An FBI sting was caught on video in Moldova as Russian linked smugglers attempted to sell nuclear and radioactive materials to undercover agents posing as ISIS operatives.
A Moldovan minister said that the FBI helped Moldovan authorities three times in the last five years to stop potential smuggling of nuclear and radioactive material.
According to an investigation by The Associated Press [AP], one case that was uncovered was an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East, the first known case of its kind.
A list compiled by the Terrorism Research Initiative details more than 360 smuggling and security “incidents” in the Black Sea region from 1990 to 2011 — by far the most stemming from Russia. This list also goes on to say that from 1993 to 2013, 664 incidents of theft or loss of nuclear or radiological materials were reported. It says it doesn’t know how many times these materials were subsequently sold.
Moldovan police and judicial authorities shared investigative case files with the AP in an effort to spotlight how dangerous the black market has become. They say a breakdown in cooperation between Russia and the West means that it is much harder to know whether smugglers are finding ways to move parts of Russia’s vast store of radioactive materials.
Federal investigators appear stymied by an attacker who has cut fiber optic cables at a dozen locations around California.
The attacker would cut cable that knock out internet service, financial networks and even disable emergency services.
“Everyone recognizes that there seems to be a pattern of events here,” said John Lightfoot, assistant deputy agent in charge at the FBI’s San Francisco office. “We really need the assistance of the public to reach out and help solve this one.”
Experts say the fiber optic networks that carry internet and business traffic are very vulnerable to attack when compared to systems like the national electrical grid. Most of the cables are in manholes or smaller hand-holes in out of the way locations in cities and rural areas, making it easy for an attacker to find wires and cut them without anyone seeing their actions.
“You don’t have to be well-trained to know that there is cable,” Felipe Alvarez, chief executive of East Coast telecom provider Axiom Fiber Networks, told the Wall Street Journal. “That is worrisome.”
Many of the cables are clearly marked for identification to avoid accidental cutting by work crews making them easy targets for the criminals.
While many intentional cuts come from thieves looking to take copper wire to sell, the FBI and regional anti-terror task force agents in California say the pattern of cuts is troubling. The most recent cut in California impacted internet services along the entire West Coast.
The FBI has issued an alert to officials in Colorado and Wyoming over a group of Middle Eastern men who have been harassing military families in the region.
Areas specifically mentioned by the FBI alert include Greeley, Colorado and Cheyenne, Wyoming.
One incident had two Middle Eastern men approaching a woman outside her home. The men stated they knew she was the wife of a U.S. interrogator. The men laughed when she denied the claim and then the men entered a dark-colored sedan that contained two other Middle Eastern men.
Other incidents have the men attempting to gain information.
“On numerous occasions family members of military personnel were confronted by Middle Eastern males in front of their homes,” the FBI alert reads. “The males have attempted to obtain personal information about the military men’s family members through intimidation.”
“The family members have reported feeling scared,” it added.
ISIS has stated that they intend to strike military members in their homes and last March published a list of addresses they claimed belonged to U.S. military members.
The alert also says the FBI cannot confirm if the incidents involve the same men.
A Navy petty officer wounded in the terror attack on two military recruiting centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee has died from his wounds.
The fallen soldier is Navy Petty Officer Randall Smith. He leaves behind a wife and three young daughters.
Smith’s mother Paula Proxmire went to the memorial site for those slain by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez and placed an American flag and baseball mitt in honor of her son. She said that America and baseball were her son’s passions.
“My son is a hero. He died doing what he loved. He would have had it no other way,” Proxmire, from Kansas, told NBC News. “He’s been my hero since the day I gave birth to him.”
Meanwhile, the family of Abdulazeez reportedly told investigators that their son suffered from depression and was a drug addict, so they sent him to Jordan to try and get him away from Chattanooga friends who were a “bad influence.” However, relatives and friends admitted they saw changes in his behavior after his return from seven months in Jordan.
Investigators say Abdulazeez sent a text message to a friend before the attacks that included the Islamic verse “Whoever shows enmity to a friend of mine, then I have declared war against him.”
The FBI reports there is nothing to connect the gunman to ISIS or any other international terrorism group.
Terrorism investigators are looking closely at a trip taken to Jordan by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez to see if he had contact with known terrorists or terrorist sympathizers.
FBI officials say that Abdulazeez spent seven months in Jordan last year, one of several trips he had made to the region over the last few years. He went to Jordan in the last weeks of 2005, in the summer of 2008, the summer of 2010 and during the spring of 2013. The trips lasted anywhere from two weeks to two months.
Despite the pattern of trips, the FBI admitted Abdulazeez was not on their watch list of possible terrorist sympathizers or operatives.
However, his father had been investigated years prior for giving money to an organization that had suspected connections to terrorists.
Abdulazeez’s attack on two Navy recruiting centers left four Marines dead. They have been identified as Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, of Springfield, Mass., Lance Cpl. Skip “Squire” Wells, of Marietta, Ga., Sgt. Carson Holmquist, of Grantsburg Wisc., and Staff Sgt. David Wyatt, of Chattanooga.
Security experts say that the shooting shows an inherent weakness in recruiting stations for the military. The locations need to be easily accessible to the public.
“They’re supposed to be convenient; they’re supposed to be easily accessible,” Brian Michael Jenkins, a security expert who is senior adviser to the president of the RAND Corporation, told the New York Times. “They’re virtually no more protected than a shoe store in a shopping mall.”
A gunman opened fire on two military recruitment centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee on Thursday, leaving soldiers dead and wounded.
Officials in the Chattanooga area say the gunman has been shot and killed and that they believe he is the only one involved in the attacks.
Fox News reported that four Marines were killed at one of the two centers. FBI officials confirmed others were injured and are being treated at local hospitals but there was no information on their condition.
The U.S. Prosecutor for the region said at a press conference the investigation is being conducted “as a case of domestic terrorism.” He added there is a joint federal, state and local investigation which is why much of the information about the shooting is being withheld from the media and public.
The FBI, ATF and the Department of Homeland Security were on the scene within hours and leading the investigation.
Ed Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI at the same news conference praised the local police department for the response and for “neutralizing the threat to the community.”
The FBI confirmed the suspect carried “multiple weapons” but would not describe the weapons. They believe that the gunman was residing in the area before the attack. Reinhold also said that while it’s being investigated as domestic terrorism, it’s possible the attack was not related to terrorism and just an act of violence.
FBI Director James Comey told reporters at FBI Headquarters that a least 10 people radicalized by ISIS were arrested in connection with plots to kill Americans on July 4th.
“I do believe that our work disrupted efforts to kill people, likely in connection with July 4th,” Comey said.
Comey did not release details of the arrests or investigations but said they involved “very serious efforts to kill people in the United States.” He could not confirm all those arrested were plotting Independence Day attacks but said “some of them were focusing on the Fourth of July.”
Comey had previously told Congress this week that ISIS and westerners being radicalized by the Islamic terror group had been using sophisticated encryption to keep investigators from being able to track their plans.
He said that because of the system being used, ISIS can activate potential terrorists on any day or the terrorists themselves could just decided to launch their plans.
“Rahim in Boston, I believe, was bent on doing something in the future,” Comey said referring to terrorist Usaama Rahim, “and woke up on the morning of June the 2nd and said, ‘You know what, I think today is the day,’ and just went out to try and kill people.”
FBI Director James Comey admitted to lawmakers that ISIS and other terrorist groups are using encryption methods as a way to avoid federal investigators.
“This is not your grandfather’s al Qaeda,” he told a Senate panel.
Comey said that ISIS has been effective in using social media outlets like Twitter where they have over 22,000 English-language followers.
“[It’s like a] devil in their pocket all day long that says ‘Kill, kill, kill,” Comey said. “There is simply no doubt that bad people can communicate with impunity in a world of universal strong encryption.”
“We cannot break strong encryption,” Comey told lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I think people watch TV and think the bureau can do lots of things. We cannot break strong encryption.”
Comey cited as an example the case of Usaamah Rahim, the Boston man killed when he attacked FBI and Boston Police as they tried to question him. The agents tracking him couldn’t see his exact plans because they went into an encrypted site.
The FBI calls that “going dark.”
“ISIL does something al-Qaida would never imagine: they test people by tasking them,” Comey told the senators. “Kill somebody and we’ll see if you are really a believer. And these people react in a way that is very difficult to predict. What you saw in Boston is what the experts say is flash-to-bang being very close. You had a guy who was in touch in an encrypted way with these ISIL recruiters and we believe was bent on doing something on July 4th. He woke up one morning, June 2nd, and decided he was going to go kill somebody.”
The FBI is investigating a string of arsons at black churches, the majority in the south.
The agency has confirmed that three of the fires being investigated were arson. The fires began less than a week after the massacre of 9 people at a South Carolina church made up of a predominantly black congregation.
“They’re being investigated to determine who is responsible and what motives are behind them,” FBI spokesperson Paul Bresson told BuzzFeed News. “I’m not sure there is any reason to link them together at this point.”
Churches have been burned in Tennessee, Georgia, South and North Carolina, Ohio and Florida. The ATF is taking the lead in the investigations
“ATF is the lead investigative agency, and we have special agents and certified fire investigators from several field divisions investigating the fires to determine cause and origin,” Ginger Colbrun, spokeswoman for the ATF, said in a statement provided to the Los Angeles Times on Monday. “We are in the early stages of these investigations, but at this time we have no reason to believe these fires are racially motivated or related.”
The pastor of Briar Creek Road Baptist Church in East Charlotte, North Carolina says that the arson at his church caused over $250,000 in damages.
“We have already forgiven them and we’re hoping that the investigation will take its place and do what’s necessary,” Kinsey told WBTV. “These buildings can be repaired, they can be built over. This is the opportunity for God to really touch the hearts of individuals … we don’t have any malice against anyone else.”
A fire at College Heights Baptist Church in Ohio reportedly caused over a million dollars in damage.
A North Carolina teenager is behind bars, accused of being part of a plan to kill Americans for ISIS.
19-year-old Justin Sullivan is accused of engaging in discussions with an undercover FBI agent over the last month about making a series of “minor assassinations” as training for major attack. Sullivan said that he was a “mujahid” and that he was a recent Muslim convert.
He said that when he made the attacks, he would send the videos to ISIS.
The teen said that he would pay the agent to kill his parents, that he would be using bombs and chemical weapons in his major attack and he had planned to buy a semi-automatic weapon and an upcoming gun show.
“As alleged in the complaint, the defendant was planning assassinations and violent attacks in the United States and is charged with attempting to provide material support to [ISIS] and federal firearms violations,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in a statement. “The National Security Division’s highest priority is counterterrorism and we will continue to pursue justice against those who seek to provide material support to designated foreign terrorist organizations,” the Justice Department said in their statement.
The charge of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign organization carries a maximum potential penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Sullivan’s own parents tipped off authorities about his behavior.
“I don’t know if it is ISIS or what, but he is destroying Buddhas and figurines and stuff,” his father Rich Sullivan said in a 911 call. “I mean, we are scared to leave the house.”
Almost 30 Americans in 2015 have been charged in some way with attempting to support ISIS.
