Weekly Security Brief - July 7th

Dilitas Weekly Security Brief

This email has been compiled from current, open source data supplied through contacts within Diplomatic Posts, law enforcement agencies and UK intelligence services.
The information herein is to keep you informed of the current security situations within the UK and the rest of the world. 
If you require more specific information on any other prevailing matters, please contact us at info@dilitas.com detailing what you require and we will respond to you.
Regards,
Christopher Cully
Managing Director


The threat to the UK from International Terrorism is SUBSTANTIAL
The threat to Great Britain from Irish Republican Terrorism is MODERATE


Domestic:

Friday, 4 July, the Department for Transport published the following statement:
“The UK Government keeps aviation security under constant review in conjunction with international partners and the aviation industry. We have taken the decision to step up some of our aviation security measures. For obvious reasons we will not be commenting in detail on those changes. The majority of passengers should not experience significant disruption. There will be no change to the threat level, which remains at substantial. The safety and security of the public is our paramount concern. The UK has some of the most robust aviation security measures and we will continue to take all the steps necessary to ensure that the public safety is maintained.”

A 32 year-old man was arrested by counter terrorism officers in London earlier last week on suspicion of arranging funding for the purpose of terrorism and fraud by false representation. Eleven addresses across London were searched as part of the ongoing operation into suspected terrorist activity in Syria. Two other men, Imran Khawaja and Tahir Bhatti, have appeared in court in relation to the investigation and are due to return to the Old Bailey in October.

An 18 year-old man was arrested last Wednesday over allegations of assisting in the preparation of an act of terrorism. It is understood that the arrest may be linked to three Cardiff men who recently appeared in a recruitment video in Syria. The man has been released on bail pending further enquiries.
Adeel Ulhaq, 20, who was arrested along with a 43-year-old woman when police searched a house in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, last month, has been charged with terrorist fundraising. Mr Ulhaq appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court last Tuesday and is due to appear at the Old Bailey on 18 July. The arrests followed an investigation by Nottinghamshire Police and the North East Counter Terrorism Unit. The woman had been released without charge.

A Serbian student living in the UK has been charged with preparing for acts of terrorism. David Souaan, 20, from Camden in north London, will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Scotland Yard said. He was arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of "Syria-related" offences on May 31st. Scotland Yard said he was charged under Section Five of the Terrorism Act 2006 following an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command.

An Islamist hate preacher known as the 'Tottenham Ayatollah' has been told his bid to return to the UK will fail after he was banned from Britain nearly 10 years ago. Omar Bakri Mohammad, (inset) who was born in Syria and blamed Britain for the 7/7 London bombings, is believed to be planning an asylum bid to return to the UK on humanitarian grounds. The radical cleric fled Britain to Lebanon in 2005 as he faced the prospect of a police investigation. He became a hate figure after backing terror attacks in the UK and saying after the 9/11 attacks, "Why [would] I condemn Osama Bin Laden for? I condemn Tony Blair. I condemn George Bush. I would never condemn Osama Bin Laden or any Muslims."
President Obama has sent a special unit of CIA officers to the UK to investigate British Muslim extremists amid growing fears in Washington that the UK is becoming a ‘breeding ground’ for terrorism. In a pointed snub to MI5, the agents arrived on a ‘lone wolf’ mission to interrogate senior security experts about the radicalisation of UK Muslims. The mission has been revealed as our security services have been forced to admit they are struggling to keep track of the estimated 500 Britons who have travelled to the Middle East to fight alongside the Islamic ISIS forces in Syria and Iraq.

London Event Notice:
The City will host part of stage 3 of the Tour de France, today, with riders expected to pass through the City between 2.55 and 3.30 pm. Full information about how this will affect roads in the City is available at www.tfl.gov.uk/campaign/tour-de-france-2014

Northern Ireland and Eire:

A County Antrim man has been jailed for three years (and a further three years on license) after police last year discovered him in possession of explosives never before found in Northern Ireland. The 25-year-old from Larne pleaded guilty to possession of explosives and having a firearm or ammunition in suspicious circumstances. He was arrested after a rucksack of "sensitive high explosives" – and allegedly a pipe bomb and a firearm - was found. Belfast Crown Court heard that DDNP (Diazodinitrophenol) was among the explosive material found. The Crown Court was told that DDNP “is a sensitive primary high explosive used commercially as an initiating explosive in detonators. It is sensitive to friction, shock, heat and electrical discharges, meaning that it can detonate if exposed to stimuli."

A suspect object on the roof of business premises last week which sparked a security alert in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast was an "elaborate hoax", police have confirmed.

The Irish Government is to consider establishing another commission of investigation into a justice controversy – the shooting dead by gardaí of a dissident republican who was attempting to rob a Securicor van 16 years ago. Ronan Mac Lochlainn was part of a gang of six people mounting an armed robbery in Co Wicklow in May 1998. Evidence before an inquest into his death was that while he was in possession of a revolver at the time, no shots were fired by the robbers while 12 were fired by three gardaí. Mac Lochlainn was killed by a single shot to his chest. He was a member of the Real IRA, and the 32 County Sovereignty Movement commemorates his death every year.

International:

Eighteen people were killed when explosives hidden in a van were detonated near a market in Maiduguri, Nigeria. No group claimed responsibility for the attack, although the area is at the epicentre of the campaign waged by the militant group Boko Haram.
Separately, last Monday evening, Nigerian military confirmed that they had raided a Boko Haram intelligence unit which is potentially linked to the abduction of schoolgirls earlier this year. It is understood that the cell’s leader, Babuii Ya’ari, was arrested during the raid.
More than 60 women and girls are reported to have escaped from the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, security sources say. They were among 68 abducted last month near the town of Damboa in north-eastern Borno state. Reports say the women escaped when the militants went to attack a military base near Damboa on Friday. The Nigerian military said it killed more than 50 rebels in a clash that night.
Boko Haram is still holding more than 200 schoolgirls abducted in April.

An explosion last week near the presidential palace in Cairo killed two police officers. Security forces were defusing a makeshift bomb when a second device then exploded. The attack occurred days after the armed group Ajnad Misr claimed responsibility for a series of bombs in the same area which were intended to target security personnel. Cairo’s metro system has also been targeted recently.

Nine Palestinian militants have been killed in a series of Israeli air raids on the Gaza Strip. The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas says six of its fighters died in a single strike near Rafah in the south. Three others died in separate Israeli air strikes in response to at least 20 rocket attacks from Gaza. Tensions in the region are high following the murder of Palestinian teenager Mohammed Abu Khdair. Police believe there was a nationalist motive to his killing, and have arrested six Jewish suspects. The death followed the murder of three Israeli teenagers, whose bodies were found a week ago.
The bodies of three missing Israeli teenagers who disappeared almost three weeks ago were found last week buried in a shallow grave under rocks in a valley close to the southern West Bank city of Hebron. Following the discovery of the bodies the Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, blamed Hamas for the murders, warning the militant group would pay a heavy price for the deaths. "Hamas is responsible, and Hamas will pay,” Mr Netanyahu said. The teenagers had apparently been shot soon after having been abducted while hitchhiking. A Palestinian teenager from annexed east Jerusalem was kidnapped and killed in a suspected act of revenge for the murder of three Israeli teens, army radio has reported.

Media reporting last week suggests the organisation now calling itself the ‘Islamic State’ has recruited suspected bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri is understood to have been the bomb maker for several high profile terror plots, including the failed attempt by ‘underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bomb Northwest Airlines flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009. Terrorism officials in the US consider Al-Asiri’s support for the group to be highly significant.
The Ukrainian government says its forces have retaken two more eastern cities from pro-Russian rebels. The website of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the national flag was raised in Artyomivsk and Druzhkivka. It comes a day after government forces regained control of the rebel stronghold of Sloviansk. Meanwhile, large crowds have attended a rally in the regional capital, Donetsk, in support of the rebels. Rebel fighters have re-grouped in Donetsk and are reported to have attacked the state prison guard headquarters in an attempt to seize weapons.

Russia is demanding an investigation into the alleged use of ‘chemical weapons’ against separatists in the east of Ukraine as the two countries agreed to extend their ceasefire. Pro- separatist rebels have claimed that people showing symptoms of chlorine poisoning had been admitted to hospital following an alleged attack carried out by Ukrainian Special Forces near Slavyansk. The accusations, which follow claims of 'phosphorous fire bombs' being dropped on villages in southeastern Ukraine last month, led to Russian diplomats urging an investigation.

Police in Kosovo have arrested three people on terrorism charges amid a crackdown against home-grown extremists who are accused of joining and recruiting for terrorist groups in the Middle East. The suspects are accused of participation in a terrorist group, recruitment for terrorism and inciting hatred, national, racial, religious or ethnic intolerance.

Fresh from their victories over the Iraqi army and on the first night of the holy month of Ramadan, the jihadist group ISIS has declared its captive territories an “Islamic Caliphate” and demanded all Muslims declare obedience to its leader. In a recorded audio statement, a spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham said the new caliphate [...] was expanding every day. He said, “The time has come for the Ummah [nation] of Mohammed (peace be upon him) to wake up from its sleep, remove the garments of dishonor, and shake off the dust of humiliation and disgrace. For the era of lamenting and moaning has gone, and the dawn of honour has emerged anew. The sun of jihad has risen. The glad tidings of good are shining. Triumph looms on the horizon. The signs of victory have appeared.” ISIS is now simply referring to itself as ‘The Islamic State’, and the group has called on al-Qaeda and other related militant Sunni factions operating in the region to immediately pledge their allegiance. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has declared the areas it occupies in Iraq and Syria as a new Islamic state, removing Iraq and the Levant from its name and ushering in “a new era of international jihad.”
The leader of jihadist militant group ISIS (now The Islamic State) has called on Muslims to travel to Iraq and Syria to help build an Islamic state, in a (19-minute long) audio message. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on Muslims to immigrate to the "Islamic State", saying it was a duty. He made a "special call" for judges, doctors, engineers and people with military and administrative expertise.
Islamist militants who have proclaimed a new state in Iraq and Syria appear to have won the support of two major al-Qaeda groups in a game-changing power shift for global jihad. Al-Qaeda’s north African branch pledged support to the “heroes” of ISIS, the Sunni extremist group, while the Yemeni offshoot sent its best wishes. Experts said that it may only be a matter of time before other al-Qaeda affiliates, such as Boko Haram in Nigeria and al-Shabaab in Somalia, followed suit. The Times report stated that that analysts and Western leaders believe that ISIS (now The Islamic State) now posed a greater threat than al-Qaeda.
Security measures at airports in the US and abroad could be beefed up over deepening concerns of an extremist attack, it has been reported. The issue was discussed this week at the White House during a meeting of top-level officials from intelligence agencies, sources told ABC News. "[This threat] is different and more disturbing than past aviation plots," the source said. President Obama is concerned that battle-hardened militants who have spent time in Syria and Iraq could present a rising threat to US security because they would be able to enter the country without visas on European passports. "They're gaining strength in some places," Mr Obama said in an interview with NBC broadcast on 29 June.

American officials have ordered some overseas airports with direct flights to the US to intensify screening of electronic devices. Transport officials said in a statement passengers could be asked to switch on devices, and equipment that does not power up would not be allowed on board. An official told the BBC that London's Heathrow was among the airports. The US announced new security measures last week, apparently in response to a terror threat, but gave no details. Analysts say the changes appear to be in response to intelligence that Islamic militants in Syria and Yemen are developing bombs that could evade airport security. American officials said earlier that there was a "credible" threat, but did not link the security changes to any specific intelligence.

Recent gains by its former Iraqi franchise could spur al-Qaeda to launch attacks on the West in order to buttress its reputation, experts say. Western security officials are worried that al-Qaeda may feel the need to compete with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria for funding and recruits, now that the former affiliate has gained so much territory in Iraq, the Daily Beast reported last week. Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri earlier this year cut ties with the extremist group over its indiscriminate targeting of Sunni civilians in the Syrian civil war and its feuding with another al- Qaeda-aligned group. Anonymous US officials said the government is readying to tighten security measures at airports and has asked its Western partners to act similarly out of fear that al-Qaeda could be close to wrapping up plans to send suicide bombers to attack passenger flights headed for Europe or the United States. US officials would not disclose exactly how security would be tightened at airports. "If al-Qaeda wants to reclaim some semblance of legitimacy, it will desperately pursue a major strike," a Middle East academic wrote in a report released by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The Obama administration said last week that it has sent yet another complement of US troops to safeguard its Baghdad embassy, a measure intended to ward off another Benghazi-style assault on American diplomats. It brings the number of US military personnel flowing into Iraq to 750, up from 100 barely two weeks ago. The latest troop deployment, announced by the Pentagon adds 300 US troops for the task of protecting the embassy, including 100 whom the administration announced weeks ago had been pre-positioned outside Iraq on standby. Specialising in tasks like airfield management and logistics, the new deployment more than doubles the 170 marines and others already in charge of embassy security.
A day after Ahmed Abu Khattala pleaded not guilty to charges regarding the 2012 attack on a US diplomatic facility in Benghazi in which four Americans died, Republican criticism of the decision to try the Libyan militia leader in civilian court mounted. Mike Rogers, the chair of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, told CNN Khattala had been “compliant but not cooperative” through 10 days of interrogation on a navy ship before being transferred to Washington for a civilian trial. Rogers said Khattala should be classified as an enemy combatant and held at Guantánamo Bay.

The Obama administration's military trial for the accused 9/11 architects was dealt another blow this week when lawyers for one of the co-defendants asked the court to review evidence of his alleged torture in CIA custody. Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, requested the disclosure days after the military judge reaffirmed his order for CIA documentation of its treatment of a different defendant in a separate war-crimes case. Even before the petition for CIA records, the military tribunal of al-Baluchi and his co-defendants – a death penalty case – was years away.

The French "burka ban" does not breach human rights laws, the European Court of Human Rights has declared in a landmark decision. The ruling by the European Court's Grand Chamber was immediately condemned by a leading UK human rights campaigner for "criminalising women's clothing". Liberty's director Shami Chakrabarti also linked it to "the rising racism in Western Europe". The test case was brought by a French woman in her mid-twenties who is a devout Muslim no longer allowed to wear in public the burka, which covers the whole body, or the full- face niqab veil, because a new French law prohibits concealment of the face in public places.

Cyber News:
The biggest cyber-security threat facing the UK and Europe is from Russian hackers, a top British cyber-official has said. Speaking at a cyber-security conference last week in London, the Deputy Head of the UK National Cybercrime Unit emphasised that most of the significant cyber-security threats his office works on emanate from Russia. He said, “Cybercrime is anonymous, sophisticated, and international. And Russian. I have some excellent Russian speakers working for me. Russian cybercrime is a big area for us.”
Police forces across the UK face a shortage of the skills needed to fight cybercrime. The head of the National Cybercrime Unit at the National Crime Agency, said that there had been a shift in the way evidence is collected. He said that while "statements, finger prints and dust," were key to investigate a crime and pursue a prosecution in the past, the advent of the internet means criminals are using technical skills to commit both traditional and new types of crime. He went on to say that police need the staff with the appropriate programming and computer engineering knowledge in order to carry out a successful investigation.

Microsoft Corp launched what it hopes will be the most successful private effort to date to crack down on cybercrime by moving to disrupt communications channels between hackers and infected PCs. The operation, which began this week under an order issued by a federal court in Nevada, targeted traffic involving malicious software known as Bladabindi and Jenxcus, which Microsoft said work in similar ways and were written and distributed by developers in Kuwait and Algeria.


Significant Forthcoming Anniversaries:

7 July 2005 Four Person-Borne IED attacks were mounted on London’s transport infrastructure killing 52 people and injuring 700.
 11 July 2010 Twin blasts kill 74, wound more than 70 in Kampala during telecast of World Cup; al-Shabaab claims responsibility
 11 July 2006 Synchronized bomb attacks on India’s railway system in Mumbai kills 200 people and injures nearly 1000.
 11 July 1988 Palestinian radicals belonging to the Abu Nidal terrorist group attack a Greek tourist ferry killing 11 people
 12 July 1690 Battle of the Boyne: Northern Ireland Loyalists celebrate with parades
 12 July 1994 A massive 2 tonne truck bomb made safe at the Lancashire port of Heysham after vehicle arrived from Northern Ireland. First ever use by the Provisional IRA of a concealed lorry bomb on the mainland.
 12 July 2006 Abduction by Hezbollah of two Israeli soldiers precipitates the non- successful invasion of Lebanon by Israeli military forces.
 13 July 2011 Three blasts in crowded areas kill 18 and wound more than 130 in Mumbai; attack is said to commemorate birthday of sole surviving gunman of November 2008 Mumbai siege
 16 July 2000 Two Aum Shinrikyo members sentenced to death for sarin gas attack in 1995
 17 July 2009 Near-simultaneous bombings of JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta kill nine and wound more than 50
 18 July 1994 Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center bombed, killing 85 and wounding hundreds; Hizballah responsible
 20 July 1997 Provisional IRA’s current ceasefire takes effect and continues to date.
 20 July 1982 Provisional IRA bombs at Hyde Park and at Regents Park kills 12 people.
 20 July 1990 Provisional IRA bomb attack on London Stock Exchange
20 July 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus
20 July 2012 Ramadan (Lasts until 18 August 2012)
21 July 2005 Attempted suicide bomb attacks on London’s transport system, an attack that almost mirrored the attacks two weeks earlier that killed 52 people. The four co-conspirators involved were each jailed in July 2007 to a minimum of 40 years behind bars.
 22 July 2011 Lone attacker, Norwegian national, Anders Brevik, sets of a VBIED at a government building in Oslo, then later, goes on shooting rampage in Utoya; more than 70 killed – mainly young students, and dozens wounded
 22 July 2005 Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes is shot dead by police officers as he is mistaken for a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell underground station.
 24 July 2001 Tamil Tigers attack Bandaranaike international airport in Sri Lanka killing 18 and injuring 12, and destroying 24 aircraft.
 25 July 1995 Algerian Islamist terrorists blamed for a bomb that functioned at a Paris metro station (Saint-Michel) killing seven people.
 26 July 1996 Car bomb functions at the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, London.
27 July 2012 Start of the 2012 Olympic Games.
28 July 2005 Largest ever mobilization of British police officers since World War Two when the Met Police Service, the British Transport Police and City of London Police deploy officers at rail stations and transport hubs within the capital.
 28 July 2005 Provisional IRA calls on all its ‘units’ to dump their weapons and made a formal announcement of the end of their campaign of violence.
 31 July 2002 Nine students, including five US citizens, killed and 85 wounded by bomb at Hebrew University, Israel. HAMAS responsible, later apologizes for American deaths.
 31 July 1959 Founding day of the Basque terrorist group, ETA.

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