Friday, April 3, 2009

The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

The Latest from National Terror
Alert Response Center

Suicide Bomber Type Vest Found In Mt. Washington - Pittsburgh

Posted: 02 Apr 2009 10:57 PM PDT

Workers cleaning out a house in Mt. Washington called police when they found

a device with what looked like pipe bombs with wires and nails attached.

“It looked exactly like somebody would wear in a suicide bomber-type of

scene or suicide bomber- type of incident,” said Sheldon Williams, of the

Pittsburgh police bomb squad.

The device was found outside 559 Southern Avenue late Thursday
morning while workers from Pittsburgh Iron and Scrap Metal were picking

up scrap metal. While loading materials into their truck, they noticed a

device and called authorities.

The bomb squad arrived and, using the squad’s robot, police were able to

get a closer look at the device.

“It had a vest,” he said. “The pipe bombs were in a series, meaning they

were all linked together.”

“There was a wire coming out of it with a plunger on the end of it,” Williams

said.

The bomb squad detonated one of the pipe bombs at the scene. The other

three pipe bombs in the vest could not be opened and were taken to a

private destination for further testing and detonation.

“It could totally be a hoax device,” said Williams. “But we would not make

that determination upon arrival.”

Part of the investigation will include locating the previous tenants that

neighbors said kept to themselves.

via ‘Source

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New Video May Help FBI Solve Somali-American Terror Case

Posted: 02 Apr 2009 10:47 PM PDT

A video posted on a jihadist Web site could help the FBI determine how a group

of Somali-Americans was recruited to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group in Somalia.

For several months the FBI has been investigating at least 20 Somali-American

men from the Minneapolis area and elsewhere in the United States who

traveled to war-torn Somalia to join an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group known

as al-Shabaab, which has been warring with the moderate Somali government

since 2006. At a Senate hearing on the issue last month, one top-ranking official

said it’s “clear” the Internet played a role in radizalizing and recruiting the

young men.

The 30-minute video posted this week is a highly polished production, featuring

anti-American hip-hop and sporadic images of Usama bin Laden. In much of the

video, a man dubbed “The American” purportedly leads a group of al-Shabaab

militants in an ambush of Ethiopian forces, which oppose an Islamic state and
have backed the new Somali government.

“The only reason we are staying here, away from our families, away from the

cities, away from candy bars [and] all these other things is because we are

waiting to meet with the enemy,” he tells them in the video, first provided to
FOX News by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute
(MEMRI). “They’re supposed to be coming anytime. We’re going to set up the

ambush, and by the will of [God] we’re going to kill all of them.”

via Source