Washington Times/Bill Gertz, 8 Jan 10: An al Qaeda Web site last week announced that in response to U.S. targeting of al Qaeda terrorists in Yemen it would launch a campaign against U.S. Navy interests, including seeking data on naval nuclear weapons and Navy personnel and their families.
The group Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the main al Qaeda affiliate that has been linked to the Christmas Day airliner bomb plot, announced Dec. 29 that it had called on all Muslims to take part in the “mast media campaign,” specifically the gathering of information on U.S. naval interests. Targets include the names of vessels at sea, information on crew and their families, how ships are serviced by other nations and data on possible nuclear weapons on board.
The statement said: “The lions of al Qaeda flirted with the American Navy several years ago when they targeted the destroyer Cole! Now, with the help of God, every American naval vessel in the seas and oceans: aircraft carriers, submarines, and all of its war machines within range of al Qaeda – will be destroyed, God willing.” . . . .
AP, 8 Jan 10: Palestinian militant groups are trying to link with al-Qaida, but Osama bin Laden’s terror network has so far snubbed Hamas and its offshoots for infighting and failure to prove their global jihadist intentions, a new study says.
Al-Qaida has granted formal ties with insurgent organizations in Yemen and North Africa but doesn’t yet appear to believe that Hamas and its splinter groups are sufficiently focused beyond Israel to the Western world, according to the study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The study, which was obtained by The Associated Press and is scheduled to be released next week, suggests al-Qaida may be waiting patiently for one of the Gaza-based terror groups to establish itself — perhaps by successfully attacking Western targets.
“Al-Qaida likely remains unconvinced of the ideological commitment of groups like Jaish al-Islam,” said Matthew Levitt, co-author of the study. “Al-Qaida may also have concerns about the survivability of such groups,” including their susceptibility to infiltration by Israeli intelligence.
Levitt’s co-author is Yoram Cohen, who until recently served as the deputy director of the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet.
Their report quotes one militant leader as saying, “We are waiting to carry out a big jihadist operation” dedicated to bin Laden. “If al-Qaida asks us to pledge allegiance to it, we are completely ready for it.” . . . .
ABC News, 8 Jan 10: In an interview with Turkish television, the widow of Humam al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA operatives in a Dec. 30 suicide bombing in Afghanistan, said she was “proud of her husband.” Balawi’s widow Defne Bayrak told Turkey’s Kanal 6 that she hoped that God would accept her husband as a martyr, and that “he conducted a very big operation in a kind of war.” . . . .
. . . . .Have you ever thought that he might be a CIA agent? “I surely don’t think so because my husband was an anti-U.S. person, who cannot be an agent. I can’t even think of that kind of thing. My husband probably used the U.S. and Jordan.” . . . .
Washington Post, 8 Jan 10: The FBI has tapped a cybersecurity expert as its new head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, one of the largest and most prestigious posts in the crime-fighting bureau, a spokeswoman confirmed Friday. As assistant director in charge of the office, Shawn Henry, 47, will be responsible for leading federal investigations of fraud, public corruption and terrorism across Northern Virginia and the District.
The surroundings already will be familiar, since Henry started his career as a special agent in the District in 1989, focusing on public corruption and participating in the SWAT team. In recent years Henry attracted international attention for heading up probes of computer intrusion and fraud cases, and he appeared as an FBI representative at security conferences across the United States and Europe. In September 2008, he was named assistant director of the bureau’s Cyber Division. . . . .
DHS, 7 Jan 10: . . . .
- Re-evaluate and modify the criteria and process used to create terrorist watch lists—including adjusting the process by which names are added to the “No-Fly” and “Selectee” lists.
- Establish a partnership on aviation security between DHS and the Department of Energy and its National Laboratories in order to develop new and more effective technologies to deter and disrupt known threats and proactively anticipate and protect against new ways by which terrorists could seek to board an aircraft.
- Accelerate deployment of advanced imaging technology to provide greater explosives detection capabilities—and encourage foreign aviation security authorities to do the same—in order to identify materials such as those used in the attempted Dec. 25 attack. The Transportation Security Administration currently has 40 machines deployed throughout the United States, and plans to deploy at least 300 additional units in 2010.
- Strengthen the presence and capacity of aviation law enforcement—by deploying law enforcement officers from across DHS to serve as Federal Air Marshals to increase security aboard U.S.-bound flights.
- Work with international partners to strengthen international security measures and standards for aviation security. . . . .
