Daily Intel Update 3-15-09
1. Prosecutors say Walter Reed worker, wife sold sensitive technology to China
By Associated Press 5:54 PM EDT, March 12, 2009
www.baltimoresun.com/news/sns-ap-aircraft-technology-china,0,5903258.sto...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Walter Reed Army Medical Center worker and his wife were charged Thursday with conspiring to sell sensitive technology to China. A Washington grand jury indicted Harold Hanson, a former Army lieutenant colonel, and his wife, Yaming Nina Qi Hanson, for conspiracy and violating export laws. The wife was charged last month in a criminal complaint. Her husband was working at Walter Reed as a civilian handling patient safety issues. Authorities allege that the Silver Spring, Md., couple exported miniature controls for unmanned aircraft. The controls involve technology that cannot be shared with China because of national security concerns. The devices are used to fly small military reconnaissance planes…
2. Destroyer to Protect Ship Near China
By Ann Scott Tyson Washington Post Friday, March 13, 2009; A12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR200903...
The U.S. Navy has dispatched a guided-missile destroyer to the South China Sea after Chinese ships allegedly harassed an American ship operating there last weekend, a Pentagon official said yesterday. The USS Chung-Hoon, armed with torpedoes and missiles, is stationed in protection of the USNS Impeccable, an ocean surveillance ship. On Sunday, five Chinese vessels surrounded the Impeccable, which is unarmed. The Chinese ships approached to within 25 feet and blocked the Impeccable's path with pieces of wood, the official said…
3. Several Hearings Highlight Persistent Threat of Terrorism
CQPolitics CQ TODAY PRINT EDITION – HOMELAND SECURITY March 11, 2009 – 8:36 p.m.
By Daniel Fowler, Caitlin Webber and Rob Margetta, CQ Staff
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000003072777
IPT NOTE: See related items ##4, 5, 13, 23 and 42 below.
With the demise of the Bush administration, many pundits, analysts and experts have declared that the Global War on Terror is over. But it was alive and well Wednesday on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers in both chambers took up topics ranging from violent Islamist extremism to terrorist financing to the attacks last year in Mumbai, all with an eye on what those threats mean for Americans. And, far from trying to move into a post-Sept. 11 mindset, the attacks of that day continued to resonate with many lawmakers. … Echoes of the questions asked in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, could be heard in those raised by a House Homeland Security subcommittee during a hearing on how American cities would handle an attack like the siege of hospitals and hotels in Mumbai, India, in November that left 160 dead… If anything, a panel of security experts who testified before the subcommittee said, federal, state and local protection forces need to expand the scope of possible terrorist actions for which they prepare. Mumbai and the March 3 attack targeting the Sri Lankan national cricket team in Lahore, Pakistan, showed that large-scale, 9/11-style bombings aren't the only options in the terrorist arsenal. "The attacks in Mumbai and Lahore are evidence of a shift in tactics from suicide bombs to a commando-style assault with small teams of heavily armed operatives," said New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. The subcommittee, along with a group representing private industry that testified during a second panel, emphasized that the private sector has a role in protecting infrastructure, such as the hotels hit in the Mumbai attacks. Another threat, from two other corners of the world, was the focus of a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing. The loci of those threats: Somalia and Minnesota… A House Armed Services panel examined one front in the war on terrorism that has generally been considered a success — busting up terrorist financing — with an eye perhaps on more funding to expand operations…
4. Somali-Americans Fight With Al-Qaeda-Linked Group, FBI Says
March 11, 2009 Bloomberg News By Justin Blum
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aY6xgiUcNQX4&refer=u...
IPT NOTE: The witness list + links to prepared statements is posted at
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2898
March 11 (Bloomberg) -- There has been an "active and deliberate attempt" to recruit young Somali-Americans living in Minneapolis to travel to Somalia to fight and train with a group linked to al-Qaeda, according to the FBI. Since late 2006, an unspecified number of people have traveled from the U.S. to Somalia and were linked with al- Shabaab, a militant group, said Philip Mudd, associate executive assistant director of the national security branch of the FBI, in prepared testimony to be delivered today in a Senate hearing. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is concerned those Somalis may return to the U.S., where they are citizens, and plot terrorist attacks. Those fears were heightened in October when a Somali-American living in Minneapolis went to the African nation and became the first known U.S. citizen to carry out a suicide bombing, according to Mudd…
US Officials Warn of Terrorist Recruitment of Somali-Americans
By Deborah Tate Voice of America News March 11, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-03-11-voa58.cfm
Hearing: Violent Islamist Extremism: al-Shabaab Recruitment in America
U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Date: 3/11/09 Time (EST): 9:30 AM Place: Dirksen Senate Office Building, Rm. 342
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2898
Panel 1
J. Philip Mudd, Assoc Exec Ass't Director, National Security Branch, FBI, U.S. Dep't of Justice
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Mudd.pdf
Andrew M. Liepman, Deputy Director for Intelligence, National Counterterrorism Center
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Liepman.pdf
Panel 2
Ken Menkhaus, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Davidson College
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Menkhaus031109.pdf
Osman Ahmed, President, Riverside Plaza Tenants Association
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Ahmed.pdf
Abdirahman Mukhtar, Youth Program Manager, Brian Coyle Community Center
http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/_files/031109Mukhtar.pdf
5. Hearing: "The Mumbai Attacks: A Wake-Up Call for America's Private Sector"
US House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee
Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 2:00 p.m. in 311 Cannon House Office Building
http://homeland.house.gov/hearings/index.asp?ID=176
PANEL I
James Snyder, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Infrastructure Protection
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141004-29763.pdf
Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner, New York Police Department
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141027-25539.pdf
James W. McJunkin, Deputy Assistant Director, Counterterrorism Division
Federal Bureau of Investigation
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141054-00637.pdf
PANEL II
C. Christine Fair, Senior Political Scientist, RAND Corporation
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141119-80354.pdf
Brad Bonnell, Director, Global Security InterContinental Hotels Group
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141108-36214.pdf
William G. Raisch, Executive Director, International Center for Enterprise Preparedness
New York University
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090311141136-44026.pdf
6. Khawaja sentenced to additional 10 1/2 years on terror charges
The Ottawa Citizen March 12, 2009 12:15 PM
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2908
The first Canadian charged under the new Criminal Code provisions of the Anti-terrorism Act has been sentenced to an additional 10 1/2 years in prison for his role in helping a group of Islamic extremists plot to bomb London nightclubs and other targets in 2004. In an Ottawa courtroom Thursday, Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford sentenced Mohammed Momin Khawaja, 29, to spend another ten and half years spread over convictions on seven charges, on top of the five years he has already spent in prison awaiting trial and sentencing. Five of the convictions were charges of participating in, contributing, financing, and facilitating terror, while two other convictions pertained to Khawaja's developing and possessing an explosive device -- the so-called Hi-Fi digimonster…
7. Army Developing Teams for Electronic Warfare
By THOM SHANKER March 8, 2009nNew York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/washington/08army.html?, reprinted at http://www.military.com/news/article/March-2009/army-builds-electronic-w...?
WASHINGTON — Viewed by its sister services as the less brainy branch of the armed forces, the Army over recent years had neglected to maintain its own ability to fight electronic warfare, relying instead on the expertise of the Air Force and the Navy. But the ground wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have introduced deadly new threats and proved how that lack of attention to electronic warfare has put soldiers directly at risk. Information-age attacks, like improvised explosive devices detonated by cellphones, radios and garage door openers, have claimed more lives than any other type. And there are high-tech benefits that must be managed, including friend-or-foe tracking devices and surveillance drones that beam video straight to troops in battle. In response, the Army is developing its own electronic warfare teams. The initial goal is to train more than 1,600 people from enlisted ranks through the officer corps by 2013, and to double that in the following years, giving the Army enough of these specialists to rival its sister services and surpass all of the NATO allies combined…
8. Argentina bombing whistleblower allegedly tortured
By MAYRA PERTOSSI – Associated Press March 11, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2909
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina on Wednesday launched a probe into the alleged kidnapping and torture of an attorney who accused top officials of a coverup in the nation's worst terrorist attack. The apparent abduction of Claudio Lifschitz on Friday has raised new questions about whether powerful people still have something to hide about the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center that killed 85 people. Lifschitz said he was driving through Buenos Aires with his secretary on Friday when another car cut him off. Three masked men jumped out, seized him, put a plastic bag over his head and shoved him into a van, he said. He said the men identified themselves as members of the government's SIDE intelligence agency and shouted "don't mess with the SIDE!" They carved the initials of the Jewish center — AMIA — on his back, and used a blowtorch to burn the bombing probe's case number onto his left forearm...
9. U.S. diplomat to focus on Guantánamo closure
Posted on Thu, Mar. 12, 2009 Miami Herald
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking-news/story/947103.html
The Obama administration Thursday created a top level diplomatic position of globe-trotting Guantánamo Closure Czar to plead individual war on terror detainee cases in Europe and the Middle East. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton appointed Daniel Fried to the new post on Thursday, in a State Department announcement that described him as "a seasoned diplomat with a strong record of accomplishment." Fried, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Poland, will become the latest special envoy in a series created by the White House…
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
10. Anthrax Attack Aftermath: Feds to Increase Scrutiny of Workers at Biodefense Labs
March 11, 2009 Popular Mechanics
http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4308113.html
In an effort to safeguard labs working with dangerous biological materials, the U.S. government is looking at ways to ensure that the workers themselves do not pose a threat. In early April the advisory board tasked with boosting security measures will hold a meeting at a hotel near an Army base to solicit opinions from experts on the effect these steps might have on research into treating and preventing deadly infectious diseases...
11. TSA reviews airport incident involving La. senator
Associated Press March 12, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2911
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Transportation Security Administration is reviewing a report that U.S. Sen. David Vitter set off a security alarm when he opened a gate door in his rush to catch a flight last week at Washington Dulles International Airport. In a statement, the Louisiana Republican says he accidentally went through a wrong door at the gate leading to the United Airlines plane he was trying to board. A Roll Call newspaper report quoting an anonymous tipster says Vitter had a heated exchange with an airline worker and then left the scene when the worker left to call security. Vitter says the report mischaracterized his conversation with the employee…
12. Hardened U.S. Embassies Symbolic of Old Fears, Critics Say
By Colum Lynch Washington Post Friday, March 13, 2009; A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR200903...
UNITED NATIONS, March 12 -- Across the Manhattan street from the landmark buildings of the United Nations, a new architectural symbol of American outreach to the world is rising: an impenetrable concrete tower with 30-inch-thick concrete walls and no windows on its first seven floors. Built to endure a chemical- or biological-weapon attack or an explosives-laden truck careening up Manhattan's First Avenue, the new U.S. mission to the United Nations will offer the most secure diplomatic quarters in history when it is completed next year. The 26-story building is one of a new generation of hardened U.S. diplomatic outposts. More than 60 high-security embassies and consulates have been constructed in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa over the past eight years. Their primary goal is greater protection for the 20,000 American officials serving in those facilities, but the buildings have also been criticized as enduring symbols of the fears and anxieties that gripped the United States in the wake of the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks…
Financing, identity theft, money laundering
13. Hearing: Tracking and Disrupting Terrorist Financial Networks: A Potential Model for Inter-agency Success?
House Armed Services Committee,
Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 –3:30pm – 2118 Rayburn – Open
http://armedservices.house.gov/hearing_information.shtml
Panel 1:
Dr. Matthew Levitt, Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence
The Washington Institute of Near East Policy
http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/TUTC031109/Levitt_Testimony031109.pd...
Panel 2:
Mr. Edward Frothingham III, Principal Director for Transnational Threats
Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Counternarcotics Counterproliferation, and Global Threats.
http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/TUTC031109/Frothingham_Testimony0311...
Lieutenant General David P. Fridovich, USA, Commander, Center for Special Operations
U. S. Special Operations Command
http://armedservices.house.gov/pdfs/TUTC031109/Fridovich_Testimony031109...
14. Stockton Convenience Store Owners Accused Of Fraud
Edmundo Aguilar reporting
STOCKTON (CBS13) ― Mar 12, 2009 4:08 pm US/Pacific
http://cbs13.com/local/Stockon.Convenience.Store.2.957913.html
A Stockton convenience store is now closed for business after being raided by federal officials and accused of stealing money from people using food stamps. The store's owner and family are accused of stealing thousands of dollars from customers. Federal agents stormed a local Stockton convenience store yesterday morning; while witnesses say the owner of 'Smoke Shop & Snack' had no idea the agents were there… According to a federal complaint, the store owner, Ahmad Khan and four other family members, defrauded the U.S. Government by the way of food stamps… The complaint says the Khan family would pay people cash for food stamps; around 50 cents on the dollar… The investigation revealed that back in 2003, the store took in around $10,000 dollars by the way of government assistance. And, as the years went on the amount got larger. Last year, the smoke shop took in close to $720,000 dollars. Over the last six years, the complaint says the Khan family schemed $2.2 million dollars in food stamp fraud. According to the affidavit, it is believed thousands and thousands of that money was wired from the bank of Stockton to their family in Pakistan.
15. NYC jury awards $5.46M to 1993 WTC bombing victim
By SAMUEL MAULL – Associated Press March 12, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2912
NEW YORK (AP) — A jury on Thursday awarded $5.46 million to a woman who was trapped underground and injured when terrorists detonated a car bomb beneath the World Trade Center in 1993. The state Supreme Court jury awarded the money to Linda Nash, 65, of Durango, Colo., for earnings lost when she could not return to work because of brain damage and emotional problems and for her past and future pain and suffering, plus 3 1/2 years of accrued interest. Nash's lawyer, Louis Mangone, said the total would be more than $7 million for the interest counted since October 2005, when a jury found the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, owners of the trade center, were liable for injuries that resulted from the explosion. The jury found that trade center officials had ignored their own security reports and should have been better prepared for a terrorist attack....
16. Obama appointee on leave after FBI raid
Gary Emerling Friday, March 13, 2009 The Washington Times
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2916
IPT NOTE: The affidavit for Acar arrest warrant (PDF) http://www.politico.com/static/PPM116_affidavit.html
President Obama's newly appointed chief information officer is on leave from his post after an FBI raid Thursday that resulted in the arrests of his former deputy and another man in connection with a D.C. government bribery scandal. Authorities did not implicate Vivek Kundra in the scandal, but a White House official said he was on leave "until further details become known" about the investigation into the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer, which Mr. Kundra headed from 2007 until this year. The White House official asked not to be identified discussing an ongoing investigation… FBI agents raided the city's technology offices about 9 a.m. Yusuf Acar, an employee in the chief technology officer's office, and Sushil Bansal, the chief executive officer of a Washington-based information technology company, were arrested Thursday and appeared in U.S. District Court on charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and money laundering…
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
17. "Border Violence: An Examination of DHS Strategies and Resources"
House Homeland Security Committee
Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism
Thursday, March 12, 2009 10:00 a.m. in 311 Cannon House Office Building
http://homeland.house.gov/hearings/index.asp?ID=177
Vice Admiral Roger T. Rufe Jr. (USCG Ret), Director
Office of Operations Coordination, Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090312101816-04584.pdf
Mr. Alonzo Peña, Department of Homeland Security Attaché
U.S. Embassy, Mexico City, Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090312101832-17872.PDF
Mr. John Leech, Acting Director, Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement
Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090312101853-56319.pdf
Mr. Salvador Nieto, Deputy Assistant Commissioner
Intelligence and Operations Coordination, Customs and Border Protection
Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090312101842-75227.PDF
Mr. Kumar Kibble, Deputy Director, Office of Investigations
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security
http://homeland.house.gov/SiteDocuments/20090312101939-66859.pdf
18. For CBP, challenge is Secure Border Initiative
By ELISE CASTELLI Federal Times March 11, 2009
http://federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3984348
Customs and Border Protection this spring will begin wiring 23 miles of Arizona border with high-tech sensors to detect possible illegal crossings by people and cargo. The aim is to wire the state's entire border by 2011. This Secure Border Initiative achievement is significant, given that the initial pilot project, known as Project 28, failed in 2007 because of cost overruns, poor oversight and technology glitches. Program managers from both CBP and the contractor, Boeing, admit to relying upon false assumptions: that commercially available video cameras, radars systems and other sensors would snap together like Legos. Project 28 proved they didn't. …
'Virtual fence' gets second chance on border
By Mimi Hall, USA TODAY March 11, 2009
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-03-10-fence_N.htm
WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department is accelerating plans to build a costly and long-troubled "virtual fence" of sensors and cameras along the U.S.-Mexican border, aided by $100 million from the economic stimulus package. The government already has spent $600 million and built a failed prototype of the high-tech network that would be used by border agents to try to catch illegal immigrants and drug runners. A 28-mile test patch built in Arizona over the past two years had so many problems that it was scrapped. The department is now embarking on what its officials and members of Congress are calling a "do-over" on the same land near Tucson and another along 30 miles in Ajo, Ariz…
19. President may send Guard to Mexican border
Wednesday, March 11, 2009 By James O'Toole, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09070/954946-100.stm
WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he is considering new border security measures, including the possibility of National Guard deployments, to combat the spillover of violence by Mexican drug cartels... Commenting on the border security issue, Mr. Obama noted that Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had met recently with his Mexican counterparts to assess the degree of the threat from the aggressive gangs…
Brewer asks feds for more border troops
Howard Fischer, Capitol Media Services March 11, 2009 - 5:39PM
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/136553
Saying Arizonans are in danger from drug-related violence, Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates to put another 250 National Guard troops along the border. In her letter to Gates, Brewer said the current 150 soldiers stationed there as part of the Joint Counter Narco-Terrorism Task Force are insufficient. The governor said federal help is necessary because Arizona faces "a number of unique and/or disproportionate challenges relative to other states."…
20. Border agency draws fire for weapons traffic to Mexico
By Chris Strohm CongressDaily March 11, 2009
http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0309/031109cdam1.htm
For years, the Homeland Security Department has been criticized for not doing enough to prevent illegal immigrants and drugs from coming into the country across the southern border. Now the department is under heavy fire for not stopping the flow of illegal weapons from the United States to Mexico. Homeland Security officials told lawmakers Tuesday they are quickly trying to clamp down on arms trafficking into Mexico that is fueling a bloody war between drug cartels and the Mexican government. According to the Mexican government, about 90 percent of weapons seized from the cartels came illegally from the United States…
Drug smugglers using ultralights to cross border
By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN The Associated Press Wednesday, March 11, 2009; 4:14 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/11/AR200903...
TUCSON, Ariz. -- Smugglers facing strengthened border defenses have turned to an old and risky tactic _ using single-seat ultralight aircraft to fly marijuana loads into the country. Officials know of at least three such attempts in recent months _ all of which ended badly for the smugglers _ but they don't know how many others have been made or whether any have been successful. The incidents are worrisome to federal officials. They believe more such attempts are happening or will be, though there's no agreement on whether use of the small aluminum tubing aircraft represents a trend or a novelty...
Other items
21. Saudi Academy in Va. revises Islamic history books
By MATTHEW BARAKAT Associated Press March 12, 2009
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2913
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — An Islamic school in northern Virginia with close ties to the Saudi government has revised its religious textbooks in an effort to end years of criticism that the school fosters hatred and intolerance. While the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to The Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to fuel critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islam. The academy, which teaches nearly 900 students in grades K-12 at its campus just outside the Capital Beltway, developed new Islamic studies textbooks for all grades after a 2008 congressional report called portions of the previous editions troubling. The school provided the AP copies of the new textbooks, which revise language on hot-button issues such as requiring women to cover their heads and how Muslims should relate to people of other religions… The school was founded in 1984 and largely stayed out of the spotlight until the Sept. 11 attacks, which focused attention on the Saudi educational system. In December 2001, two former ISA students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were denied entry into Israel when authorities there found El-Yacoubi carrying what the FBI believed was a suicide note linked to a planned martyrdom operation in Israel. In 2005, a former ISA valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in federal court of joining al-Qaida while attending college in Saudi Arabia and plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Last year, the school's then-director, Abdalla al-Shabnan, was convicted of failing to report a suspected case of child sex abuse. Last year also was when the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom released a report saying the school's textbooks contained several troubling passages, including one saying it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam and another saying "the Jews conspired against Islam and its people."…
MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA
22. DoD Identifies Marine Casualty
U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release No. 160-09 March 11, 2009
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12549
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Lance Cpl. Patrick A. Malone, 21, of Ocala, Fla., died March 10 as a result of a non-hostile incident in Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to 2nd Tank Battalion, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C. The incident is currently under investigation…
23. Somalia's rising tide of extremism
By Thomas Joscelyn Long War Journal March 12, 2009 4:29 PM
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/03/somalias_rising_tide.php
This week, four high-level US government officials testified at Senate hearings about the growing threat of terrorism emanating from Somalia. Two officials, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lieutenant General Michael Maples, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, March 10. Their testimony included references to the deteriorating security situation in Somalia and the surrounding region, as well as the rise of al Qaeda and its allies in East Africa. The next day, two other officials – Andrew Liepman, the deputy director of intelligence at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and Philip Mudd, associate executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security Branch – testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Liepman and Mudd discussed the recruitment of Somali immigrants living in the US and their ties to international terrorism…
24. Sudan jihadist group threatens suicide attack against ICC supporters
BBC Monitoring Middle East – Political Supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring
March 10, 2009 Tuesday Copyright 2009 British Broadcasting Corporation
Excerpt from report by Sudanese pro-government newspaper Akhir Lahzah on 10 March
http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/index.htm subscription req'd, available on NEXIS/Westlaw
An alliance of jihadist and martyrdom movements has announced it will carry out 250 martyrdom operations against states supporting the ICC decision on their own ground away from Sudanese territory. The alliance heralded another 11 September to the allies of international imperialism and CIA agents in France, Britain and the USA. In a statement issued yesterday, the alliance declared it was lawful to kill the ICC prosecutor-general, Luis Moreno Ocampo, the leader of the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, Khalil Ibrahim and the leader of the rebel Sudan Liberation Movement, Abd-al-Wahid Muhammad Nur describing the former as being vilified and the others as Zionist agents and renegades. It said was a duty to pursue them and implement God's law against them wherever they went…
Montreal nurse among three aid workers kidnapped in Darfur
Catherine Solyom, Canwest News Service Thursday, March 12, 2009
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1381124
A nurse from Montreal is among three foreign aid workers kidnapped in Darfur, Sudan, on Wednesday night. Laura Archer, born in Charlottetown but living in Montreal, was working for Medecins sans frontières at a health clinic in north Darfur when she was abducted, along with an Italian doctor and a French field worker... The three foreigners and two Sudanese nationals were abducted from their compound in Saraf Omra and taken away by vehicle Wednesday night, Marilyn McHarg, the general director of MSF in Canada, said Thursday… The Sudanese staff were quickly released…
