be unveiled within the next few weeks, Pentagon officials said. The move comes amid growing evidence that sophisticated cyberspies are attacking the U.S. electric grid and key defense programs. A page-one story in The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124027491029837401.html on Tuesday reported that hackers breached the Pentagon's biggest weapons program, the $300 billion Joint Strike Fighter, and stole data. Lawmakers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wrote to the defense secretary Tuesday requesting a briefing on the matter. Lockheed Martin Corp., the project's lead contractor, said in a statement Tuesday that it believed the article "was incorrect in its representation of successful cyber attacks" on the F-35 program. "To our knowledge, there has never been any classified information breach," the statement said. The Journal story didn't say the stolen information was classified...

8. International hackers, many from China, are attacking NYPD computers
BY Alison Gendar and Bill Hutchinson NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wed, April 22nd 2009, 7:07 PM
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3243

A network of mystery hackers, most based in China, have been making 70,000 attempts a day to break into the NYPD's computer system, the city's top cop revealed Wednesday. Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the perpetrators have yet to succeed, but their relentless activities have prompted the force to raise its guard against high-tech crime. "It's a threat that we must continue to pay close attention to every day," Kelly said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. Kelly said the threat is similar to a shocking cyber espionage plot recently uncovered at the Pentagon. China-based hackers successfully cracked the Pentagon's computers and gleaned design features of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet program being developed by Lockheed Martin, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday. "Perhaps it is because of the NYPD's reach into the international arena that we are being targeted for computer hacking in much the way the Pentagon has been with its plans for the Joint Strike Fighter," Kelly said…

9. Open-source tool available for unclassified work
By Doug Beizer Federal Computer Week Apr 21, 2009

http://fcw.com/articles/2009/04/21/disa-open-source.aspx?s=fcwdaily_2204...

The Defense Department's open-source software development tool Forge.mil may now be used for unclassified work in DOD, the Defense Information Systems Agency announced today. Forge.mil enables collaborative software development and cross-program sharing of software, system components and services in support of network-centric operations and warfare. It is modeled on concepts proven in open-source software development. "The initial adoption rate was far greater than our initial predictions," said Dave Mihelcic, DISA's chief technology officer. "Based on the positive feedback that we've received from our early adopters, we know that it's time to open the site for general availability." The initial operational capability decision coincides with a new version of SoftwareForge that provides performance improvements over the previous version, according to DISA. SoftwareForge, the initial Forge.mil capability, enables sharing and collaborative development of open-source and community-source software in DOD's software development community…

10. Documents: FBI Spyware Has Been Snaring Extortionists, Hackers for Years
By Kevin Poulsen April 16, 2009 | 12:33:32 AM Wired.com
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/fbi-spyware-pro.html#previouspo...
A sophisticated FBI-produced spyware program has played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in federal investigations into extortion plots, terrorist threats and hacker attacks in cases stretching back at least seven years, newly declassified documents show. As first reported by Wired.com, the software, called a "computer and internet protocol address verifier," or CIPAV, http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/07/fbi_spyware?currentPage=a... is designed to infiltrate a target's computer and gather a wide range of information, which it secretly sends to an FBI server in eastern Virginia. The FBI's use of the spyware surfaced in 2007 when the bureau used it to track e-mailed bomb threats against a Washington state high school to a 15-year-old student. But the documents released Thursday under the Freedom of Information Act show the FBI has quietly obtained court authorization to deploy the CIPAV in a wide variety of cases, ranging from major hacker investigations, to someone posing as an FBI agent online. Shortly after its launch, the program became so popular with federal law enforcement that Justice Department lawyers in Washington warned that overuse of the novel technique could result in its electronic evidence being thrown out of court in some cases… Update: The documents are now available for download here http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/04/get-your-fbi-sp.html

Financing, identity theft, money laundering

11. Afghan drug kingpin charged with terrorist financing for funding Taliban insurgency

United States Attorney Southern District of New York April 21, 2009 http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3244

IPT NOTE: The indictment and superseding indictment are posted at http://www.investigativeproject.org/cases.php#281

LEV L. DASSIN, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and MICHELE M. LEONHART, the Acting Administrator of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"), announced today the filing of a superseding indictment charging HAJI JUMA KHAN, a/k/a "Abdullah,"
a/k/a "Haji Juma Khan Mohammadhasni," with conspiring to finance terrorist activity by the Taliban. These new charges are in addition to a charge already pending against KHAN for violating the 2006 federal narcoterrorism statute. According to the superseding Indictment filed in Manhattan federal court:
Since at least 1999, KHAN led an international opium, morphine and heroin trafficking organization (the "Khan Organization") based principally in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces of southern Afghanistan. The Khan Organization arranged to sell morphine base, an opium derivative that can be processed into heroin, in quantities as large as 40 tons -- enough to supply the entire United States heroin market for more than two years. The Khan Organization also operated labs in Afghanistan that produced refined heroin and sold the drug in quantities of as much as 100 kilograms and more. KHAN was closely aligned with the Taliban, which, in 2002, was designated by the President of the United States as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Group…

12. U.S. charges Colombian paramilitary leader with conspiring to support terrorism and to import ton-quantities of cocaine

US Attorney's Office Southern District of New York April 21, 2009

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3245

LEV L. DASSIN, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, JOHN P. GILBRIDE, Special Agent-In-Charge of the New York Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA"), RAYMOND W. KELLY, Police Commissioner of the City of New York ("NYPD"), and PETER J. SMITH, Special Agent in-Charge of the New York Office of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ("ICE"), announced today the return of a Superseding Indictment charging DANIEL RENDON-HERRERA, a/k/a "Don Mario," a/k/a "El Viejo," a/k/a "El Tio," a/k/a "La Senora," with conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia ("AUC"), and to import thousands of kilograms of cocaine into the United States. According to the Superseding Indictment returned today, which adds DANIEL RENDON-HERRERA to a previously filed Indictment in this case: The AUC is a Colombian right-wing paramilitary and drug-trafficking organization, designated by the U.S. State Department as both a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially-Designated Global Terrorist Organization…

13. Ethnic grocery owner indicted for laundering drug-trafficking money, structuring financial transactions

US Attorney's Office, Western District of Missouri, MATT J. WHITWORTH APRIL 22, 2009 News Release
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/mow/news2009/okonta.ind.htm

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Matt J. Whitworth, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri, announced that the owner of The African Market in Kansas City, Mo., was indicted by a federal grand jury today for structuring financial transactions and laundering the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking. Emmanuel Chinedu Okonta, 48, of Kansas City, Mo., was charged in a 13-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City. Okonta owns West African Groceries, which does business as The African Market, an ethnic grocery store in Kansas City. Today's indictment alleges that Okonta structured or assisted in structuring a series of financial transactions totaling $100,000 for the purpose of evading federal reporting requirements. On each of five separate occasions in November and December 2005, Okonta sent eight wire transfers of $2,500 each to China via Western Union… Today's indictment also charges Okonta with eight counts of money laundering related to a series of MoneyGram wire transfers to Los Angeles, Calif., and McAllen, Texas, in June 2007. Those wire transfers, in amounts of either $2,750 or $2,800, allegedly represented the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking…

14. Doha Bank branch to pay $5 mln to settle US charges
Reuters Tue Apr 21, 2009 1:33pm EDT

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3246

* OCC says bank did not adequately monitor fund transfers

* Bank to pay penalty without admitting nor denying charges

WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) - Doha Bank's New York branch has agreed to pay $5 million to settle charges by U.S. regulators that it did not adequately monitor suspicious activities related to fund transfers and other draft services, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said on Tuesday. The OCC and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network said the Doha Bank branch did not have adequate controls in place to manage the risk of money laundering and other suspicious activity. "It is critically important that institutions have effective systems in place to identify and report suspicious transactions in a timely manner, especially with regard to higher-risk products and services," Comptroller John Dugan said...

Border security, immigration, customs

IPT NOTE: For more details, see US Customs and Border Protection releases at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/ ; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2754 , and Canada Border Services Agency http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/menu-eng.html

15. Homeland Security boss rebuked by Canada for erroneous 9/11 statement
By Sheldon Alberts, Canwest News Service April 21, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3247

WASHINGTON — It is the 9/11 myth that stubbornly persists — and no amount of Canadian protesting seems sufficient to put it to rest. Canada's ambassador to the United States on Tuesday publicly rebuked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for suggesting that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. from Canada, and has asked for a private meeting with her to set the record straight. "Unfortunately, misconceptions arise on something as fundamental as where the 9/11 terrorists came from," Michael Wilson told a Washington conference on cross-border trade. "As the 9/11 commission reported in 2004, all of the 9/11 terrorists arrived in the United States from outside North America. They flew in (to) major U.S. airports. They entered the U.S. with documents issued by the United States government, and no 9/11 terrorists came from Canada." Wilson's comments came amid a round of complaints from Canadian parliamentarians and business leaders for remarks Napolitano made earlier this week in a Canadian television interview. Addressing a question on the different security challenges facing the U.S. on its borders with Canada and Mexico, Napolitano said terrorists entering America have come mostly from Canada. "To the extent that terrorists have come into our country, or suspected or known terrorists have entered our country across a border, it's been across the Canadian border," Napolitano told the CBC. Asked if she was referring to the 9/11 attackers, Napolitano replied: "Not just those, but others as well." Wilson struck a diplomatic tone and did not mention Napolitano by name in prepared remarks to the Border Trade Alliance conference in Washington…

16. U.S. Army Reserve, Customs and Border Protection Launch Jobs Partnership
Partnership to Assist Border Agency in Filling 11,000 Positions
US Customs & Border Protection News Release (Tuesday, April 21, 2009)
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/04212009_3.xml

Washington – The Army Reserve and U.S. Customs and Border Protection formally agreed today to work collaboratively to enhance job opportunities for America's soldiers and veterans. The alliance, launched under the Army Reserve Employer Partnership Initiative, will help strengthen the community, support Army Reserve soldiers and their families, and contribute to a strong economy. CBP is the first federal agency to join the Army Reserve's Employer Partnership… With an estimated 11,000 jobs opening in CBP, the partnership will aim to help Army Reserve soldiers and veterans find jobs in today's economy…

17. Supreme Court eases deportation rules
Audrey Hudson Washington Times Wednesday, April 22, 2009

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/22/supreme-court-eases-asylum-c...

Illegal immigrants can temporarily avoid deportation while appealing such action through the judicial system, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. Jean Marc Nken of Cameroon overstayed his visa in 2001 and applied for asylum but his requests were denied. In a 7-2 decision written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court ruled that Mr. Nken's request to delay deportation was wrongly held to a "demanding standard" of proof. The justices sent the case back to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Justices Samuel A. Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented, and said the court's decision nullifies "an important statutory provision that Congress enacted when it reformed the immigration laws in 1996," Judge Alito wrote. ..

18. CBP to Deactivate Older NEXUS Frequent Traveler Cards

US Customs & Border Protection News Release (Monday, April 20, 2009)
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/04202009_2.xml

Washington – U.S. Customs and Border Protection today announced it will cancel old NEXUS cards for current NEXUS members on May 1. CBP has been mailing new NEXUS cards to all members since November. The new cards have enhanced security features and allow U.S. and Canadian citizen cardholders to comply with the documentary requirements of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. All members must activate their new cards within 30 days, verify and update their U.S. mailing address by going to the GOES page on the CBP Web site. (Global Online Enrollment System) NEXUS members should destroy their old cards after activating their new ones. If members have not received their new cards, they should go to their local enrollment center to either pick up their new card or to apply to have a new card issued. Old cards will be deactivated May 1. NEXUS is a joint CBP-Canada Border Services Agency program that both governments implemented to enhance border security while simplifying the entry process for pre-approved, low-risk travelers. It was established in 2002 and approximately 280,000 members participate in the program…

MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

19. Twin Homicide Bombings Kill at Least 42 in Baghdad
Thursday, April 23, 2009 Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517590,00.html

BAGHDAD — Two separate homicide bombings in Iraq killed at least 42 people Thursday. In one incident a homicide bomber blew himself up among a group of Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid in a mainly Shiite area in Baghdad, killing at least 22 people, the Iraqi military said. The attack was the latest in a series of high-profile bombings that have raised concern of an uptick in violence as the U.S. military scales back its forces before a planned withdrawal by the end of 2011. The bombing occurred just after noon as Iraqi police were distributing aid parcels near Tahariyat Square in the central neighborhood of Karradah, according to the office of the main Baghdad military spokesman…

Suicide Blast in Iraq Kills Three, Injures 19
Eight U.S. Soliders Also Wounded In Attack

By Ernesto Londoño Washington Post Tuesday, April 21, 2009

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3248

BAGHDAD, April 20 -- A suicide bomber wearing a police uniform killed three Iraqis, including two employees of the U.S. Embassy's office in Diyala province, on Monday, authorities said. The blast wounded 19 people, among them eight American soldiers, two other embassy employees and three Iraqi policemen. The bomber detonated explosives at approximately 10 a.m. while standing near a group of soldiers and civilians who were en route to the weekly provincial council meeting in Baqubah, 35 miles north of Baghdad. The wounded embassy employees are an American contractor and a British citizen employed as an interpreter and cultural adviser, a U.S. Embassy official said. The two slain employees were Iraqi contractors, the official said...

DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release No. 263-09 April 21, 2009
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12622

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lance Cpl. Ray A. Spencer II, 20, of Ridgecrest, Calif., died April 16 as a result of a non-hostile incident in Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. The incident is currently under investigation…

20. Iraq Officials Say Suspected Al-Qaeda-Linked Chief Nabbed
Thursday, April 23, 2009 Associated Press

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,517588,00.html

BAGHDAD — The suspected leader of an Al Qaeda-linked militant network was captured Thursday by Iraqi military forces, security officials said, in what could mark a significant blow against Sunni insurgents as they step up attacks. Two separate homicide bombings, meanwhile, killed at least 42 people. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi has been a key target for U.S. and Iraqi forces for years as the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group of Sunni militant factions that is believed dominated by Al Qaeda in Iraq. But little is known about his origins or real influence over insurgent groups, which have staged a series of high-profile attacks in recent weeks, including, apparently, the two homicide blasts Thursday in Baghdad and north of the capital in Diyala province. The U.S. military has even said al-Baghdadi could be a fictitious character used to give an Iraqi face to an organization dominated by foreign Al Qaeda fighters. But Iraqi security forces said he was in custody...

21. Islamic State of Iraq War Minister: 'The Mujahideen Today Are in Great Need of Chemical, Biological and... Even Nuclear Weapons... To Defend What They Have Achieved and What They Will Achieve'

Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Special Dispatch - No. 2320 April 21, 2009
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD232009

On April 21, 2009, Islamist websites posted an audio interview with Islamic State of Iraq War Minister Abu Hamza Al-Muhajir, conducted by Al-Furqan, the ISI media company. The interview is an attempt by ISI to regain the influence it has lost in Iraq since the dawn of the Awakening Councils, and to reposition itself as an important jihad entity in Iraq before U.S. forces withdraw and the Iraqi government, which is largely Shiite, takes over. To view the clip and read the full report, visit http://www.memrijttm.org/content/en/report.htm?report=3248&m=APT. To view this report you must be a member of the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor Project (JTTM)…

22. Fowler, aide freed by hostage takers

By Mike Blanchfield and Steven Edwards, Canwest News Service April 22, 2009 12:19 PM

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3249

OTTAWA — Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler and his assistant Louis Guay have been released after being abducted more than four months ago while on a visit to northwestern Africa. Two Canadian diplomats, as well as a German and a Swiss, were released Wednesday in northern Mali, security sources told AFP. "Four of six hostages were released. They are the two Canadian diplomats, the German woman and the Swiss woman," a security source in the northern town of Gao said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Their release was confirmed by a local politician. Fowler, the United Nations special envoy to Niger, and Guay have been missing since Dec. 14, when they visited a gold mine run by the Canadian company Semafo in Samira. Last month, their driver was freed in Mali. Their release comes after an Algerian newspaper reported last month that al-Qaida's North African arm had demanded 20 of its members be released from detention in Mali and other countries as a condition for releasing six western hostages, including Flower and Guay...

23. ABC News Exclusive: Torture Tape Implicates UAE Royal Sheikh
Police in Uniform Join In as Victim Is Whipped, Beaten, Electrocuted, Run Over by SUV
By VIC WALTER, REHAB EL-BURI, ANGELA HILL and BRIAN ROSS April 22, 2009— ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7402099&page=1

A video tape smuggled out of the United Arab Emirates shows a member of the country's royal family mercilessly torturing a man with whips, electric cattle prods and wooden planks with protruding nails. A man in a UAE police uniform is seen on the tape tying the victim's arms and legs, and later holding him down as the Sheikh pours salt on the man's wounds and then drives over him with his Mercedes SUV. In a statement to ABC News, the UAE Ministry of the Interior said it had reviewed the tape and acknowledged the involvement of Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, brother of the country's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed. "The incidents depicted in the video tapes were not part of a pattern of behavior," the Interior Ministry's statement declared. The Minister of the Interior is also one of Sheikh Issa's brother. The government statement said its review found "all rules, policies and procedures were followed correctly by the Police Department." "If this is their complete reply, then sadly it's a scam and it's a sham," said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch… The 45-minute long tape was smuggled out of the country by Bassam Nabulsi, of Houston, Texas, a former business associate of Sheikh Issa. Nabulsi is now suing the Sheikh in federal court in Houston, alleging he also was tortured by UAE police when he refused to turn over the videos to the Sheikh following their falling out...