President Obama: Suspicious packages contained explosives

North Jersey.Com

Friday, October 29, 2010
Last updated: Friday October 29, 2010, 4:25 PM
BY DENISA R. SUPERVILLE AND STEPHANIE AKIN
The Record
STAFF WRITERS
A United Arab Emirates flight carrying cargo from Yemen has landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport alongside two military fighter jets that escorted the plane from the Canadian border to New York City.

U.S. officials said there is no known threat associated with the plane, but it was being escorted to John F. Kennedy International Airport as a cautionary move.

Earlier in the day, federal authorities determined that suspicious packages taken from a cargo plane at Newark Liberty International Airport and a truck in Brooklyn and two planes in Philadelphia do not pose any danger.

Police in Brooklyn surrounded a UPS truck on Friday after suspecting that there was an explosive device, but the package turned out to be an envelope containing receipts, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a press briefing.

The Boeing Co. 767 jet, which landed at Newark Liberty Airport, originated from East Midlands, U.K. It was later cleared to leave for Louisville, Kentucky.

“There was nothing threatening in that package,” said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. “It’s not suspicious anymore.”

Coleman said the package was inspected inside the UPS cargo facility, 350, and cleared about 12:10 p.m. He referred additional questions to the FBI. The FBI referred questions to the Transportation Security Administration.

“This is bigger than us,” Coleman said.

The White House says President Barack Obama was notified about a potential terrorist threat after suspicious packages were discovered aboard two airplanes bound for the U.S. and a statement is expected at 4:15 p.m.

The Newark incident did not impact flight operations at Newark Liberty Airport.

At the UPS terminal, there are no more emergency vehicles remaining. Earlier, there were eight Port Authority vehicles and a helicopter hovering in the general area.

The plane screenings were prompted after authorities in the U.K. on Thursday discovered a “manipulated” ink toner cartridge that was on a UPS flight bound for Chicago. The flight originated in Yemen, and authorities on Friday were focusing on cargo flights from Yemen, CNN reported.

There are conflicting reports whether the cartridge contained explosives. CNN is reporting that the United States received a tip from an ally that the device might have been destined for synagogue in Chicago. Continue Reading →

Yemen plot to blow up multiple US aircraft: Ongoing

This is a current event. Fox has good ongoing coverage of this here.

In a nutshell, it appears that several similar or identical packages have been found on multiple aircraft. The number being kicked around is a dozen. They are modified printer toner cartridges containing a white powder with wires attached to them.

From FOX:

DEVELOPING: International law enforcement agencies are investigating several suspicious UPS packages that originated in Yemen and were destined for the United States.

Authorities were examining packages found on UPS planes at Philadelphia International Airport, Newark Airport, a UPS truck in Queens, NY and another plane that was destined for Chicago but stopped in the East Midlands airport in the U.K.

A crew member aboard an inbound UPS plane from Paris, France notified authorities on approach about a suspicious package. The crew member described a possible radiological component to the package, the incident report said. The two occupants safely exited the aircraft after landing in a remote area of the airport.

A second UPS plane was isolated near the UPS terminal at the Philadelphia airport before take off.

Both planes remain under investigation.

Bare Naked Islam seems to be on top of this one as well.

French minister: Saudis warn of new terror threat

Washington Post:

PARIS — Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new terror threat from al-Qaida in Europe, “notably France,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said Sunday.

He said the warning of a potential attack by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was received “in the last few hours, few days.”

Europeans were informed that “al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was doubtless active or envisioned being active” on the “European continent, notably France,” Hortefeux said during a joint TV and radio interview.

“The threat is real,” he said on RTL-LCI-Le Figaro’s weekly talk show.

The word of a potential attack by Islamist radicals is the latest in a series of warnings after alerts from the international police organization Interpol and the United States.

The U.S. State Department advised American citizens living or traveling in Europe earlier this month to take more precautions following reports that terrorists may be plotting attacks on a European city, possibly a shooting spree or other type of attack similar to the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks in India.

Continue Reading →

Why Niger is right. Europe and Canada should be fighting with them.

First, here is the AFP story referred to in teh SITREP by STRATFOR in an earlier post:

European countries must reinforce north African armies battling Islamist militants or the security situation will deteriorate and they will be forced to move, a senior Niger official said Friday.

“When speaking of security, Europe thinks of closing up, securing the interior and the borders, but the principal security of Europe is the security and development of Africa,” said Amadou Marou, president of the National Consultative Council that is managing the country’s political transition following a military coup in February.

His comments follow the kidnapping last month of five French nationals, a Madagascan and a Togolese from an uranium mining town in Niger by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

AQIM, which has exploited the vast spaces of the Sahara desert and Sahel scrub-land to stage attacks in a number of countries in the region, is believed to be holding the prisoners in a mountainous desert region in northeastern Mali.

“Somalia got away from us and northern Mali is in the process of getting away from us,” said Marou, speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of a meeting organised by the lay Catholic community Sant’Egidio.

“If the Europeans don’t reinforce security in this area, they’ll have to move,” he added.

North African counter-terrorism experts held two days of meetings this past week with their G8 counterparts on how to step up regional cooperation and battle Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda.

“The Sahel is very fragile, fertile ground for all sorts of terror and trafficking,” said Marou.

© ANP/AFP

He certainly has a point. Europeans have to get a handle on their own immigration most certainly as does the rest of the infidel world. But if Islam (radical, orthodox, traditional, whatever you want to call it) is to be fought, it must be fought where it is taking massive amounts of territory and resources away from more or less secular and more or less rational peoples.

We cannot for example, claim to be fighting Islam and attempting to curb its growing influence in Western nations while packing up and leaving Afghanistan or watching Somali militants grow in power and territory, threatening neighbouring nations and peoples and attacking non-Muslim peoples all over Africa, especially Christians and those opposed to draconian (as if there was any other kind) Islamic rule. Sooner or later, we will face off with islam in a more or less conventional military scenario. But the longer we wait, the higher the cost in blood and treasure.

Imagine Muslims like the Somali, Al-Shabab manage to get control of significant parts of North Africa land and sea. That they manage to destabilize governments in Africa that actually allow development and growth for their people, and eitehr stop the export of resources, or take control of those resources and force even more concessions of freedoms and secular laws from the west in exchange for their resources. So far, its just oil. Wait till its fertilizer materials, metals, other strategic resources.

The right time, and the cheap time to fight Islam is now, and partially in North Africa, and arguably in Afghanistan. We can win it now. Imagine the cost in 10 years.

France is at immediate risk of a major terror attack by Islamist radicals and has reinforced urgent security measures introduced last week, officials say.

France is at immediate risk of a major terror attack by Islamist radicals and has reinforced urgent security measures introduced last week, officials say.

Asked about reports that an attack might be imminent, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said on Monday that the threat was real and that “we have stepped up our vigilance”.

Separately, a source close to the Interior Ministry confirmed that police were investigating reports that a female suicide bomber might be preparing a strike in Paris, but added: “That’s not necessarily the most worrying thing.”

Instead, the source explained, Paris was concerned with intelligence received from an allied foreign spy agency that al-Qaeda’s North African branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was planning an “imminent” attack in France.

“It’s a threat which we think might target transportation,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity and without giving further details except that the warning was received on Thursday last week.

The Interior Ministry played down the specific risk to transport, insisting that the threat was “against totally undefined targets”.

Meanwhile, according to a police source, authorities have learned that two dormant Islamist networks in France have been revived to receive and host groups of jihadi radicals returning from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Separately, officials from Paris’s Grand Mosque confirmed that their rector, Dalil Boubakeur, had been placed under police protection and provided with an escort as he moves about the city. Continue Reading →

War on terror over. Now, war is against CO2

Now Greenpeace and Obama are both at war with actual elements. Good luck on that.

H/T to oxAO with thanks

From the Telegraph:

Barack Obama declares the ‘War on Terror’ is over

President Barack Obama has rejected George W. Bush’s doctrine that placed the “war on terror” at the centre of American foreign policy,

By Toby Harnden in Washington
Published: 10:00PM BST 27 May 2010

Barack Obama declares the 'War on Terror' is over

Barack Obama Photo: REUTERS

The US president has instead replaced it with a softer approach stressing “new partnerships” and multilateral diplomacy.

“Our long-term security will not come from our ability to instill fear in other peoples but through our capacity to speak to their hopes,” Mr Obama said in a message introducing a new national security strategy.

Continue Reading →

Channel 4 UK does a nice bit on Islamic terrorism grown in the U.S.A.

This is the same channel that did Undercover Mosque, got charged for it, beat the charge, and did a sequel, Hidden Mosque II, all of which is here on Vlad. More recently, Channel 4 did the excellent documentary, Britain’s Islamic Republic.

If Western Liberal Democracy survives this century, UK’s Channel 4 will have had a lot to do with it. We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

Fear of Iran makes strange bedfellows

(IsraelNN.com) The German news magazine Der Spiegel has reported that Saudi Arabia is hoping Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and is even prepared to open its skies to Israeli warplanes to allow such an operation to take place. Similar reports were published in 2009, and denied by both Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The Der Spiegel report stated that officials in Riyadh had spoken to United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the importance of stopping Iran’s nuclear program, even if doing so requires the use of military force.

The London Sunday Times claimed in 2009 that Saudi Arabia would allow Israel to use its airspace to attack Iran. The paper quoted a former Israeli intelligence officer as saying, “The Saudis are very concerned about an Iranian nuclear bomb, even more than the Israelis.” Continue Reading →

Al-Queda suspect worked at U.S. nuclear plants.

H/T fred with thanks!

Al Qaeda suspect had worked at nuke plants in NJ and Pa

By Chelsea Conaboy

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The American arrested in a sweep of al-Qaeda members worked as a laborer at five nuclear plants in South Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland, federal officials said today.

Sharif Mobley had a “red badge” clearance, the highest level a laborer can obtain, while working on at the Salem-Hope Creek nuclear plants in Salem County, according to a spokesman from the local union of which he was a member.

Sharif was arrested last week with suspected al-Qaeda members in Yemen and officials said he then killed a guard while trying to escape from a hospital. He is under FBI investigation in Delaware. Law enforcement sources have said the investigation is terror-related.

In addition to PSEG’s Salem-Hope Creek plants on Artificial Island, Mobley worked at the Peach Bottom, Limerick and Three Mile Island I plants in Pennsylvania and at Clavert Cliffs in Maryland, according to an e-mail from Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Continue Reading →

Stratfor SITREP: Yemen: Wage Jihad On Christians, Muslims – Al Qaeda Group

February 8, 2010 STRATFOR
The Yemen-based wing of al Qaeda said Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula had no choice but to wage jihad on Christians and Jews, reported Reuters on Feb. 8, citing an audio tape of the group’s deputy leader, Saeed al-Shehri, a former inmate at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. The audio tape was posted on a website frequently used by Islamist groups.
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North Africa Qaeda offers to help Nigerian Muslims

(Interested parties may want to search Vlad for related articles from the past few weeks.)

From Reuters:
DUBAI, Feb 1 (Reuters) – An al Qaeda group in North Africa has offered to give Nigerian Muslims training and weapons to fight Christians in the West African country, where more than 460 people were killed in sectarian clashes last month.

Vice President Goodluck Jonathan sent in the military to halt the violence after four days of clashes between Christian and Muslim mobs armed with guns, knives and machetes in the area round the city of Jos in central Nigeria. “We are ready to train your people in weapons, and give you whatever support we can in men, arms and munitions to enable you to defend our people in Nigeria,” the statement by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said. Continue Reading →

STRATFOR: Yemen: Cleric Renews Call For Jihad

January 15, 2010
Yemeni cleric Sheikh Abdulmajeed al-Zendani said on Jan. 15 during a Friday prayer sermon that should Yemen become occupied by a foreign power, it would be a religious duty to defend the nation through jihad, Al Alam News reported. He said an order from God cannot be annulled by a king, a president or a committee of Muslim scholars. On Jan. 14, more than 150 Yemeni clerics said they would declare jihad if foreign troops continued involvement there.