Cyber warriors: Cadets shine in NSA competition

 

Air force cadet cyber warriors swept the virtual floor with the competition in the 12th annual Cyber Defense Exercise here April 16-20.

The Cyber Defense Exercise is a network security competition during which service academy cadets and Defense Department post-graduate students manage and defend computer networks and maintain services against simulated intrusions by the National Security Agency’s “red cell” aggressor team.
During the competition, NSA network specialists and military network experts formed the red cell team that challenged cadet blue cell teams to defend a closed-computer network that the cadets designed, built and configured at their respective academies. NSA personnel graded each team’s ability to maintain network services while dealing with security intrusions.
The exercise took place at the NSA’s Fort George G. Meade, Md., headquarters and at each of the academies on virtual, private networks, providing a safe path for the exercise while preventing interference with real-world networks.
Air Force Academy cadets put a great deal of work into preparation for the competition.
“It was quite a marathon,” said Air Force Cadet 1st Class Jordan Keefer of Cadet Squadron 37. “For most of us this is a hobby, so it was a lot of work, but it’s what we like to do.”
But the cadet team didn’t have time to celebrate their victory before they hopped on a plane to participate in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in San Antonio April 20-22. Their tenacity earned them second place in the competition, finishing behind the University of Washington, which won for the second straight year.
“By the time we started the second competition, the challenge wasn’t the computers” Keefer said. “It was maintaining our motivation; but I feel like we did that.”
Dr. Martin Carlisle, the cyber competition team coach, was extremely proud of his team’s efforts in both competitions.
“One thing that we’re particularly proud of is these cadets are a very new team,” Carlisle said. “We’ve only been a team formally for one year now, and they’ve gone from nothing to not only beating all the other service academies, but also the graduate schools. And then, totally fatigued from that, they went directly to the national competition. They competed against teams that could have up to two graduate students and still came in second against 10 regional finalists from more than 100 teams across the country.”
The cyber competition team was established in August 2011. In the past, cadets from senior-level classes and the cyber warfare club competed in cyber competitions, but this is the first year the Academy has had a dedicated cyber team, Carlisle said.
“They’ve made amazing progress over the last year and we’re really proud of what they’re going to do to defend our nation and the Air Force in the future using the skills they’ve learned,” Carlisle said.
The skills they learn are numerous. During the competitions, teams are assessed on their ability to maintain network services while detecting and responding to network intrusions and compromises. They are also graded on their ability to maintain an exchange server, ftp server, Web server and domain controller. They also must submit timely and accurate incident reports as they detect red cell activity.
The cadets will take the skills they develop in the cyber program to their careers in the Air Force.
“When I first got to the Academy, I wanted to fly,” Keefer said. “But then I took the basic cyber course and attended my first competition, and I’ve been hooked ever since. There are so many challenges in the cyber field.”
Carlisle expressed his pride in the cadets’ accomplishments and his belief in the merits of the program.
“One of the exciting things about the cyber team is that their efforts will matter in the defense of the nation,” he said. “These people are learning skills that are going to be essential to the defense of the nation.”
The Academy team competed for the trophy and bragging rights against competitors from the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Coast Guard Academy and U.S. Military Academy. Teams from the Royal Military College of Canada and Air Force Institute of Technology also competed, but weren’t eligible for the trophy.

http://www.defencetalk.com/

No Hezbollah training camps in metropolitan Detroit: FBI

FBI assistant special agent Todd Mayberry, the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism activities in Michigan, told attendees at a security conference that the Iran-supported Hezbollah has no training camps in the Detroit area
FBI assistant special agent Todd Mayberry, the head of the FBI’s counterterrorism activities in Michigan, told attendees at a security conference that the Iran-supported Hezbollah has no training camps in the Detroit area.
U.S. authorities are concerned about how Hezbollah sympathizers would react if Israel or the United States were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“If Israel or anyone else chooses to act against Iran, what exactly is Hezbollah or Iran going to do? That’s the…$64,000 question,” Mayberry told the conference attendees at the West Bloomfield Jewish Community Center. “If something were to happen with Iran, would they take the gloves off? Where would the targets be?”
Mayberry said that the “two main threats that I think would impact the Jewish community” are Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, and individuals who become radicalized through jihadi Web sites on the Internet.
Hezbollah has grown in influence and capability since its establishment in 1982. Its growth as the dominant Shi’a group in Lebanon was aided by three developments: the 1982 invasion of south Lebanon by Israel, and the destruction, during that invasion, of the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Front) military power in Lebanon and subsequent expulsion of the PLO leadership from Lebanon to Tunisia. With growing resentment by Shi’a population of the heavy-handed Israeli occupation, and with the Sunni PLO forces no longer in south Lebanon to keep the Shi’a Hezbollah in check, the organization – benefitting from the third development: the coming of the Ayatollahs to power in Iran – saw its ranks swell and its power increase.
The organization has received hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran, in addition to large quantities of advanced weaponry, training of militia members by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and a massive build-up by Iranian engineers of a vast system of tunnels and bunkers throughout south Lebanon.
Analysts for the House Homeland Security Committee estimate that there are “hundreds of Hezbollah operatives” in the United States, along with an estimated “several thousand sympathetic donors.” The committee experts distinguish between a “supporter” and someone who would be willing to engage in violent activity.
The second threat to the Jewish community is the new self-radicalization that occurs as individuals become terrorists by frequenting jihadi Web sites and chat rooms. Mayberry said that one major problem is keeping track of so many potentially radical Web sites, and differentiating between what might be a potential threat from what may be just idle talk.
Mayberry also spoke about the FBI’s efforts to work with local imams in an attempt to prevent young Muslims from becoming radicalized via the Internet. He said sometimes potential terrorists may contact a legitimate mosque in what he called a “last-ditch” effort to justify their leanings, asking “Is this really what the Quran says”?
“One of the things we’re really working with the imams on is” trying to convince them to take seriously radicals who contact them.” Mayberry went on to say that “the imams have been very responsive.”

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/

Al-Qaeda is weaker without bin Laden, but its franchise persists

By Greg Miller

As U.S. helicopters approached in darkness a year ago, Osama bin Laden was woefully unprepared: no means of escape, no way to destroy files, no succession plan.
But U.S. intelligence analysts scouring the trove of data he left behind continue to find evidence that al-Qaeda was making provisions for the long term, plans that in some cases remain on track.

Among the previously undisclosed records is a lengthy paper by bin Laden’s successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, laying out the al-Qaeda strategy for Afghanistan in the years after the United States withdraws, current and former U.S. officials said.
Other files show that through his couriers, bin Laden was in touch not only with al-Qaeda’s established affiliates but also with upstarts being groomed for new alliances. Among them was Nigeria’s Boko Haram, a group that has since embraced al-Qaeda and adopted its penchant for suicide attacks.
Tracing clues in the trove against developments of the past year has been a focal point for U.S. counterterrorism officials seeking to assess what has become of al-Qaeda since the U.S. Navy SEAL raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The emerging picture is of a network that is crumpled at its core, apparently incapable of an attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001, yet poised to survive its founder’s demise.
U.S. officials have debated “since bin Laden’s death what is the trajectory of this organization and when will we know that we’ve actually defeated it,” a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said.
The answer so far is split.
“The organization that brought us 9/11 is essentially gone,” said the official, among several who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence assessments of al-Qaeda with reporters a year after bin Laden was killed. “But the movement . . . the ideology of the global jihad, bin Laden’s philosophy — that survives in a variety of places outside Pakistan.”
That assessment is considerably more measured than some that were offered in the afterglow of the raid in Abbottabad. Most notably, Leon E. Panetta, after leaving his post as CIA director to become secretary of defense, said he was “convinced that we’re within reach of strategically defeating al-Qaeda.”
That prospect seemed to grow more tantalizing through the remainder of last year, as CIA drones picked apart al-Qaeda’s upper ranks.
Among those killed in the flurry of strikes were Ilyas Kashmiri, an operative bin Laden tasked with finding a way to kill President Obama, and Atiyah Abdul Rahman, who was in day-to-day charge of al-Qaeda and served as the main link between bin Laden and the network he built.
When a CIA drone killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the U.S.-born cleric accused of helping al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen plot attacks, even the network’s most aggressive franchise seemed suddenly vulnerable.
Since then, however, the momentum has slowed, and al-Qaeda has maneuvered past problems that U.S. officials hoped would hasten its demise. Zawahiri, for example, has defied predictions that he would fail to hold al-Qaeda together without bin Laden to safeguard the brand.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Pakistan bomb: 'Two killed' at Lahore railway station

At least two people have been killed in a bomb blast in the Pakistani city of Lahore, police say.

Rescuers say another 25 were wounded and taken to hospital after the blast at the main railway station in the east of the city.
TV pictures showed a waiting room at the station which bore the brunt of the blast, its floor strewn with broken glass and upended furniture.
Lahore has seen many bombings in the past, but this is the first for months.
It is not clear who carried out the attack, which police say was an act of terrorism.
They say ball bearings have been recovered from the site of the blast, which suggest it could have been a timed device. The bomb went off five minutes after the arrival of an express train in the station.
Pakistan has suffered a wave of militant violence that has killed thousands in recent years, as well as deadly sectarian conflict, mostly between majority Sunni and minority Shia Muslims.
Bomb disposal officials told the Express Tribune newspaper that about 5kg (11lb) of explosive material had been used in the bomb, which was planted in a bag at the waiting room.
The newspaper said the station had now been evacuated.
Critical condition "We're trying to investigate how the bag managed to get through despite so many scanners," senior police official Aslam Tareen told the Reuters news agency.

Police say the dead include a policeman and a porter, but there are some reports a third porter has also been killed.
Health officials say five of the wounded are in a critical condition in hospital.
A photographer for the AFP newspaper at the scene said that the bomb went off near the lounge for the luxury Business Express train to Karachi, a service launched two months ago providing first-class travel between Pakistan's two largest cities.
The last major attack in Lahore was in January 2011, when at least 11 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack on a Shia procession.
The previous year - in September 2010 - 31 people were killed in an attack on another Shia procession in the city.
In July of that year two suicide bombers attacked the Data Darbar Sufi shrine in Lahore, killing at least 42 people. Two months before that, gunmen launched simultaneous raids on two mosques of the minority Ahmadi Islamic sect in the city, killing more than 90 people.

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Oklahoma University gets DHS research grant

The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC)  was awarded a $490,000 grant from DHS for a 2-year study of how law enforcement officers utilize awareness of their surroundings to collect and then analyze intelligence related to potential terrorist threats
The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC)  was awarded a $490,000 grant from DHS for a 2-year study of how law enforcement officers utilize awareness of their surroundings to collect and then analyze intelligence related to potential terrorist threats. The OUHSC researchers will work in conjunction with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.
As patrol officers around the United States transition from first responders to front-line preventers, the street-level officers must also expand their observation skills to include suspicious behavior.
The principal investigator for the study is James L. Regens, Ph.D., founding director of the OUHSC Center for Biosecurity Research. He is also associate dean for research at the OU College of Public Health.
“Intelligence collection and analysis are key to identifying and disrupting terrorist planning,” he said. “This research will help improve understanding the ‘what to report,’ as well as the ‘what if’ and ‘so what.’”
Regens cited as an example the failed New York City Times Square bombing attempt of 1 May 2010. Street vendors had noticed a suspicious vehicle, and alerted a patrol officer, who immediately called for backup and a bomb disposal unit.
The study will consist of the examination of non-classified law enforcement agency documents and procedures, as well as scenario-based exercise evaluations.
The project also draws on the expertise of David Edger, CEO of 3CI Consulting and former senior operations officer for the CIA’s clandestine service, David Cid, executive director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism and former assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office, and Carl Jensen III, director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Mississippi and a former FBI supervisory special agent in the Behavioral Sciences Unit.

 http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/

Mac Security After Flashback: 5 Key Points

By Mathew J. Schwartz

Are Macs being more actively attacked?

In the wake of the Flashback malware outbreak that successfully infected over 600,000 Macs, security watchers have declared that cyber-crime rings and nation states have begun to more actively target Macs.

"Recently, malware that targets Mac computers, such as OSX.Flashback and OSX.Sabpab, are increasing," read a blog post from Symantec. "This recent increase provides evidence that malware authors now consider Mac computers a viable battleground along with the Windows platform."
Just how bad is the security situation? Here are five related facts:
1. Flashback infections remain high. Symantec has said that the Flashback eradication campaign has been slower than expected. While over 600,000 machines were infected at one point, by Wednesday that number had dropped to less than 100,000, said Symantec. But Russian security firm Doctor Web, which discovered the malware on April 4, 2012, said that a TCP handshake problem with the sinkhole that Symantec is using to study the malware had led to undercounting. According to Doctor Web, by Thursday there were still at least 566,773 Macs infected with Flashback.
2. Security vendor predicted outbreak. Interestingly, before the widespread Flashback outbreak, F-Secure observed an earlier version of the malware, which targeted old Java vulnerabilities. "We might begin seeing a real OS X outbreak if the gang upgrades their operation a notch higher and start targeting unpatched vulnerabilities," said the F-Secure analysis. Shortly thereafter, of course, Flashback's authors got their hands on the Java zero-day vulnerability and went to town.
[ For more background on the Mac Flashback attack, see Apple Mac Attack Began With Infected WordPress Sites. ]
3. Disabling Java blocks many Mac threats. Before the mass outbreak, the F-Secure analysis had also advised Mac users that "the easiest way to avoid infection"--from malware such as Flashback--"is to just disable Java from your browser(s)." It said that based on its user surveys, most people simply don't need Java to browse the Web. Not long after the Flashback outbreak, meanwhile, what did Apple do? First, it responded with operating system upgrades that patched the Java vulnerability exploited by Flashback. But it also tweaked Java for OS X 10.7 to deactivate itself if not used for 35 days.
4. Most malware on Macs runs on Windows. "One in five Macs has malware on it. Does yours?" trumpeted the headline of a recent Sophos blog. But as anyone who's installed Mac antivirus has probably learned, almost all the malware spotted by such software infects only Windows PCs. In fact, that's the exact finding of the Sophos survey, which is based on 100,000 users of its free Mac OS X antivirus software. Notably, Sophos found that only 2.7% of all scanned Macs harbored Mac-compatible malware, adware, or other suspicious software. (In comparison, some studies that estimate that nearly half of all Windows machines harbor such software.)
5. Targeted attacks still hitting Macs. Earlier this month, Trend Micro detailed a new targeted attack with an unusual twist: the ability to infect both PCs and Macs. The attack begins with social engineering: an email with pro-Tibetan sentiments that includes a link. Clicking on the link leads to a website script that determines whether the system is running a Windows or Mac operating system. At that point, the script pushes a Java applet--designed for the correct operating environment--that breaks out of the Java sandbox, then installs a Trojan application that provides backdoor access to the machine.
While the two Trojans are written in different languages--Python for Macs, and a Windows executable for Windows PCs--the infection results appear to be the same. "Both backdoors report back to the same C&C server," reported Trend Micro. "Moreover, both backdoors have functionalities that include features to allow them to upload and download files and navigate through files and directories in the affected system, providing them further means for their lateral movement and data exfiltration activities."
In other words, attackers do appear to now be paying more attention to Macs.

http://www.informationweek.com/

FBI still short on terrorism experts

A report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) says that the FBI, despite progress made in hiring terrorism experts, is still facing difficulties staffing its Counterterrorism Division (CTD)
A report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) says that the FBI is still facing difficulties staffing its Counterterrorism Division (CTD).  
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attack, FBI launched a hiring campaign which saw the hiring of thousands of additional staff. Within a short time, the agency’s staff was increased by 38 percent.
The Examiner reports that these efforts notwithstanding, in 2005 the FBI reported that nearly 40 percent of the positions in parts of Counterterrorism Division (CTD) were vacant.
The latest GAO report, the unclassified version of which release two weeks ago, describes “the extent to which counterterrorism vacancies existed at FBI HQ since 2005 and the reasons for the vacancies as well as the impact of the strategies implemented by the FBI to address these vacancies.”
The report notes: “From fiscal years 2005 through 2011, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s human capital strategies contributed to reductions in the vacancy rate for all positions in the Counterterrorism Division (CTD) from 26 percent to 6 percent. Most vacancies were caused by transfers to other parts of the FBI. While overall vacancies declined, trends in vacancies varied by position. For example, vacancies for special agents and professional staff generally decreased each year while vacancies for intelligence analysts varied during the same time period.”
To address the shortfall in staffing, the FBI, in 2005, created its Headquarters Staffing Initiative (HSI). The GAO estimates that since 2006, the FBI has spent $50 million to staff CTD with special agents under HSI. According to the FBI, “HSI is the primary reason agent vacancies in CTD were reduced. In addition, FBI officials said HSI yielded other benefits.”


 http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/

Somali pirates change tactics to evade navy heat

* Pirates able to conceal movements with smaller craft

* They had been using captured vessels as 'motherships'
* Tougher naval action forcing gangs to adapt
By Jonathan Saul
LONDON, April 27 (Reuters) - Somali pirates are switching back to using smaller cargo and fishing boats as motherships, hoping to evade detection as maritime security is stepped up to foil their attacks on merchant vessels, industry and navy sources say.
With the prospect of ransoms worth tens of millions of dollars, Somali pirates continue to threaten vital shipping lanes in the Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. Over 20 years of war and famine have worsened prospects for Somalis, adding to the appeal for many young men of crime on the high seas.
Armed gangs had started using large merchant vessels - including tankers - that they had seized as motherships, forcing crews by gunpoint to do their bidding. The tactic, employed agressively in 2011, enabled them to operate further out at sea.
But vigorous action by navies, including pre-emptive strikes, have cut attacks, forcing pirates to adapt their model.
"We are seeing a change in tactics," said Joe Angelo, managing director with INTERTANKO, an association whose members own the majority of the world's oil tanker fleet. "They are now hijacking smaller dhows and they are using them as motherships which is making them less suspicious."
Traditional dhows, used by fishermen and general merchants in the region, were first deployed by Somali pirates before they started using larger captured vessels.
The larger vessels enabled gangs to operate for longer periods at sea with more supplies and in harsher weather conditions, as well giving them more flexibility when launching their high speed attack craft known as skiffs.
"The tactic of using larger commercial vessels as motherships has died down recently as dhows are more effective; they are essentially camouflaged amongst the huge numbers of genuine fishing boats and dhows carrying cargo locally off the Horn of Africa," said Rory Lamrock, an intelligence analyst with security firm AKE.
"Weapons and ladders can be easily jettisoned overboard whenever naval forces approach, making it difficult for navies to disrupt. When a larger vessel gets hijacked for use as a mothership, it is usually well reported and naval forces and commercial ships in the area will be on the lookout."
Data this week from the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) watchdog showed attacks involving Somali pirates in the first quarter of this year had slid to 43, from 97 incidents in the same period last year.
The deployment of private armed security guards and greater use of pirate deterrents such as razor wire and heightened monitoring watches when entering danger areas by crews on board also helped curb Somali attacks.
"While the number of 2012 incidents and hijackings are less ... it is unlikely that the threat of Somali piracy will diminish in the short to medium term unless further actions are taken," the IMB said.
A study published in February by U.S. non-governmental organisation One Earth Future Foundation showed Somali piracy cost the world economy some $7 billion last year. The total paid in ransoms reached $160 million, with an average ransom for a ship rising to $5 million, from around $4 million in 2010.
LONE TARGETS
Ship industry officials said pirates were attempting more diverse attacks and were pushing further into the northern Gulf of Oman to prey on areas not so heavily patrolled.
"I personally believe what is going on are random acts where they can be successful," said INTERTANKO's Angelo.
AKE's Lamrock said over the past six months there had been five incidents in the northern Gulf of Oman, three of which were further north than the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, towards the vital Strait of Hormuz oil choke point.
"It seems more likely that pirates will focus on opportunistically targeting vessels transiting through the Gulf," Lamrock said.
Despite successful efforts to quell attacks and disrupt pirate camps, international naval forces have limited resources to patrol vast distances.
"We are seeing pirates using dhows as motherships - we are monitoring that. They are having to constantly adapt their procedures," said Lt Cdr Jacqueline Sherriff, spokeswoman with the European Union's counter piracy force.
"The Indian Ocean is vast. We are focusing our efforts on the areas that they have been in the past and we are having success."
Sherriff said navies faced the challenge of monitoring large amounts of legitimate dhow traffic passing through the region.
"There are hundreds of them going about their legal trade and we have to be very careful with our intelligence who we target."

http://www.reuters.com/

House Passes Controversial Cyber Threat Info Sharing Bill

By John Wagley

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday aimed at helping the government and private sector share information about cyber threats. But privacy advocates say it gives the government and industry excessive ability to monitor online communications.
The bill, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, or CISPA, passed 248-168.
Bill proponents say the legislation is necessary to help the country protect itself from attacks that steal intellectual property and other sensitive data. “We can’t stand by and do nothing as U.S. companies are hemorrhaging from the cyber looting coming from nation states like China and Russia,” said Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and author of CISPA, in a statement. “America will be a little safer and our economy better protected from foreign cyber predators with this legislation.”
But civil liberties advocates and other groups say the bill poses serious risks to privacy. “We will not stand idly by as the basic freedoms to read and speak online without the shadow of government surveillance are endangered by such overbroad legislative proposals," said Rainey Reitman, activism director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), in a statement. The EFF said it that it would continue to fight the legislation if it is taken up in the Senate, whose approval the bill would now require.
Earlier this week the Obama Administration, citing privacy and other concerns, threatened to veto the bill if it reaches the White House in its current form.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Facebook, antivirus providers in Internet security campaign

Facebook, Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Sophos have joined in a campaign to make it easier for Facebook users to stay safer and more secure online
The executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, Michael Kaiser, released the following statement on the partnership announced the other day by Facebook with leading antivirus providers:
“I applaud the initiative taken by Facebook and partners Microsoft, McAfee, Symantec, Trend Micro, and Sophos on their forward-thinking approach to making it easier for Facebook users to stay safer and more secure online.  Helping computer users avoid websites that are known to distribute malware or steal personal information and providing them with easy access to robust security software is a tremendous service.  Any infected computer is a risk to other computers on the Internet.
“Therefore, this effort will have a positive impact well beyond the Facebook community. We hope others will take notice of this collaborative effort and think about creative ways they can work together to implement cybersecurity solutions.
“We all need to share the responsibility for keeping the Internet safer and more secure. For computer users, keeping a clean machine with a current security software package, updated software, and a modern web browser is a security essential. The STOP. THINK. CONNECT. campaign, a collaborative effort between government and industry, lays out important tips for all users to connect safely. Through STOP. THINK. CONNECT. users can be sure they have done what they need to do, are aware of the potential consequences of their actions, and can proceed across the Internet with confidence and peace of mind.”

http://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/

Dead, captured and wanted

As the one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death approaches, CNN has updated this list, originally published in September 2011, taking a look at some of the dead, captured and the remaining most wanted terrorists from the last 10 years.

While progress has been made, there are still terrorists being saught by the U.S. government. CNN spoke with a number of intelligence agencies to come up with this list of "dirty dozens." Here are the 12 most significant terrorists who are now dead, have been captured and those who are still being hunted. The lists are obviously subjective–there are many more candidates–but these are some of the top combatants in the war on terror.

DEAD

1. Osama Bin Laden:
Founder and leader of al Qaeda, responsible for the 9/11 attacks against the US as well as numerous other mass casualty attacks. He was killed by US Navy Seals during a raid on his compound in Abbottabad,Pakistan in May 2011



2. Muhammad Atef
Founding member and military chief of al Qaeda. He was killed by a US airstrike during early fighting in Afghanistan in November 2001


3. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi
A militant jihadist who opposed US presence in the Middle East and had a profound hatred for Israel. He formed his own terrorist group, Tawhid wal-Jihad. In 2004, he pledged alliance to al Qaeda and changed the name of his group to al Qaeda in Iraq. He was responsible for hundreds of attacks in Iraq. US bombs killed Zarqawi in Iraq in June 2006.


4. Abu Layth al-Libi
Senior al Qaeda military commander who planned attacks against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan including a 2007 bombing of the Bagram Air Base during a visit by then Vice President Richard Cheney. He was killed in a drone attack in Pakistan in March 2008


5. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman
Until his recent death, he was the number 2 to al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and was a key facilitator with al Qaeda affiliates. Materials seized in the Bin Laden compound showed Rahman was in frequent contact with Bin Laden. He was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan in August 2011


6. Abu Hamza Rabia
Third ranking member of al Qaeda who replaced Muhammad Atef after his death. He served as an operational planner for attacks against the US and was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan in November 2005


7. Abu Ayyub al Masri
Replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as leader of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the insurgency in Iraq. He was killed in a joint US/Iraq operation in April 2010


8. Sayeed al-Masri (also known as Abu Shaykh Mustafa Abu al-Yazid)
Number 3 in al Qaeda hierarchy, commander of operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and chief financial officer. He was killed in drone strike in Pakistan in May 2010


9. Mohammad Hasan Khalil al-Hakim
Senior operational manager, deputy chief of external operations, head of propaganda for al Qaeda. He was killed by a drone strike in Pakistan in October 2008


10. Abu Khabab al-Masri (also known as Midhat Mursi)
Al Qaeda's chief bomb maker and chemical weapons expert. He was killed in a drone attack in Pakistan in July 2008


11. Abu Obeidah al Masri
Senior al Qaeda operative who was implicated in the 2006 Trans-Atlantic plot to bomb commercial airliners after take off from London. He died of natural causes in December 2007


12. Anwar al-Awlaki
Yemeni American, Muslim cleric who advocated violent jihad against the United States. He was connected to two of the 9/11 hijackers as well as the accused Ft. Hood shooter Maj. Nidal Milik Hasan and suspected underwear bomber Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab. He was considered an operational leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen. A CIA drone strike killed Awlaki in September 2011.

CAPTURED

1. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM)

Third ranking member of al Qaeda, operational planner and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and is held at Guantanamo Bay (GITMO), Cuba


2. Abu Faraj al-Libi
Replaced KSM after his capture, directed operations against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan, planned 2003 assassination attempt against then Pakistani President Pervez Musharref. He was captured in May 2005 and is held at GITMO


3. Ramzi Bin al-Shibh
Involved in planning of 9/11 attacks, associated with some of the 9/11 hijackers, believed to have been targeted to be the 20th hijacker but was unable to get into the US. He was captured in September 2002 and is held at GITMO


4. Abu Zubaydah
Initially believed to be a high ranking al Qaeda leader, but the US later concluded he held a much lesser position. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 and is held at GITMO.


5. Umar Patek
Connected to the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing which killed more than 200 people including 7 Americans. He was captured by Pakistani forces in January 2011 and sent to Indonesia


6. Younis al-Mauretani
A key planner for al Qaeda who is believed to have had direct contact with Osama Bin Laden and was involved in planning attacks in Europe. He was captured by Pakistani forces in September 2011 and is held by the Pakistanis.


7. Hambali (also Riduan Isamuddin)
Operations Chief for the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya (JI), often described as Bin Laden's leader in Southeast Asia, believed to be connected to a number of deadly bombing attacks in Indonsia. He was captured in a joint US/Thai operation in Thailand in August 2003 and is held at GITMO


8. al Rahim al Nashiri
Head of al Qaeda operations in the Persian Gulf, believed to be the mastermind of the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 which killed 17 US sailors. He was captured in November 2002 and is held at GITMO


9. Ali al Aziz Ali
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew and chief deputy who helped train some of the 9/11 hijackers. He was captured in April 2003 and is held at GITMO


10. Walid bin Attash
Former Bin Laden body guard, assisted 9/11 hijackers, helped with preparations for the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in East Africa and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. He was captured in April 2003 and is held at GITMO


11. Mustafa Ahman al Hawsawi
Worked with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed on numerous al Qaeda plots including providing assistance to 9/11 hijackers. He was captured with KSM in March 2003 in Pakistan and is held in GITMO


12. Abdul Ghani Baradar
A founder of Afghan Taliban, deputy to leader Mullah Omar, directed the insurgency against US and coalition forces from Pakistan. He was captured by Pakistani and American intelligence forces in February 2010 and is held by the Pakistanis

MOST WANTED:

1. Ayman al-Zawahiri
A physician, long time deputy to Osama Bin Laden who recently was named leader of al Qaeda following Bin Laden's death. He has been seen and heard in numerous al Qaeda videos and audio tapes on the web. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania


2. Saif al-Adel
A member of the senior leadership of al Qaeda who is believed to be in Iran. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and was indicted by the U.S. in connection with the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania


3. Anas al-Liby
A computer expert for al Qaeda who is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list, and has been indicted for his role in the 1998 bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.


4. Ibrahim al-Asiri
Suspected of being the chief bombmaker for AQAP, Asiri is believed to be responsible for designing the explosive devices used in the unsuccessful Christmas Day 2009 plot to blow up a US airliner as it landed in Detroit and in the cargo plane bomb plot in 2010.

5. Adnan el Shukrijumah
A senior leader of al Qaeda's external operations program who is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list and has been indicted by the U.S. in the 2009 plot to attack the New York City subway system as well as targets in the United Kingdom.


6. Hakimullah Mehsud
A leader of the Pakistan Taliban with close ties to al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. He claimed responsibility for the 2009 bombing a the Khost Forward Operating Base which killed 7 CIA employees. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.


7. Abu Yahy al-Libi
Islamic scholar, high ranking member of al Qaeda, seen as the public face of al Qaeda, appearing frequently in internet videos


8. Adam Gadahn
American propagandist for al Qaeda who is frequently seen on al Qaeda website videos. He is on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List and has been indicted for treason and material support for al Qaeda.


9. Mullah Mohammad Omar
Leader of the Afghanistan Taliban who allowed Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven in Afghanistan when the Taliban controlled the country prior to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S.


10. Nasser Al Wahishi
Leader of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), former private secretary to Osama Bin Laden. He has vowed to avenge Bin Laden's death.


11. Sirajuddin Haqqani
Senior leader of the Haqqani network in Afghanistan which maintains close ties to al Qaeda and who is believed to have planned an assassination attempt against Afghani President Hamid Karzai


12. Wali Ur Rehman
Senior member of Pakistani Taliban who has participated in cross border attacks against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan

http://edition.cnn.com/

Cybersecurity bill passes despite concerns about personal data protection

By Deirdre Walsh

Ignoring a veto threat from the White House, the House passed legislation Thursday designed to protect communications networks from cyberattacks.
The vote was 248-168.
But even as the House bill moves forward, privacy concerns about granting government agencies access to personal information transmitted on the Internet could prove to be a major obstacle to any new cybersecurity law.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan and a former FBI agent, said he spent the last year working on the bill because the national security risk to the United States posed by cyberattacks is one, "we are just not prepared to handle."
"We needed to stop the Chinese government from stealing our stuff. We needed to stop the Russians from what they're doing to our networks and people's personal information data and resources," Rogers said on the House floor on Thursday. "We needed to prepare for countries like
Iran and North Korea so that they don't do something catastrophic to our networks here in America and cause us real harm to real people."
The House bill, called the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, was drafted by Rogers and the committee's top Democrat, Maryland Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger.  It sets up a voluntary system for private companies to share information about any threats or attacks on their networks with U.S. national security agencies. It also gives some liability protections to those companies in return for cooperating with the government.
While the Obama administration and many congressional Democrats agree the United States needs to respond to cyberthreats, they and many outside civil liberties advocates say the House bill fails to sufficiently guard personal information.  They worry the new rules allowing Internet companies to share information with the National Security Agency could give unfettered access by the intelligence community to data about any individual surfing the Web or sending e-mail.
In its statement opposing the bill and promising a veto, the administration on Wednesday said, "Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive."
In a reference to the George Orwell book that described a society in which government was eavesdropping on its citizens, Rep Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, said during Thursday's debate, "I know it's 2012 but it still feels like 1984 in the House today."
But House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, argued the administration's insistence on specific standards and broader limitations on how much personal information can be shared goes too far.
"The White House believes the government ought to control the Internet; the government ought to set standards and the government ought to take care of everything that's needed for cybersecurity. They're in a camp all by themselves," Boehner said
Proponents of the House bill said they addressed the concerns about privacy raised by many outside groups by adding provisions to narrow how government agencies can use any personal information, limiting it mainly to prosecuting crimes and preserving national security.
Some of those changes helped dampen an outside lobbying effort to defeat the bill. While the American Civil Liberties Union rallied against the measure, another group concerned about protecting privacy rights, the Center for Democracy and Technology, agreed the process needed to move forward.
California Democratic Rep Adam Schiff said he was disappointed his move to limit the transfer of personal information was not allowed a vote on Thursday. He said people want to be secure online, but "they have no idea their information is being collected in this cybernetwork, and that information is not necessary to protect ourselves from a cyberthreat. We want to minimize that."
Schiff said companies have the capability to limit the transfer of this information, "but they would rather not have the obligation to do it."
Ruppersberger said requiring private companies to strip out all personal information was a "nonstarter" with congressional Republicans and the Internet providers who would be the ones giving the intelligence community access to their networks.
Conceding there's a split among Democrats on the bill mainly because of the privacy concerns, Ruppersberger said the fight targeted the bipartisan House bill because "we're the only game in town."  Still, 42 Democrats voted for the measure.  Although there is a bipartisan Senate proposal offered by independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins that the White House prefers, that version has not been scheduled for a vote.
Ruppersberger said the compromise bill wasn't perfect, but said, "The most important thing is to move forward." He warned the only thing standing in the way of protecting communications networks for businesses and individuals was inaction by Congress.

 http://edition.cnn.com/

Napolitano: Secret Service Scandal 'Inexcusable'

By: Laurie Kellman, Associated Press

 There was no risk to President Barack Obama as a result of a prostitution scandal at a Colombia hotel that involved a dozen Secret Service officers, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel Wednesday.

Napolitano, who was facing questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first time since the scandal erupted earlier this month, testified that the alleged behavior by Secret Service employees is "inexcusable" and a "thorough and full investigation is under way." She said the officers' behavior "was not part of the Secret Service way of doing business."

"All 12...have either faced personnel action or been cleared of serious misconduct," Napolitano said. "We will not allow the actions of a few to tarnish the proud legacy of the Secret Service."

Napolitano also said part of the investigation will include a review of training to see "what if anything needs to be tightened up."

When asked by committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., if Secret Service officers are specifically training on issues related to having intimate relationships with foreign nationals, she said the training is "focused on professionalism, on conduct consistent of the highest moral standards."

Napolitano also testified that the Secret Service Office of Professional Responsibility, which is investigating the incident in Cartagena, Colombia, had not received any similar complaints of misconduct in the last 2 ½ years.

The DHS inspector general is also supervising the investigation and "the investigatory resources of the Secret Service," she said, adding that she expect the inspector general to do a complete investigation.

Leahy said before the hearing that he wanted to know how thorough the investigation into the misconduct has been and whether such behavior by Secret Service officers has been tolerated in the past.

"I think that's a very legitimate question. And I've raised it twice with the director of the Secret Service. We'll raise it again," Leahy told NBC's "Today Show."

The Secret Service announced late Tuesday that all 12 implicated officers had been dealt with: eight forced out, one stripped of his security clearance and three cleared of wrongdoing, all within two weeks of the night in question.

The scandal erupted after a fight over payment between a Colombian prostitute and a Secret Service employee spilled into the hallway of the Hotel Caribe ahead of President Barack Obama's arrival at the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena. A dozen military personnel have also been implicated, and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said they have had their security clearances suspended.

Obama said Tuesday the employees at the center of the scandal were not representative of the agency that protects his family in the glare of public life. "These guys are incredible. They protect me. They protect Michelle. They protect the girls. They protect our officials all around the world," the president said on NBC's "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon."

"A couple of knuckleheads shouldn't detract from what they do," Obama added. "What these guys were thinking, I don't know. That's why they're not there anymore."

Lawmakers across Congress say they are concerned about the security risk posed by the proximity the prostitutes — as many as 20, all foreign nationals — had to personnel with sensitive information on the president's plans.

"No one wants to see the president's security compromised or America embarrassed," Leahy said.

Napolitano said that there was no risk to the president. Questions about the culture of the agency, she said, are still being investigated but she was not aware of this being a wider problem.

"This behavior was not part of the Secret Service way of doing business," Napolitano testified. "We are going to make sure that standards and training, if they need to be tightened up they are tightened."

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, House Speaker John Boehner said the scandal is an embarrassment to the agency and the United States, but stopped short of calling for an independent investigation.

"What I'm looking for are the facts. I don't want to just jump out there and make noise just to be making noise," Boehner told reporters. "Let's get to the bottom of this."

The Colombia scandal has been widely denounced by official Washington, but it's a delicate political matter in an election year with the presidency and congressional majorities at stake. All sides have praised Secret Service Director Mark Sullivan's swift action and thorough investigation, in part because he's spent significant time keeping key lawmakers in the loop. Pentagon officials, too, are investigating and are expected to brief Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin and ranking Republican John McCain on Wednesday.

In a similar but unrelated incident, Panetta said Tuesday that three Marines on a U.S. Embassy security team and one embassy staff member were punished for allegedly pushing a prostitute out of a car in Brasilia, Brazil, last year after a dispute over payment. Panetta, speaking in Brasilia, said he had "no tolerance for that kind of conduct."

The military investigation into the Cartagena incident is continuing.

Another Senate panel is looking for a pattern of misconduct. Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told reporters on Tuesday that he'll hold hearings on the service's culture and whether clear rules exist on how employees should behave when they are off duty but on assignment.

"I want to ask questions about whether there is any other evidence of misconduct by Secret Service agents in the last five or 10 years," Lieberman said. "If so, what was done about it, could something have been done to have prevented what happened in Cartagena? And now that it has happened, what do they intend to do?"

 http://www.hstoday.us/home.html

US Intel: No Threat Tied To Bin Laden Anniversary

U.S. counterterrorism officials see no specific threat tied to next week's one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. But they're concerned about violence from al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen because of increased intelligence chatter in the past six months, The Associated Press has learned.

The Yemen group, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, has been a persistent concern since 2009, when one of its adherents nearly brought down a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas. In the past six months, counterterrorism officials have seen what they consider an increase in intelligence about potential threats from the group, according to an intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

Officials are worried that the terror group "intends to advance plots along multiple fronts, including renewed efforts to target Western aviation," according to a joint intelligence bulletin circulated Wednesday from U.S. Northern Command, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the bulletin.

The terror group has twice tried to attack U.S.-bound flights and is considered the most active al-Qaida affiliate, recruiting Westerners.

Other al-Qaida affiliates, including the group al-Shabab in Somalia, have pledged to avenge bin Laden's death. But intelligence officials have not seen signs of current plots against the U.S. Still, officials urged law enforcement to be on the watch.

"We remain concerned that terrorists not yet identified by the intelligence community and law enforcement could seek to advance or execute attacks with little or no warning on or about the anniversary of bin Laden's death," the intelligence bulletin said.

Bin Laden was killed last year in a May 2 raid by the U.S. military. The terror leader was living in a compound in one of Pakistan's suburbs, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years. 

http://www.hstoday.us/home.html

US Embassy warns of Nairobi terror plot

The US Embassy in Nairobi has warned of impending terror attacks targeting hotels in Nairobi and government buildings.
An advisory from the embassy said the timing of the attacks was unclear, but intelligence information showed the planning was in the final stages.
American nationals have been cautioned to remain aware of their surroundings at all and be vigilant of their personal security.
“The Embassy informs US citizens residing in or visiting Kenya that the US Embassy in Nairobi has received credible information regarding a possible attack on Nairobi hotels and prominent Kenyan government buildings,” the statement advised.
Kenya has continuously been on high alert since defence forces launched an offensive against Somalia’s militia group, Al Shabaab, which has been blamed for a series of cross-border attacks.
The Al Shabaab has however on several occasions circumvented police intelligence to launch grenade attacks in Nairobi, Mombasa and parts of northern Kenya.
In the latest attack on April 1, one person was killed and 18 others wounded when explosives went off in the coastal city of Mombasa and a nearby town.
A month earlier in March, Police blamed the Islamist Al Shabaab militia for a grenade attack at a Nairobi bus station that killed nine people and left tens of others wounded.
According to police, four hand grenades were hurled at crowds at the congested bus terminus on the fateful Saturday night.
The Anti Terrorism Police Unit (ATPU) arrested and released a man and three minors following the grenade attacks in downtown Nairobi.
The March attack came six months after two grenade attacks carried out within 24 hours of each other last October that killed one person and injured 30 others.
The first of those attacks targeted a bar in the capital; the second was an attack on a particularly bus stop.
Elgiva Bwire, a Kenyan supporter of the Al Shabaab fighters was arrested soon afterwards and was convicted after having confessed to the attacks.
In 1998, the US embassy, then in central Nairobi, was bombed by Al-Qaeda operatives killing 213 people, including 12 Americans and 34 local embassy staff.
The United States has since moved its embassy out of the city centre.

http://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news

Facebook Taps Sophos to Help Expand User Protection Against Malware

By Carlton Purvis

Facebook has added the data protection company Sophos to its list of partners working to make it easier for users to protect themselves from malicious links on the social networking site.
“For many hundreds of millions of people, Facebook has become the default forum for sharing and consuming opinions, news and personal content. Because content is typically posted by a trusted source--a friend--many users incorrectly assume links are safe. Scammers often take advantage of the trust relationship to fool users into clicking malicious links,” SophosLabs vice president Mark Harris said in a press release on Wednesday.
Facebook uses a database of known malicious links and a tool called a “link shim” to identify ones being shared on the site and warn users, but it’s up to users to decide whether they continue to the questionable site. In January, Facebook said it wanted to make sure links weren’t sending users to suspect Web sites. Starting Tuesday, Sophos began feeding information into this database, becoming Facebook’s latest partner in online security.
Sophos isn’t the first company Facebook has teamed up with to fight malicious links--Facebook also uses information from lists generated by McAfee, Google, Web of Trust, and Websense--but “it’s bringing broader coverage of the threat. Each of the security vendors has their own methods of researching and finding malicious content online. As a result of that, we each have databases of known malicious content,” said SophosLabs U.S. manager Richard Wang by phone earlier this month. Different companies use different technologies to discover new threats. “Bringing Sophos on board gives them that extra bit of protection,” he said.
“It’s useful to get extra protection to them since they’re obvious a huge target market for the hackers out there. Anyone would love to have a market of 800 million people and hackers are no different from any one else trying to make money,” Wang said.
On April 9, just days after the Sophos blog Naked Security published a post about a new vulnerability that would allow hackers to access app users' Facebook credentials, Facebook announced that it would it would be buying the photo sharing app maker Instagram for $1 billion. Instagram lets users share photos across multiple social networks using their respective logins. Facebook has since released a statement saying only jail broken devices are vulnerable.
Sophos anti-virus software can be downloaded for free from the Sophos Web site or Facebook page.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/

Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Conference Planners to Meet Next Week

The planning panel for the 2015 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference is scheduled to convene its inaugural meeting on Monday, the United Nations has announced (see GSN, March 6).
The meeting, slated to continue through May 11, would be followed by two additional preliminary gatherings in advance of the 2015 conference. Planners are expected to consider "substantive and procedural issues" relevant to the nonproliferation treaty as well as the upcoming summit, according to a U.N. statement.
Review conferences are held every five years, allowing member nations to assess the operations of the treaty and to propose actions for strengthening the global nuclear nonproliferation regime.
The planning body is intended to lay the groundwork for the 2015 meeting by evaluating execution of the treaty's various measures, and to help enable coordination among governments on possibly delivering proposals for the upcoming conference.
Australian Ambassador to the United Nations Peter Woolcott is set to serve as chairman of the initial gathering (United Nations release, April 25).

 http://www.nti.org/gsn/

Statement: Nissan is Taking Actions to Protect and Inform Employees and Customers Following an Intrusion into the Company's Global Network Systems

Following is a statement from Andy Palmer, Executive Vice President, Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.
"We have detected an intrusion into our company's global information systems network.
On April 13, 2012, our information security team confirmed the presence of a computer virus on our network and immediately took aggressive actions to protect the company's systems and data. This included actions to protect information related to customers, employees and other partners worldwide. This incident initially involved the malicious placement of malware within our IS network, which then allowed transfer from a data store, housing employee user account credentials.
As a result of our swift and deliberate actions we believe that our systems are secure and that no customer, employee or program data has been compromised. However, we believe that user IDs and hashed passwords were transmitted. We have no indication that any personal information and emails have been compromised. Regardless, we are continuing to take appropriate precautionary measures.
Due to the ever-evolving sophistication and tenacity of hackers targeting corporations and governments on a daily basis, we continue to vigilantly maintain our protection and detection systems and related countermeasures to keep ahead of emerging threats. Our focus remains on safeguarding the integrity of employee, consumer and corporate information."

 http://nissannews.com/en-US/nissan/usa/

Operative details al Qaeda plans to hit planes in wake of 9/11

By CNN Terrorism Analyst Paul Cruickshank

Within weeks of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Osama bin Laden was planning follow-up operations to bring down airliners in the United States and south-east Asia, according to a convicted al Qaeda operative testifying in a terror trial in New York.
Saajid Badat was speaking via a video deposition from the United Kingdom, where he is serving a jail sentence for his role in plotting to blow up a U.S. bound aircraft in December 2001.
It's the first time that an al Qaeda operative has provided such detail about plans to bring down airliners in the wake of 9/11.
Badat testified that a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, he met with Abu Hafs al Masri, then bin Laden's right hand man, in the Jalalabad-Kabul area in Afghanistan.
"Abu Hafs asked me to take an explosive device onboard an airplane, a domestic airline [in the United States] and then detonate it," Badat testified. He was then called to meet bin Laden himself.
"It was just the two of us in the room and he explained to me his justification for the mission," said Badat.
"He said that the American economy is like a chain. If you break one link of the chain, the whole economy will be brought down. So after September 11th attacks, this operation will ruin the aviation industry and in turn the whole economy will come down," he added.
Badat was then told to pick up two explosive shoes from an al Qaeda bomb-maker named Fathi. The explosives, he said, were concealed in the soles.
The idea was for him and Richard Reid, a British operative who came to be known as the "Shoe Bomber," to blow up different planes simultaneously.
Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami on December 22, 2001.
Before leaving Afghanistan in late November, Badat said he and Reid met with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
"It was as if he was giving me final orders," Badat testified.
"He just gave us advice on how to interact with each other, how to contact each other," he said, adding that the communication between him and Reid was to be via e-mail.
When Badat arrived in the United Kingdom in December he said he got cold feet, fearing going through with the operation and the possible implications for his family. He described how he dismantled the shoe bomb he had brought with him and stored it in his parents' house.
On December 14, 2001, he e-mailed his Pakistani handler to tell him he was backing out.
Badat now feels he and others were manipulated by al Qaeda's top leadership.
During his video deposition he stated he was ready to testify against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other top leaders to expose the hollowness of what he called their "bulls**t cause."
Badat, who joined al Qaeda in Afghanistan in 2000, was testifying at the trial in New York of Adis Medunjanin, an American of Bosnian descent charged with involvement in a plot to explode bombs on the subway in September 2009. Though the two never met, Badat met at least one al Qaeda member Medunjanin is alleged to have encountered.
Badat also revealed that he and Reid left Afghanistan for Pakistan with a group of Malaysians militants.
"I learned that they had a group ready to perform a similar hijacking to 9/11," Badat testified.
According to a 9/11 Commission report, al Qaeda initially planned to hijack a dozen airliners in South East Asia at the same time as in the United States, but bin Laden scrapped the south-east Asian portion of the plan.
The new revelations suggest that al Qaeda's south-east Asian plan was revived after 9/11.
A senior U.S. counter-terrorism official told CNN al Qaeda planned to hijack aircraft in south-east Asia using militants who had begun training in flight schools in the region, but the plan was never carried through.
The official said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed orchestrated the post 9/11 south-east Asia hijacking plot and was assisted by Walid bin Attash, a Yemeni al Qaeda terrorist also now being held in Guantanamo Bay.
Two Jemaah Islamiya operatives resonsible for the 2002 Bali bombings – Hambali (real name: Riduan Isamuddin) and Ali Ghufron (real name: Huda bin Abdul Haq) – are also suspected of having had a role in the plot, according to the official.
Badat recalled how a few months before the 9/11 attacks, he was instructed to "collect intelligence on various Jewish locations in South Africa to be viewed as potential targets."
Badat said he researched potential targets on the Internet and put together a report. But despite being tasked to travel to South Africa, he never took the trip.
Days before 9/11, Badat was dispatched to Belgium to meet with Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian then planning a terrorist operation who also met bin Laden in Afghanistan.
Trabelsi was arrested two days after the terrorist attacks on the United States and later admitted to plotting an attack on the Klein Brogel NATO base in Belgium.
He is currently in prison in Belgium and fighting an extradition request to face terrorism charges in the United States.
Badat described meeting several times in Afghanistan with Adnan Shukrijumah, an American al Qaeda operative. At the time he knew the American as "Jaffar." Shukrijumah, he stated, never had any knowledge of the shoe bombing plot.
U.S. authorities allege that Shukrijumah helped orchestrate the 2009 plot to attack New York subways and met Medunjanin in a camp in South Waziristan in September 2008. They say Shukrijumah has emerged as a senior operational planner for the network and is still believed to be at large in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Badat also shed light on how his motivations for traveling to Afghanistan to fight Jihad in 1999 when he was just 19. He testified that he became involved in a militant circle in London and became friends with a man called Babar Ahmad.
"He introduced me to a different dimension to Islam that hadn't been explained to me or shown to me...We're talking about actually taking up arms in the name of Islam," Badat testified.
Ahmad is set to be extradited to the United States to face charges related to a militant website that he ran, including materially supporting terrorists, after a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights earlier this month.

http://edition.cnn.com/

South Asian Nuclear War Would Upend World Food Supply: Analysis

A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would produce airborne debris that would poison distant crop fields with radioactive material and curb worldwide precipitation and heat levels, disrupting global agriculture and potentially causing the starvation of more than 1 billion people, according to an independent analysis issued on Tuesday (see GSN, Feb. 24, 2011).
The expert behind the assessment said he marshaled empirical evidence in support of admonitions that a nuclear conflict might have unplanned international repercussions, Agence France-Presse reported.
"It is not just the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia that pose a threat to the whole world," Ira Helfand, a Massachusetts doctor with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, said in an interview with AFP. "Even these smaller [arsenals] pose an existential threat to our civilization, if not to our species. It would certainly end modern society as we know it."
Climatic alterations resulting from a nuclear conflict would cut the U.S. corn yield by a mean level of one-tenth for 10 years, according to the analysis. Soybean growth would suffer a comparable decrease, falling most significantly in the initial five years following the exchange, it adds.
Chinese rice generation would take a mean-level hit of 21 percent in the 48 months following such an event and endure a 10 percent decline for six subsequent years, Helfand determined.
The calculations do not consider boosts in ultraviolet radiation or the possibility of new weather cycles resulting in the rapid, deadly freezing of commercial vegetation, meaning agricultural tolls of a nuclear conflict might exceed Helfand's projections, AFP reported.
The analyst said more profound weather shifts would result if either Washington or Moscow employed a relatively limited part of its nuclear stockpile in an offensive.
"The U.S. and Russia are not likely to start a war with each other, but we know of at least five times when the U.S. or Russia prepared to launch a nuclear attack because it believed it was under attack," he said.
"Luck" alone would be responsible for the continued absence of a major nuclear war until the former Cold War rivals eliminate most of their nuclear armaments and eliminate the capacity to fire remaining bombs on extremely short notice, he said.

http://www.nti.org/gsn/

Japan Orders Advanced CBRN Monitoring Systems from the USA

Japan recently ordered 19 Biological, Chemical and Radiological Warning Systems from Lockheed Martin and its trading partner, the ITOCHU Corporation. The AbleSentry sensors are designed to provide authorities an early warning in case of a possible chemical, biological or radiological attack. The systems include a networked array of remote sensors providing a high probability of threat detection, while minimizing the potential for false alarms.

It also integrates weather monitoring to accurately determine the threat propagation supporting the relevant decision making throughout the command chain. According to Lockheed Martin, networked sensors eliminate the possibility of a single sensor causing a system-wide false alarm. AbleSentry evolved from previous generation of Biological Aerosol Warning Systems (BAWS), adding chemical and radiological detection capabilities. Since 2005 the company delivered 24 such systems to the Japanese military.

http://defense-update.com/

Gulf 'must raise security efforts'

GCC nations need an even more coordinated and grounded effort to ensure the security of oil platforms and critical infrastructure, analysts have stressed.
The Middle East Homeland Security Summit, which ended yesterday, brought together experts in national security, critical infrastructure and defence from 14 nations to discuss possible dangers to the region.
The GCC faces threats including ballistic missiles and terrorism, but also from organised crime and radicals, said Nasser Al Buhairi, a security and strategic development consultant for the Kuwaiti government.
"Iraq, Iran and Yemen are the main sources of organised crime in the area," Mr Al Buhairi said.
He pointed to organisations involved in narcotic and human trafficking in the Middle East, as well as arms smuggling through the Horn of Africa and areas around the Gulf region.
Johan Obdola, the deputy director in Latin America of the International Association of Seaports and Airports Police, said operatives for Middle East terrorist organisations had been identified as far afield as South America.
"Hizbollah operatives have been spotted with Mexican drug cartels and there have been many indicators of links with others across South America," Mr Obdola said.
Latin America has become the new geopolitical hot zone for transnational organised crime, he said.
"The Iranian regime has a lot of influence in Latin America with countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil," Mr Obdola said. "Many governments and security organisations in South America now are looking into the Iranian involvement."
Any terrorist links need to be vigilantly watched for, he said, "especially with the situation that is happening with Iran and the international community - it can change for better or worse".
Yet despite the fear-mongering about Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles, the weapons appear to be more for intimidating adversaries than for inflicting real damage, said Michael Elleman, the regional security expert from the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
"The Iranian missiles programme plays a major role in their intimidation capacity and creating national pride," said Mr Elleman.
He admitted Iran's missile inventory was the largest in the Middle East - second only to that of Israel - but said having that fire power was useless unless it was used to deliver nuclear bombs.
"The negative aspect of ballistic missiles is that if they are not carrying nuclear weapons they do not have much military use," said Mr Elleman, a missile engineer.
He said a one-tonne warhead would cause a damage radius of between 50 and 60 metres.
"With the accuracy of the missiles Iran has, half the time they land a kilometre away from the intended target," Mr Elleman said.
"In a best-case scenario, the probability is one in 100 that they would have an accurate missile strike on to a strategic target like a bridge or an airbase. In reality, it's more but more like one in 1,000."
To strike one target accurately, Iran would need to send out between 300 and 800 missiles, he said, which is much more than they have.
Other experts were more cautious and warned of the Iranian capability to cause damage to critical national infrastructure.
An Iranian attack on Kuwait's Al Ahmadi oil pump station in 1987 was a clear example of the vulnerability of critical infrastructure around the GCC, Mr Al Buhairi said.
"During that attack, 70 per cent of Kuwait's oil export capability was crippled," he said.

http://www.thenational.ae/

House Appropriations Panel Eyes Funding Boost For Nuclear Security Programs

By Douglas P. Guarino

 

  House appropriators were poised on Wednesday to consider largely endorsing the Obama administration’s nuclear arms spending plan while boosting funding in the next budget for select nuclear security programs and slashing spending on a controversial fuel reprocessing initiative.
The House Appropriations Committee in a draft report for an energy and water development spending bill recommended $7.58 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons activities. That is roughly $300 million more than allocated for the current budget and $65 million below what the administration requested for the fiscal year that begins on Oct 1.
At press time, the committee was beginning consideration of amendments to the wide-ranging energy and water development legislation and had not taken a final vote. A Senate Appropriations subcommittee has also mostly backed the administration’s plans for nuclear weapons spending, and the full panel is scheduled to take up the issue on Thursday.
The House committee offered a preliminary endorsement of the administration’s proposal to delay by five years construction of a new plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Pushing back work on the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement project would “not adversely impact sustainment of the stockpile in the near term since alternatives are available,” the report says. The endorsement by the GOP-controlled committee comes despite strong criticisms of the administration's nuclear complex plan from other leading Republicans .
The report calls for $16.6 million in increased spending for the NNSA Global Threat Reduction Initiative above the Obama administration’s request of $466 million; that would still be a nearly $16 million cut from the current year’s spending. The program is aimed at safeguarding vulnerable nuclear and radiological material -- a key administration goal.
Appropriators also shifted $152.8 million away from the mixed-oxide fuel reprocessing project at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, which would convert nuclear-weapon material into reactor fuel.
In a Tuesday analysis of the report, the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation praised what it called a “strong rebuke” of the mixed-oxide fuel project, which watchdog groups have argued should not be included in the NNSA nonproliferation operations budget. The program actually increases proliferation risks by creating a fuel with a fissile component that is easily separable, according to critics.
House appropriators said in their report that there “is still no fidelity on the total project costs and timeline to get the MOX facility up and running, and few details have been provided on the long term investments that will, be need to support full operating feedstock requirements.”
The House committee did not directly increase the administration’s controversial request to fund the Second Line of Defense program at 65 percent below fiscal 2012 levels. Senate appropriators on Tuesday proposed boosting the requested $92.6 million by $54 million.
Acknowledging NNSA leaders’ desire for a “strategic pause” to evaluate the future of the program, which installs radiation detection equipment at foreign points of entry, the House report does recommend $10 million “above the request for proliferation detection, to accelerate development of new technology for nuclear detector materials and performance research that will improve options available for Second Line of Defense activities.”
“The recommendation also includes [$20 million] above the request for nuclear detonation detection, for infrastructure investments which will enhance nonproliferation efforts and provide additional capabilities, such as those needed for pre- and post-detonation nuclear forensics,” according to the report.
Overall, the report funds the NNSA Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account at $2.276 billion, a decrease of $20 million below what Congress appropriated for fiscal 2012 and $182.6 million less than the administration requested for fiscal 2013.

http://www.nti.org/gsn/