The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center

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• Lack of Translators Hurts U.S. War On Terror
  
  
  
• George Washington Bridge Guards Fired – Sleeping
  On the Job
  
  
• Iraq Ministry Bombers Were Recently Freed by
  US

Lack of Translators Hurts U.S. War On Terror Posted: 31 Aug 2009 09:56 PM PDT U.S. national security agencies remain woefully short of foreign-language speakers and translators nearly eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks resulted in a war on an enemy that often communicates in relatively obscure dialects, current and former officials say. The necessary cadre of U.S. intelligence personnel capable of reading and speaking targeted regional languages such as Pashto, Dari and Urdu “remains essentially nonexistent,” the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence wrote in a rare but stark warning in its 2010 budget report. The gap has become critical in the war effort, especially in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, where al Qaeda and Taliban operatives text message, e-mail and talk in languages that the intelligence community had largely ignored before 2001. Intercepting phone and radio calls in the region’s native tongues is critical to monitoring terrorist camps and movements in Pakistan’s tribal areas, officials said. The National Security Agency (NSA), based at Fort Meade, Md., channels the calls to translation centers, where linguists are supposed to quickly translate the words into English so that they can be distributed in reports and raw transcripts to commanders and policymakers. But such quick follow-through does not always happen. Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told The Washington Times that U.S agencies remain “behind the eight ball” in catching up to dialects not deemed important during the Cold War. Read Full Article This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information. Lack of Translators Hurts U.S. War On Terror

George Washington Bridge Guards Fired – Sleeping On the Job Posted: 31 Aug 2009 09:21 PM PDT Two George Washington Bridge guards caught napping on the job by cliffviewpilot.com have been fired, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced this afternoon. One of the workers was caught dozing twice this morning by Joey Lepore, the owner/operator of a bicycle tour company. The first was during the morning rush. The second time, around 10:15 a.m., Lepore photographed him. “I didn’t even zoom in,” Lepore said. “I walked right up to the window.” It wasn’t the first time: At the height of the Aug. 5 morning rush, another guard was photographed nodded out in the west guard booth on the New Jersey side. “And that was the THIRD time I’d seen him sleeping,” Lepore said. Source This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information. George Washington Bridge Guards Fired – Sleeping On the Job

Iraq Ministry Bombers Were Recently Freed by US Posted: 31 Aug 2009 09:00 PM PDT The suicide bombers who killed 95 people in devastating attacks at Iraqi government ministries on August 19 were recently released from U.S. custody, a senior interior ministry official said on Sunday. The truck bombings in Baghdad also wounded 600 people in what was the worst day of violence to hit the country for 18 months, dealing a major blow to the nation’s security efforts in the wake of a major pullout of U.S. troops. “The suicide bomber who blew himself up at the ministry of foreign affairs was released three months ago from Camp Bucca,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the U.S. jail near Basra. “The suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the ministry of finance was also released a few months ago from the same jail.” Since the start of this year 5,236 prisoners have been released from U.S. custody and 1,179 detainees handed over to the government of Iraq, according to figures released on Sunday. Less than 9,000 prisoners are still in American-run prisons. “We have no proof that a former detainee was involved in the bombings,” a U.S. army spokesman told AFP. “The government of Iraq is still investigating the attacks, and it would be inappropriate for us to speculate as to who may have been involved while the investigation is ongoing.” The interior ministry official, however, told AFP that 14 suspects had been arrested in the wake of the attacks and that the truck bombs were prepared in southern Baghdad. “The vast majority of them were released in recent months from Camp Bucca,” he said, noting that all of the suspects were from Nineveh and Salaheddin provinces. Source This story comes to us via Homeland Security - National Terror Alert. National Terror Alert is America's trusted source for homeland security news and information. Iraq Ministry Bombers Were Recently Freed by US

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