Homeland Security Updates

Via Foxnews.com and the AP

Insurgents have captured an American soldier in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Thursday.

Spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the soldier went missing Tuesday.

“We are using all of our resources to find him and provide for his safe return,” Mathias said.

Mathias did not provide details on the soldier, the location where he was captured or the circumstances.

“We are not providing further details to protect the soldier’s well-being,” she said.

An Afghan police official said the soldier went missing during the day Tuesday in the Mullakheil area of eastern Paktika province. Gen. Nabi Mullakheil said there is an American base in the area.

The news broke as thousands of U.S. Marines launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in southern Afghanistan. The missing soldier was not part of that operation.

(Full Article)

Via National Terror Alert

A federal grand jury has indicted a group of Somali-Americans on terror-related charges after more than 20 young men from the Minneapolis area were recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia, according to two law enforcement sources.

The indictments have yet to be unsealed, but an announcement is expected in the next few weeks. One law enforcement source told FOX News the grand jury already has handed up indictments against at least three people.

Among those charged is a man from Minneapolis who went to war-torn Somalia and then, about four months ago, relocated to Seattle, according to the two sources and a leader in the Minneapolis Somali community. The man was then arrested in a Seattle airport and transferred to a jail in Minneapolis, where he is currently being detained, according to the law enforcement sources.

The law enforcement sources said the man, described as in his 20s, has been charged with providing material support to a terrorist group, in this case al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government since 2006.

(Full Article)

Via Policeone.com and the AP

Managers and developers of high-profile skyscrapers and other buildings in the city need to take more steps to guard against terrorist attacks, according to a new report by the New York Police Department.

“The same qualities that make the city’s buildings recognized icons of design, culture and commerce also make them continuous targets of terrorism,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a foreword for the report.

The report – which was to be distributed Wednesday at a meeting with private security officials – doesn’t name the buildings the NYPD believes are at highest risk for bombings or other types of attacks. But the Empire State Building, New York Stock Exchange and Freedom Tower planned for ground zero have been cited in the past as potential targets.

The report offers a formula for measuring the vulnerability of buildings to attacks based on design, prominence and proximity to landmarks and other more likely targets. As an example, it cites the destruction of a smaller World Trade Center building caused by the collapse of one of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

High-risk buildings should use securely fixed “anti-ram” columns to harden their perimeters, the report says. Large explosions, it says, cause ordinary concrete barriers or planters to shatter and create a shrapnel-like hazard. It also says builders should reduce the risk of broken glass by positioning glass facades away from nearby landmarks.

(Full Article)

Via Yahoo! News

Employers cut a larger-than-expected 467,000 jobs in June, driving the unemployment rate up to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, suggesting that the economy’s road to recovery will be bumpy.

The Labor Department report, released Thursday, showed that even as the recession flashes signs of easing, companies likely will want to keep a lid on costs and be wary of hiring until they feel certain the economy is on solid ground.

June’s payroll reductions were deeper than the 363,000 that economists expected and average weekly earnings dropped to the lowest level in nearly a year.

However, the rise in the unemployment rate from 9.4 percent in May wasn’t as sharp as the expected 9.6 percent. Still, many economists predict the jobless rate will hit 10 percent this year, and keep rising into next year, before falling back.

All told, 14.7 million people were unemployed in June.

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 16.5 percent in June, the highest on records dating to 1994.

“We were on the road of things getting less bad in the jobs market, and that has been temporarily waylaid,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. “But this doesn’t change my view that the recession will end later this year. We’re probably two months away.”

(Full Article)

Via CNSNews.com and the AP

Thousands of U.S. Marines poured from helicopters and armored vehicles into Taliban-controlled villages of southern Afghanistan Thursday in the first major operation under President Barack Obama’s strategy to stabilize the country.

The offensive was launched shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday local time (4:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, 2030 GMT Wednesday) in Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold and the world’s largest opium poppy producing area. The goal is to clear insurgents from the hotly contested region before the nation’s Aug. 20 presidential election.

Officials described the operation, dubbed Khanjar, or “Strike of the Sword,” as the largest and fastest-moving of the war’s new phase and the biggest Marine offensive since the one in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. It involves nearly 4,000 newly arrived Marines plus 650 Afghan forces. British forces last week led similar, but smaller, missions to clear out insurgents in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar province.

“Where we go we will stay, and where we stay, we will hold, build and work toward transition of all security responsibilities to Afghan forces,” Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson said in a statement.

Transport helicopters carried hundreds of Marines into the village of Nawa, some 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, in a region where no U.S. or other NATO troops have operated in large numbers.

(Full Article)

Via National Terror Alert

US Navy ships in Bahrain were the target of an alleged terror attack, it was claimed in court yesterday.

Two Bahrainis, accused of smuggling weapons into the country, planned to attack US ships and personnel at Mina Salman, say prosecutors.

They, aged 22 and 21, were arrested on April 26 – the day of the Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix – when police allegedly seized machine guns, weapons, computer discs and other evidence from their homes in East Riffa.

Both appeared before the High Criminal Court for the first time yesterday, where they denied plotting terror attacks and smuggling weapons and ammunition into the country.

Police believe the pair had met members of a terrorist cell (Al Qaeda) abroad.

Their arrest came after National Security Agency received information that the 22-year-old unemployed man, of Jordanian origin, had intensified contacts with the cell in Iran.

Officers obtained a search warrant and found tapes, CDs, computers, bank statements and exchange company documents in his house.

(Full Article)

Via Policeone.com and the LA Times

The latest mayhem started at the end of March, when 21-year-old Sean Murphy, a popular former high school hockey player, drove into a withering blast of gunfire near Bateman Park. He was probably dead before his car coasted to a stop in the weeds.

That same night, Ryan Richards, 19, abruptly left a friend’s house after getting a cellphone call. His body was found the next morning behind a rural produce store. The stab wounds on his hands told the tale of a furious fight for his life. The undertaker apologized to his family for not being able to conceal them.

The bodies of two local high school seniors, Dilsher Gill, 17, and Joseph Randay, 18, were found May 1 in their car on a remote road just outside this normally quiet town of 134,000 near Vancouver. The boys had been seen driving away with an armed man the night before.

This crisp region of polished high-rises, emerald spruce, azure waterways and feel-good vibes finds itself in the midst of a gang war that has killed at least 18 young people this year.

Drug dealers are gunning down women (one in a car with her 4-year-old son in the back seat), high school students with no gang allegiances and, especially, one another, in broad daylight in and around the city that will host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

It got so bad this spring that police erected concrete barriers outside the homes of two gangsters to slow down potential drive-by assassins.

(Full Article)

Via Freep.com

Seven teenagers were wounded — three critically — after they were sprayed with gunfire this afternoon by two masked men at a bus stop near Cody 9th Grade Academy on the city’s west side.

Police later recovered a green minivan about a mile away that they believed the gunmen used to flee.

Five of the seven victims were taking classes at Cody. Two boys, ages 14 and 16, and a girl, 17, were in critical condition at Sinai-Grace Hospital.

Four other victims were taken to Henry Ford Hospital. A 17-year-old boy was in serious condition, a 17-year-old girl was in temporary serious condition, and a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl were in stable condition, Detroit police said.

It was the second shooting in as many weeks near a Detroit Public school offering free summer school classes.

Bria Wilson, 15, said she never saw a green minivan, or even the gunmen who fired the shots. But the sound of gunshots meant it was time to run.

Wilson got away, but she said her 16-year-old friend, a boy, was hit multiple times – one of the seven teenagers who were shot, reportedly by two gunmen who had their faces cloaked.

(Full Article)

Via Reuters.com

A North Korean ship tracked by the U.S. Navy on suspicion of carrying a banned arms cargo may be returning home, a U.S. official said, as Washington cracks down on companies helping Pyongyang export missile systems.

North Korea will find it increasingly difficult to trade arms due to U.S. moves and U.N. sanctions to punish it for a May nuclear test, but those measure will not end the weapons exports the destitute state relies on for foreign currency, experts said.

“Of course, it raises the costs of doing the arms and weapons of mass destruction business, but it won’t stop them from trying to circumvent the sanctions,” said Daniel Pinkston with the International Crisis Group in Seoul.

The North Korean cargo ship Kang Nam was the first to be monitored by the U.S. Navy under a new system to track the North’s arms shipments that were a part of the U.N. sanctions.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Tuesday the Kang Nam was heading back in the direction of North Korea after turning around within the last few days.

“We’ve no idea where it’s going,” the official said. “The U.S. didn’t do anything to make it turn around.”

The ship was suspected of carrying missile parts and had been headed toward Myanmar, South Korean broadcaster YTN had quoted an intelligence source as saying. North Korea and Myanmar have drawn closer in recent years, perhaps deepening their affinity as the world moves to increasingly isolate them, analysts said.

(Full Article)

Via Foxnews.com and the AP

The Justice Department is expected to release on Wednesday an internal CIA report on the agency’s secret detention and interrogation program during the Bush administration.

The report had been expected to be made public two weeks ago but was delayed over debates about how much of it should be censored.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the release of all documents relating to the CIA’s interrogation program, had said it was disappointed by the delay.

“We can only hope that this delay is a sign that the forces of transparency within the Obama administration are winning over the forces of secrecy and that the report will ultimately be released with minimal redactions,” ACLU attorney Amrit Singh said in a statement.

Singh also said the agency “should not be permitted to use national security as a pretext for suppressing evidence of its own unlawful conduct,” adding that “the American people have a right to know the full truth about the torture program that was authorized in their name.”

(Full Article)