A security threat issued this week by Homeland Security regarding shoe bomb attacks on international flights into the U.S. is due to intelligence reports showing Al-Qaeda plotting the attacks.
DHS issued the warning after Ibrahim Hassaon al-Asiri, a Saudi Arabian man who plotted other failed shoe bomb attacks for the terrorist group, reportedly has developed a new method of hiding explosives in shoes.
U.S. officials label al-Asiri the best terrorist bomb maker in the world.
The bulletin to security screeners around the world calls on them to use swabs containing explosive detecting chemicals on shoes because an X-ray may not be able to detect the devices.
Increased security has already been seen in London and Amsterdam.
The DHS report says that the current plot is not connected in any way to plot involving the current Olympic games.
Israeli intelligence officials scored a major success when they stopped an Al-Qaeda plot for major attacks inside Israel including an assault on the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv.
Shin Bet internal security agency discovered the plot where the terror group recruited Palestinians to do the legwork for an attack that would be carried out by al-Qaeda operatives that they would sneak into the country.
The three Palestinian men in custody have confirmed the point man for al-Qaeda, Arib al-Sham, is still in the Gaza Strip. He is the subject of a massive manhunt. The operatives also told Shin Bet that the master plan came from al-Qaeda worldwide leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
The main parts of the attack were twin homicide bombings. The first would target the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and the second would hit the main Israeli convention center in Jerusalem. Additional attacks were planned against Israeli busses and Jewish homes in East Jerusalem.
Shin Bet says the discovery adds confirmation to suspicions that al-Qaeda now has a base of operations in the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. State Department has officially named specific groups as being responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attack.
According to State Department officials, Ansar al-Sharia in Benghazi and Darnah are now officially terrorist organizations designated in part because of their roles in the Benghazi attacks. The heads of the two organizations, Sufian bin Qumu and Ahmed Abu Khattalah, were also designated as most wanted terrorists.
Both groups have been accused of also attacking civilian targets, frequent assassinations and attempted assassinations of security officials.
The State Department tried to downplay any connection with Al-Qaeda saying the groups acted alone but Fox News was able to confirm that the leaders have been trained in al-Qaeda camps.
Amid a resurgence of the Islamic terrorist group Al-Qaeda in his country, Iraqi ambassador to the United States LukmanFaily is taking aim at the administration.
Faily told the Washington Times that the current U.S. administration does not understand the danger coming from Al-Qaeda and that they need to step up and provide more help to the Iraqi government.
Al-Qaeda seized control of the city of Fallujah last week and controls parts of the city of Ramadi. The group has said that Iraq is now an Islamic state under their control. Iraqi government forces along with Sunni Muslim groups throughout the region are fighting to dislodge the terrorists before they can fortify strongholds.
Faily said leaders in both U.S. political parties need to stop holding up much needed military and nation-building support as part of domestic political infighting.
“I personally think that it’s tragic that the issue of the whole American project in Iraq is now becoming a ball in relations to the party politics within D.C.,”Failysaid. “I don’t think it’s beneficial for the United States. It’s definitely not beneficial for Iraq to become a tool in Republican versus Democrat or whomever. This is not helpful for U.S. security, it is not helpful for us, it is not helpful for the region.”
Days after the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda seized control of Fallujah, Iraq, the terrorists attacked Iraqi special forces in the suburbs of the town.
Military officials did not give casualty totals but said that the assault began following the kidnapping of an army officer and four soldiers.
The terrorists gained control of Fallujah over the weekend along with part of the provincial capital of Ramadi. The cities are notorious for being locations of fierce fighting between local clans and also were the towns that American Marines called the “bloodiest battles” of the 2004 Iraq War.
Al-Qaeda has declared an Islamic state in Iraq and raised their flag over the government buildings under their control in the two cities.
In addition to the military style fighting with troops, al-Qaeda terrorists have been continuing to launch homicide bomb attacks on military checkpoints and police stations. An attack on a police station in Kirkuk killed 2 and wounded 55 today.
The U.S. government has announced they are seeking an al-Qaeda terrorist in connection with the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack.
Muhammed Jamal was arrested last fall in Egypt and imprisoned by the Egyptian government for terrorist activity but has since disappeared. Various intelligence reports say he is still in Egypt while others place him inside Yemen.
Four Americans were killed in the September 11, 2012 attack on the Benghazi embassy.
The release from the government about the hunt for an Al Qaeda terrorist in the attack is seen as a direct rebuke of a New York Times story that said al Qaeda had no connection to the terrorist attack. The newspaper had been receiving criticism from elected officials in both political parties saying that intelligence confirmed the involvement of al Qaeda.
A federal judge cited the September 11th terrorist attacks in his ruling that bulk collection of American’s telephone information was legal.
U.S. District Judge William Pauley of New York said the National Security Agency’s program is the government’s counter-punch to al-Qaeda’s use of technology to plot attacks against Americans. He cited al-Qaeda’s decentralized network and that it plots many of its attacks remotely.
“This blunt tool only works because it collects everything,” Pauley said. “The collection is broad, but the scope of counterterrorism investigations is unprecedented.”
The ruling counters a ruling earlier this month from a different federal judge who had granted a preliminary injunction against the program. The Washington, D.C. based judge said the program likely violates the fourth amendment to the Constitution.
The judge said the NSA had intercepted seven calls from 9/11 hijackers but thought they were overseas because they could not collect information they can collect now.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula did something almost unheard of for a terrorist organization: they apologized for an attack.
The group attacked the Yemeni Ministry of Defense on December 5th but one of their members apparently decided to attack a nearby hospital as part of the assault. The bombing and shooting in Sanaa left dozens of people dead.
The leader of AQAP released a video Sunday saying that the hospital assault was the mistake of one lone fighter and that he had orders not to attack the hospital or a nearby mosque.
“We confess to this mistake and fault. We offer our apologies and condolences to the families of the victims,” leader Qassim Al-Raimi said in the video. “We did not want your lost ones; we did not target them on purpose. This is not of our religion or our morals.”
Raimi went on to say the terrorist organization would financially compensate those killed in the hospital attack.
A group of Islamists have captured the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula and are holding nuns hostage inside a monastery.
Reports say terrorists linked to the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nursa Front stormed the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla and are keeping the nuns hostage. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the Islamists captured the town after four days of intense fighting.
The capture of the town reportedly was part of a rebel surge to obtain control of a central Syrian Highway between Damascus and Homs.
The government capturing the highway is seen as a key objective for the al-Assad government as it would allow the country’s cache of chemical weapons to be transported for removal and destruction.
“Security remains a key challenge for all. The destruction of a chemical weapons program has never taken place under such challenging and dangerous conditions,” Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint mission of the U.N. and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons told OPCW delegates.
The FBI is reporting that several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers have been allowed to enter the United States under the guise of being war refugees.
The FBI discovered two al-Qaeda terrorists living in Bowling Green, Kentucky in 2009 and the men admitting being part of a group that made improvised explosive devices (IEDs) targeting American troops.
The discovery of the terrorists led the FBI to back through every piece of evidence collected in Iraq connected to IEDs. The specialists looked at over 100,000 IEDs collected in war zones to find fingerprints that could be used to check against databases of refugees.
An ABC news investigation had discovered the two terrorists had slipped through the U.S. refugee screening system even though they had been detained during the war by Iraqi authorities for terrorist related activities.
State and federal officials rushed to say that despite the FBI’s “dozen of counter-terrorism investigations like [Bowling Green]” that most of the refugees from Iraq are peaceful, law abiding residents.
