Tag Archives: FBI

Investigators say threats to Jewish groups in U.S. and UK are linked

An American flag still stands next to one of over 170 toppled Jewish headstones at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, Missouri. REUTERS/Tom Gannam

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scotland Yard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating more than a hundred bomb threats made to Jewish groups in the United States and Britain since Jan. 7, U.S. and UK law enforcement and Jewish community officials said.

Investigators said there is evidence that some of the U.S. and British bomb threats are linked. According to people in both countries who have listened to recordings of the threats, most of the them have been made over the telephone by men and women with American accents whose voices are distorted by electronic scramblers.

Waves of threats against U.S. Jewish groups – including community centers, schools, and offices of national organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) civil rights group – have been followed within hours by similar but smaller waves against Jewish organizations, mainly schools, in Britain, Jewish community representatives in both countries said.

FBI officials in Washington confirmed that the agency is investigating the threats against U.S. Jewish organizations. Sources in Britain’s Jewish community said London’s Metropolitan Police, otherwise known as Scotland Yard, is conducting its own investigation and collaborating with the FBI.

Scotland Yard did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Some of the most recent threats were called in Tuesday to ADL offices in Atlanta, Boston, New York, and Washington. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said President Donald Trump’s administration would “continue to condemn them and look at ways to stop them.”

NO BOMBS FOUND

The threats, 140 of them in the United States alone, according to Jewish community leaders, usually have involved callers claiming that improvised explosive devices have been placed outside the buildings that have been threatened.

However, no homemade bombs have been found outside any of the threatened premises in either the United States or the UK, community officials said.

Earlier this month, all 100 U.S. senators signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey expressing concern that the wave of threats will put innocent people at risk and threaten the finances of Jewish institutions.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed charges against Juan Thompson, a former writer for the investigative website The Intercept, earlier this month alleging that he was responsible for at least eight threats emailed to Jewish community centers as “part of a sustained campaign to harass and intimidate” a woman with whom he had a romantic relationship.

The Intercept, a news website, had fired Thompson months earlier for allegedly fabricating quotes.

Jewish community officials in the United States and Britain said they think the threats that investigators linked to Thompson were not related to the larger campaign against Jewish organizations in their countries.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; Editing by John Walcott and Jonathan Oatis)

Jewish centers report bomb threats across United States

By Brendan O’Brien

MILWAUKEE (Reuters) – Several Jewish community centers (JCC) across the United States were evacuated for a time on Monday after receiving bomb threats, the latest wave of threatened attacks against them this year, the national umbrella organization said.

Some 11 centers including those in the Houston, Chicago and Milwaukee areas received phoned-in bomb threats that were later determined to be hoaxes, said David Posner, a director at JCC Association of North America who advises centers on security.

No arrests were made and no one was injured. All of the centers returned to normal operations, Posner said in a statement.

The FBI was investigating the incidents, Posner said.

Officials at the FBI were not immediately available for comment.

Officials at the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, received a bomb threat at 10:15 a.m. local time, the second such incident at the center over the last three weeks, it said on Twitter.

“Taking very cautious measures, we are sheltering in our gym, as has been recommended,” the Milwaukee JCC said in a text message sent to parents of children who attend the preschool at the center, according to an NBC affiliate in Milwaukee.

The center reopened two hours later, the center said on Twitter.

Monday’s incidents come after three waves of bomb threats in 2017. In all, 69 incidents at 54 JCCs in 27 states and one Canadian province have been reported, according to the JCC Association of North America.

“We are concerned about the anti-Semitism behind these threats, and the repetition of threats intended to interfere with day-to-day life,” Posner said.

Jewish community centers typically offer after-school activities, fitness programs and various other services.

Over the weekend, the headstones at the graves of about 170 Jews were vandalized in the St. Louis area, the Washington Post reported.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. makes limited exceptions to sanctions on Russian spy agency

cars drive past headquarters

By Joel Schectman and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday adjusted sanctions on Russian intelligence agency FSB, making limited exceptions to the measures put in place by former President Barack Obama over accusations Moscow tried to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election with cyber attacks on political organizations.

The department said in a statement it would allow U.S. companies to make limited transactions with FSB that are needed to gain approval to import information technology products into Russia.

At the White House, President Donald Trump responded to a reporter’s question about whether he was easing sanctions on Russia, saying, “I’m not easing anything.”

Sanctions experts and former Obama administration officials stressed the exceptions to the sanctions imposed in December do not signal a broader shift in Russia policy.

In a conference call with reporters, a senior Treasury Department official said the exceptions were “a very technical fix” made in response to “direct complaints” from companies that were unable to import many consumer technology products without a permit from the FSB. The action had been in the making for weeks before Trump took office on Jan. 20, the official said.

Beyond its intelligence function, the FSB also regulates the importation of software and hardware that contains cryptography. Companies need FSB approval even to import broadly available commercial products such as cell phones and printers if they contain encryption.

Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert and former senior U.S. State Department official, said Treasury officials likely had not considered the issue in December.

“I don’t think when they sanctioned FSB they were intending to complicate the sale of cell phones and tablets,” Harrell said.

David Mortlock, a former National Security Council advisor for Obama said that before granting such exceptions, the administration would ask who a sanction was hurting and who it was benefiting.

Mortlock, now an attorney, said “here it’s a pretty easy calculus” because it was clear tech companies were the ones harmed by not being able to import software into Russia, not the spy agencies.

U.S. intelligence agencies accused the FSB of involvement in hacking of Democratic Party organizations during the election to discredit Democrat Hillary Clinton and help Republican Trump.

The agencies and private cyber security experts concluded the FSB first broke into the Democratic National Committee’s computer system in the summer of 2015 and began monitoring email and chat conversations.

They said FSB was one of two Russian spy agencies involved in a broad operation approved by top-ranking people in the Russian government. In December, Obama expelled 35 suspected Russian spies and sanctioned two spy agencies. He also sanctioned four Russian intelligence officers and three companies that he said provided support to the cyber operations.

(Reporting by Joel Schectman and Dustin Volz; additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati and Jason Lange; Editing by Alistair Bell and Grant McCool)

U.S. Jewish centers report second wave of bomb threats in one month

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Several Jewish community centers in different U.S. states reported receiving false telephone bomb threats on Wednesday in the second wave of promised attacks to target American Jewish facilities this month.

The Jewish Community Center Association, a network of the health and education centers, said on Twitter it was aware of a number of threats and was working with local authorities to ensure people’s safety.

In Miami Beach, a center received a call at 9:54 a.m. (1454 GMT) and was evacuated, local police said on Twitter. Officers and police dogs searched the area but found no bomb and the center reopened, they said.

Two centers in Connecticut said on Facebook they had received threatening phone calls and had evacuated. No bombs were found, they said.

A series of bomb threats on Jan. 9 targeted 16 Jewish community centers in nine U.S. states, resulting in no attacks or injuries but prompting the Federal Bureau of Investigation to look into the source of the calls. Some of the calls were made using an automated “robocall” system.

No one claimed responsibility for the earlier bomb threats, and the FBI has not named any suspects or described a likely motive for them.

An FBI spokeswoman could not immediately be reached on Wednesday.

(Reporting by David Ingram in New York; Editing by Andrew Hay)

Florida airport shooting suspect inspired by Islamic State: media

Travelers and airport workers evacuated at Ft. Lauderdale airport

(Reuters) – An Iraq war veteran accused of killing five people at a Florida airport told investigators he was inspired by Islamic State and previously chatted online with Islamist extremists, an FBI agent testified on Tuesday, U.S. media reported.

Esteban Santiago, 26, was ordered held in jail until a Jan. 30 arraignment, court records show. At that time he would enter a formal plea to charges that he opened fire in the baggage claim area of the Fort Lauderdale airport on Jan. 6.

“He has admitted to all of the facts with respect to the terrible and tragic events of Jan. 6,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Del Toro said at the federal court hearing in Fort Lauderdale, NBC 6 South Florida television reported. “These were vulnerable victims who he shot down methodically.”

Reuters was not immediately able to reach U.S. prosecutors or the Federal Bureau of Investigation to confirm the media reports.

Santiago, a private first class in the National Guard who served in Iraq from 2010 to 2011, traveled from Alaska to Florida with a handgun and ammunition in his checked luggage, officials said.

Upon retrieving his gun case from the luggage carousel, he went to a bathroom to load the weapon and then opened fire on others waiting for their bags, investigators said.

FBI special agent Michael Ferlazzo testified Santiago told interrogators he carried out the attack on behalf of Islamic State and that he had been in contact with others on jihadist chat rooms who were planning attacks.

“It was a group of like-minded individuals who were all planning attacks,” Ferlazzo said, according to NBC 6.

The FBI has said Santiago previously displayed erratic behavior, entering the FBI office in Anchorage in November and saying his mind was being controlled by a U.S. intelligence agency.

The FBI turned him over to local police, who took him to a medical facility for a mental evaluation, officials said.

Police took a handgun from him but returned it last month after a medical evaluation found he was not mentally ill, authorities said.

Santiago used the same weapon in the airport attack, agents testified, the Sun Sentinel reported.

His defense team did not challenge the prosecution’s argument that Santiago posed a flight risk and said he was prepared to be detained through his trial, CNN said.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)

Wife of Orlando nightclub gunman arrested on federal charges

Police in front of apartment building

By Daniel Levine

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The FBI on Monday arrested the wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub last year, a massacre that intensified fears about attacks against Americans inspired by Islamic State, officials said.

Noor Salman, 30, is being charged with obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement.Salman’s arrest came seven months after her husband, Omar Mateen, went on a hours-long siege at the Florida club that ended when police killed him. She was due to appear in federal court in Oakland, California on Tuesday morning.

“Certainly I can confirm that an arrest did occur in this case,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch told MSNBC.

“We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter’s life to determine – not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved?” Lynch said.

Salman, who has a young son by Mateen, was arrested at her home outside San Francisco, The New York Times reported, citing an unnamed law enforcement official. Salman has moved at least three times since the attack, attempting to avoid the news media, The Times said.

The daughter of parents who immigrated from the West Bank in 1985, Salman was repeatedly questioned by law enforcement interrogators after the club attack, telling them she was with Mateen when he bought ammunition and conducted surveillance of the club.

But she denied any involvement in the attack or any knowledge of her husband’s plans, she told the Times in an interview published on Nov. 1.

“I was unaware of everything,” Salman told the Times. “I don’t condone what he has done. I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people.”Her husband, who was 29 at the time of his death, claimed a connection to or support for multiple Islamist extremist groups, including al Qaeda, Hezbollah, al Nusra and Islamic State, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey told reporters a few days after the attack.

During the siege, Mateen spoke to a 911 emergency dispatcher and expressed solidarity with an al Nusra suicide bomber as well as Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.

Representatives of the FBI could not be reached immediately for more details.

The Orlando massacre came about seven months after a husband and wife who sympathized with Islamic extremists opened fire in December 2015 on a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, killing 14 and wounding 22 others.

(Additional reporting by Frank McGurty and Daniel Trotta; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman)

Florida airport shooting suspect to appear in federal court

Law enforcement searching for suspects of Ft. Lauderdale shooting

By Zachary Fagenson

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – The 26-year-old Iraq war veteran accused of killing five people at a busy Florida airport in the latest U.S. gun rampage was due to appear in a federal court on Monday on charges that could bring him the death penalty.

Esteban Santiago, who had a history of erratic behavior, has admitted to investigators that he planned Friday’s attack in Fort Lauderdale and bought a one-way ticket from his home in Alaska to carry it out, according to a criminal complaint.

Authorities say they have not ruled out terrorism as a motive and that they are investigating whether mental illness played a role. In November, Santiago went to a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in Anchorage and told agents he believed U.S. spies were controlling his mind.

Santiago will be asked if he understands the charges facing him during the hearing scheduled for 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Monday, and he will be assigned a public defender if he cannot afford his own lawyer.

Bond could be set for Santiago, who is in the Broward County Jail in Fort Lauderdale, but legal experts said he almost certainly would be held without bail.

He could face the death penalty if convicted on charges of carrying out violence at an airport, using a firearm during a violent act, and killing with a firearm. But it may be months before prosecutors reveal what lies in Santiago’s future.

“They’ve then got two weeks to indict him, and then they’ve got to go through the whole death penalty review,” said former federal prosecutor David Weinstein, who is now a partner with Miami law firm Clarke Silverglate.

Executions have been on hold in Florida since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s death penalty laws a year ago. The Florida Supreme Court overturned a rewritten version in October.

Six people had gunshot wounds from the attack, and about three dozen suffered minor injuries in the chaos as passengers and airport workers fled the gunfire.

Authorities say Santiago arrived on a connecting flight from Alaska and retrieved a 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage before loading it in a bathroom.

He then returned to the baggage claim area and walked “while shooting in a methodical manner” 10 to 15 times, aiming at his victims’ heads, according to the criminal complaint.

Information surfaced over the weekend that police in Alaska took a handgun from Santiago in November after he told FBI agents there his mind was being controlled by a U.S. intelligence agency. They returned it to him about a month later after a medical evaluation found he was not mentally ill.

Video published by the website TMZ on Sunday showed the gunman walking calmly past the airport’s luggage carousels before wordlessly pulling the handgun from his waistband and shooting at victims who fled or dived to the floor.

Santiago served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico and Alaska national guards, including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011, according to the Pentagon. Relatives have said he acted erratically since returning from Iraq.

The attack was the latest in a series of mass shootings in the United States. Some were inspired by Islamist militants, while others were carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Montana lawmakers denounce plans for neo-Nazi rally

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Representative Ryan Zinke (R-MT) arrives for a meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in Manhattan, New York City, U.S.

By Eric M. Johnson and Keith Coffman

(Reuters) – Top Montana Democratic and Republican lawmakers on Tuesday warned neo-Nazis they would find “no safe haven” for a rally that could include guns planned for next month in a mountain town where white nationalists have threatened Jewish residents.

The lawmakers include both Democrats and U.S. Representative Ryan Zinke, recently picked by Republican President-elect Donald Trump to be interior secretary.

“We say to those few who seek to publicize anti-Semitic views that they shall find no safe haven here,” Zinke wrote in an open letter also signed by Democratic Montana Governor Steve Bullock, U.S. senators Republican Steve Daines and Democrat Jon Tester, and Republican Attorney General Tim Fox.

Neo-Nazis plan to march in January in the mountain ski town of Whitefish in Montana’s remote and rugged northwestern reaches. The march is to support the mother of white nationalist leader Richard Spencer. Sherry Spencer is facing pressure from community members to sell a building she owns in Whitefish because of its ties to her son and disavow her son’s beliefs.

Community members held a vigil and a protest earlier this month in front of the building.

As pressure mounted against the building, the neo-Nazi and white supremacist website “Daily Stormer” urged its readers in an article to “take action” against Jews in the Whitefish area.

In its article, the “Daily Stormer” called for an “old fashioned Troll Storm” against community members and published their names and phone numbers along with yellow Jewish stars superimposed over their photographs. It also said that because of gun laws in Montana, “we can easily march through the center of the town carrying high-powered rifles.”

The website contains many anti-Semitic descriptions and images of Jews, but said it does not endorse violence.

Spencer is the president of the National Policy Institute, a think tank within the alt-right movement, which includes neo-Nazis and white supremacists. In a video posted online by the Atlantic Monthly magazine, some institute members could be seen hailing Trump’s election victory with Nazi-era salutes after Spencer addressed the group at its conference last month in Washington, D.C.

Spencer has said on Twitter he might pursue Zinke’s House of Representatives seat if Zinke is confirmed as Trump’s interior secretary.

Whitefish Police Chief Bill Dial told Reuters in a phone interview last week that his department had assigned extra patrols to the homes and businesses of the residents identified in the article. However, Dial said there had been no reports of harassment or intimidation of the Jewish community that rose to the level of a crime.

Dial also said Federal Bureau of Investigation officials told him they interviewed Spencer and that he denounced the “Daily Stormer” postings.

In a statement to Reuters, Spencer’s father said he and his wife “love our son, but do not agree with his polemics, societal desires or his extreme political leanings.”

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Writing and additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson from Seattle; Editing by Ben Klayman and Lisa Shumaker)

FBI warns of possible Islamic State-inspired attacks in U.S.

A member of the New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau patrols the Union Square Holiday market following the Berlin Christmas market attacks in Manhattan, New York City

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. federal authorities cautioned local law enforcement on Friday to be aware that supporters of Islamic State have been calling for their sympathizers to attack holiday gatherings in the United States, including churches, a law enforcement official said.

The warning, issued in a bulletin to local law enforcement, said there were no known specific, credible threats.

The notice from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security was issued out of an abundance of caution after a publicly available list of U.S. churches was published on pro-Islamic State websites.

“The FBI is aware of the recent link published online that urges attacks against U.S. churches. As with similar threats, the FBI is tracking this matter while we investigate its credibility,” the FBI said in a statement.

Islamic State sympathizers “continue aspirational calls for attacks on holiday gatherings, including targeting churches,” CNN quoted the bulletin as saying. The notice describes different signs of suspicious activity for which police should be alert, it said.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking – sources

Padlock with the word hack, a representation of cyber attacks

By Mark Hosenball and Jonathan Landay

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election, three American officials said on Monday.

While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA’s analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named.

The position of the ODNI, which oversees the 17 agency-strong U.S. intelligence community, could give Trump fresh ammunition to dispute the CIA assessment, which he rejected as “ridiculous” in weekend remarks, and press his assertion that no evidence implicates Russia in the cyber attacks.

Trump’s rejection of the CIA’s judgment marks the latest in a string of disputes over Russia’s international conduct that have erupted between the president-elect and the intelligence community he will soon command.

An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.

“ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can’t prove intent,” said one of the three U.S. officials. “Of course they can’t, absent agents in on the decision-making in Moscow.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA’s analysis – a deductive assessment of the available intelligence – for the same reason, the three officials said.

The ODNI, headed by James Clapper, was established after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the recommendation of the commission that investigated the attacks. The commission, which identified major intelligence failures, recommended the office’s creation to improve coordination among U.S. intelligence agencies.

In October, the U.S. government formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against American political organizations ahead of the Nov. 8 presidential election. Democratic President Barack Obama has said he warned Russian President Vladimir Putin about consequences for the attacks.

Reports of the assessment by the CIA, which has not publicly disclosed its findings, have prompted congressional leaders to call for an investigation.

Obama last week ordered intelligence agencies to review the cyber attacks and foreign intervention in the presidential election and to deliver a report before he turns power over to Trump on Jan. 20.

The CIA assessed after the election that the attacks on political organizations were aimed at swaying the vote for Trump because the targeting of Republican organizations diminished toward the end of the summer and focused on Democratic groups, a senior U.S. official told Reuters on Friday.

Moreover, only materials filched from Democratic groups – such as emails stolen from John Podesta, the Clinton campaign chairman – were made public via WikiLeaks, the anti-secrecy organization, and other outlets, U.S. officials said.

“THIN REED”

The CIA conclusion was a “judgment based on the fact that Russian entities hacked both Democrats and Republicans and only the Democratic information was leaked,” one of the three officials said on Monday.

“(It was) a thin reed upon which to base an analytical judgment,” the official added.

Republican Senator John McCain said on Monday there was “no information” that Russian hacking of American political organizations was aimed at swaying the outcome of the election.

“It’s obvious that the Russians hacked into our campaigns,” McCain said. “But there is no information that they were intending to affect the outcome of our election and that’s why we need a congressional investigation,” he told Reuters.

McCain questioned an assertion made on Sunday by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, tapped by Trump to be his White House chief of staff, that there were no hacks of computers belonging to Republican organizations.

“Actually, because Mr. Priebus said that doesn’t mean it’s true,” said McCain. “We need a thorough investigation of it, whether both (Democratic and Republican organizations) were hacked into, what the Russian intentions were. We cannot draw a conclusion yet. That’s why we need a thorough investigation.”

In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment.

Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign.

(Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Oatis)