Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Latest from National Terror Alert Response Center













Man Impersonated Federal Agent On 2007 Flight From Logan


Posted: 12 May 2009 10:53 PM PDT



…and gets a slap on the wrist. Amazing.


The man in his late 40s flashed a badge, said he was a Department of

Homeland Security agent, and filled out a flying-while-armed form at

the airline ticket counter at Logan International Airport. Then he

bypassed security and boarded a plane to San Diego.


On his return trip to Logan several days later, he again told airline

personnel he was an agent flying armed and was invited by the

pilots into the cockpit, where they told him who the air marshals

were on the flight and who else was flying armed.


There was just one problem: The man was an imposter. Stephen Grant,

48, of Rockland was sentenced today to two years of probation on one

count of impersonating a federal agent, federal prosecutors said.


Rather than being a pistol-packing law officer, Grant was actually director

of sales for a medical supply company based in Rockland and was on a

business trip, leaving Boston on Jan. 1, 2007 and returning on Jan. 4, 2007.


The badge he flashed, if someone had looked closely, was the badge he had

gotten for being a part-time assistant harbormaster in the town of Chatham, prosecutors said.


The case was investigated by the Transportation Security Administration

and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.


Source



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5 Men Convicted In Plot To Blow Up Chicago’s Sears Tower


Posted: 12 May 2009 10:42 PM PDT



Five men were convicted Tuesday of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to

destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices in hopes of igniting an

anti-government insurrection.


The jury in Miami acquitted another member of the so-called “Liberty City

Six” in the sixth day of deliberations.


Two previous trials ended in mistrials when jurors could not agree on the

men’s guilt or innocence.


They were arrested in June 2006 on charges of plotting terrorism with

an undercover FBI informant they believed was from al-Qaida. Defense

attorneys said terrorist talk recorded on dozens of FBI tapes was not

serious and the men wanted only money.


Ringleader Narseal Batiste, 35, was the only one convicted of all four

terrorism-related conspiracy counts, including plotting to provide

material support to terrorists and conspiring to wage war against

the U.S. Batiste, who was on the vast majority of hundreds of FBI audio
a

via 5 Men Convicted In Plot To Blow Up Chicago’s Sears Tower, FBI Buildings -
cbs11tv.com
.



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Pakistan Most Dangerous Country In The World


Posted: 12 May 2009 10:36 PM PDT



Extremist attacks across nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years have

made it “the most dangerous country in the world,” Canada’s Defense

Minister Peter MacKay said Monday.

“I’m extremely concerned,” MacKay told a press conference. “The instability

in Pakistan in my view makes Pakistan the most dangerous country in the world.”


Around 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistan security forces are battling Islamist fighters

in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate
militants — branded by Washington as the greatest terror threat to the West.


Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across Pakistan in less than

two years and around Pakistani 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist
militants since 2002.


MacKay said the Taliban’s recruiting and rearming in Pakistan is also harming

NATO efforts to rout insurgents in neighboring Afghanistan, where Canada has
deployed some 2,800 troops.


“As long as insurgency is allowed to foster and to incubate inside Pakistan,

the problem remains very real, very difficult,” he said.


via AFP: Pakistan ‘most dangerous country in the world’.



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Man Had Enough Uranium For Dirty Bomb - Melbourne


Posted: 12 May 2009 10:32 PM PDT



A Victorian man who was arrested and charged last month with serious drug

offences held enough uranium at a storage facility to make a “dirty bomb”.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard yesterday that investigators found the uranium oxide powder at Harcourt, outside Castlemaine, along with drug

equipment and a confidential police document.


It was alleged by a detective that Andrew John McNaughton, 45, became a

target of the police Petra taskforce in December after “intelligence indicated

that he was involved in police corruption by way of sourcing and distributing

restricted confidential Victoria Police information”.


The court heard that an explosives expert found that the uranium could be

used in the “construction” of a dirty bomb and that other chemicals for

drug manufacture could in combination make an “incendiary device”.


Detective Sergeant Peter Kos said in evidence that the uranium was “depleted”

and only dangerous if ingested.


He agreed with defence lawyer Rob Stary that it “effectively has no use at all”

except as a measure to determine radioactivity.


But Sergeant Kos, who said the maximum penalty in Victoria for possessing

uranium was about a $15,000 fine, said its other possible use was for a dirty
bomb.


Mr Stary told magistrate Peter Lauritsen that while its presence might cause

“disquiet”, here was no suggestion by police the uranium was for “any other
sinister purpose”.


Prosecutor Stephen Payne said police opposed bail for McNaughton on grounds

that included that he was an unacceptable risk of reoffending and endangering
the public.


Man had ‘enough uranium for bomb’ theage.com.au.



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