Security Brief - March 2014

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

Domestic:

A 21-year-old man was arrested at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of getting terrorist training abroad. Scotland Yard said the suspect was held after he got off a flight from Istanbul on 6 March and is being questioned at a police station in west London. He was held on suspicion of an offence under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg was remanded in custody after appearing in court charged with terror offences related to Syria. Begg, who denies charges of providing terrorist training and of funding terrorism overseas, will appear at the Old Bailey on 14 March. Begg had been one of four people arrested last week on suspicion of Syria-related terrorism offences. Gerrie Tahari has been charged with facilitating terrorism overseas, whilst two other men remain in police custody. Begg was held at a detention centre in Afghanistan and later at Guantanamo Bay for three years but was released without charge in 2005.

A judge has lifted an order banning the naming of an 18-year-old man charged with terror offences. Michael Piggin, of Loughborough, is alleged to have possessed nine partially-assembled petrol bombs, firework powder, partially-constructed improvised explosive devices, a crossbow, a variety of air rifles, a gas mask and stab proof vest. He is also charged with having a notebook containing information about the planning of attacks and the construction of explosive devices. Piggin, whose name could not previously be reported owing to his age, is standing trial at the Old Bailey in London.

The jury in the trial of a Leicestershire teenager accused of terrorism offences has been discharged. A re-trial will start at the Old Bailey this week.

Britain is donating more than £90million a year to Somalia despite strong warnings that its corrupt government is arming al-Qaeda-backed terrorists. David Cameron has approved the huge handouts to the war-torn East African country in an attempt to stop it becoming the next Afghanistan. However, a leaked United Nations report has warned of ‘high level and systematic abuses’ by Somali government officials who have passed weapons and ammunition to al-Shabaab – the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic fanatics behind last year’s Kenyan shopping mall massacre in which 67 people died.

Children who are at risk of being radicalised at home should be taken away from their parents, Boris Johnson has said. The London Mayor said it was tantamount to child abuse and the youngsters should be stopped from becoming "potential killers or suicide bombers". He said that Islamic extremism was an "awful virus" but said the work of counter-terrorism officers in London was "being hampered by what I am obliged to call, political correctness".

Last week, the Home Office released ‘UK terrorism statistics’. At ‘source’ are sets of various tables in Excel covering issues such as arrests and outcomes, court proceedings, terrorist and extremist prisoners and stops and searches. The statistics are based on information from the Office of the National Coordinator of Terrorist Investigations. Within the spreadsheet, viewing of the various tables along the tabs at the bottom of the page show some interesting results. For example, since September 11, 2001, in the UK, the gender of persons arrested, charged and convicted of terrorism-related offences show that of the 2,547 arrests, 385 were convicted (of these, 364 were men and 21, women). Of the 385 convicted, their ethnic appearance was described as White – 119, Black – 54, Asian – 154, Other – 48 and Not Known, 10.

Northern Ireland and Eire:

A letter bomb was found at a postal sorting office in Londonderry last Thursday. Police have advised the public to be alert for similar items received in white A4 envelopes. Bomb disposal personnel also attended a second incident at a sorting office in County Antrim.

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair engaged in a "deliberate deception by omission" by failing to tell the majority of politicians in Northern Ireland about the agreement his government struck with Sinn Fein to deal with on-the-run [OTR] republicans, Stormont's First Minister has said. Peter Robinson heavily criticised the conduct of the previous Labour administration in London as he addressed an emergency meeting at Stormont to debate the controversy over letters sent to more than 180 terror suspects informing them the authorities in the UK were not seeking them.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, says so-called on-the-runs who have received letters as part of a Government scheme will not avoid questioning or prosecution if evidence emerges in the future.

Two men from Londonderry have been jailed for a total of six years after they were caught with a rifle linked to dissident republicans following a covert police surveillance operation. The two men pleaded guilty in January at Belfast Crown Court to possessing the Magnum rifle in the city with intent to endanger life almost three years ago.

International:

Tens of thousands of people in Ukraine have held rival pro-unity and pro-Russian rallies, as Moscow continues to strengthen its grip on Crimea. Pro-Russia supporters beat up their opponents in Sevastopol, Crimea. In the eastern city of Luhansk, pro-Russian activists seized regional offices forcing the governor to resign. UK and German leaders telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to urge him to pull back from Crimea. The region is to vote to secede next week.

Ukraine's interim prime minister has warned the Crimean parliament "no-one in the civilised world" will recognise its referendum on joining Russia. Arseniy Yatsenyuk and others in the Kiev government have called the vote "unconstitutional" and "illegitimate". But the referendum has the support of the Russian parliament. The speaker of the upper house said if the Crimean people vote on 16 March to join Russia then they would "unquestionably back this choice". The decision by Crimean MPs to seek to join the Russian Federation comes amid international tensions over the presence of pro-Russian troops in the southern Ukrainian peninsula. Moscow has said it "will not accept the language of sanctions and threats" after the EU and US announced punitive measures against Russia on Thursday.

Malaysia's civil aviation chief has said the fate of a missing Malaysia Airlines jet remains "a mystery". Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said officials had not ruled out hijacking as a cause of the plane's disappearance. He said all reported sightings of debris from the plane in the seas south of Vietnam were unconfirmed. Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 vanished from radar almost three days ago en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur, with 239 people on board. Relatives of the missing passengers have been told to prepare for the worst.

Three policemen were killed by a bomb blast during clashes between police and anti-government protesters in Bahrain last Monday. Officers were reportedly dispersing protesters in the village of Daih when the incident took place. Following the explosion, six opposition groups issued a joint statement expressing regret for the casualties. Thirteen police officers have been killed in bomb attacks in the country since 2011.

Chemical weapons used in Syria last year appear to have come from the stockpiles of the Syrian military, UN human rights investigators have said. The team of independent experts said that so far they had confirmed the deadly nerve agent Sarin was used in three incidents.

Starvation tactics against civilians are being used as a weapon of war by the Syrian government, Amnesty International says. The rights group says at least 128 refugees have died at the besieged Yarmouk camp in Damascus as a result. It says thousands of people still trapped there face a "catastrophic humanitarian crisis". Amnesty says families have been forced to forage for food in the streets - risking being killed by snipers. There were reports of fresh fighting on the edge of the camp earlier this week. Yarmouk camp, which is estimated to house around 17,000-20,000 Palestinian and Syrian refugees, has seen some of the worst fighting in the capital. It has been without electricity since April 2013 and most of the hospitals have closed after running out of even the most basic medical supplies. "Syrian forces are committing war crimes by using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war," says Philip Luther, Amnesty's Middle East director. "The harrowing accounts of families having to resort to eating cats and dogs, and civilians attacked by snipers as they forage for food, have become all too familiar details of the horror story that has materialised in Yarmouk."

Eleven people, including a judge and several lawyers, were killed and around 20 wounded earlier this week after gunmen stormed a district court in the capital Islamabad. Two of the gunmen detonated explosives as part of a suicide attack. A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Ahrar-ul-Hind, has claimed responsibility. The attack came days after the Taliban pledged a month-long ceasefire and the government said it would suspend air strikes against militants.

Israeli naval forces have raided an Iranian freighter in the Red Sea and seized dozens of missiles that were allegedly destined for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Israeli officials say the weapons, capable of reaching large area of Israel, were disguised among bags of cement. The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said, “At a time when it is talking to the major powers, Iran smiles and says all sorts of nice things. The same Iran is sending deadly weapons to terrorist organisations ... that will be used to harm innocent citizens. This is the true Iran and this 
state cannot possess nuclear weapons."

Osama bin Laden's son-in-law was introduced to prospective jurors last week at the start of his trial on charges that he conspired to kill Americans and support terrorists in his role as al-Qaeda's spokesman after the September 11 attacks. Sulaiman Abu 
Ghaith is the highest-ranking member of al-Qaeda to be tried on United States soil since the 9/11 attacks. Prosecutors said they plan to show jurors a picture of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith seated with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders on the day after the 9/11 attacks, as they make statements about the attacks. Prosecutors also plan to show jurors videos in which Abu Ghaith promised to carry out attacks on the United States as devastating as those that demolished the World Trade Centre.

Al-Qaeda's Afghanistan leader is laying the groundwork to re-launch his war-shattered organisation once the United States and international forces withdraw from the country, as they have warned they will do without a security agreement from the Afghan government, US officials say. Farouq al-Qahtani al-Qatari has been cementing local ties and bringing in small numbers of experienced militants to train a new generation of fighters ...

Niger has extradited Muammar Gaddafi's son Saadi to the Libyan capital Tripoli, the Libyan government has said. The third son of the former Libyan leader fled south to the West African state in September 2011 as Libyan forces gain the upper hand over his father's forces, because he feared he would face execution in Libya.

Prosecutors filed documents last week week projecting that the US terrorism trial against Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, better known as Abu Hamza, would last approximately six weeks [...]. Abu Hamza’s jury trial is set to begin on April 14, 2014.

In France, a young jihadist who ran a website where he published al-Qaeda propaganda appeared before the Paris Criminal Court this week for glorifying and inciting terrorism. Roman L., a 27- year-old Muslim convert who used the pseudonym Abu Siyad Al-Normandy on the Internet, was arrested on September 17 in Calvados, where he lives. His arrest was the first under a law passed in December 2012 following a series of shootings in the south of France by Islamist gunman Mohamed Merah, which made incitement to terrorism an offence punishable by five years in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 euros.

A French convert to Islam was convicted of using the Internet to disseminate terrorist propaganda and promote participation in terrorist acts and was sentenced by a Paris court to one year in prison and two more on probation last week.

Officials in Mexico say that they have killed a drug lord who was reported to have been shot dead three years ago. Nazario Moreno, known as El Mas Loco - The Craziest One - was the founder of the La Familia cartel and regarded as the spiritual leader of its offshoot, the brutal Knights Templar. His death was first announced after a 2010 shootout, but no body was found and he was reportedly seen alive since. Police said he was finally tracked down and shot dead in Michoacan state.

Cyber News

UK Power companies are being refused insurance cover for cyber-attacks because their defences are perceived as weak, the BBC has learned. Underwriters at Lloyd's of London say they have seen a "huge increase" in demand for cover from energy firms. But surveyor assessments of the cyber- defences in place concluded that protections were inadequate. Energy industry veterans said they were "not surprised" the companies were being refused cover.

Lawyers for a British man charged with hacking into US government computer servers say they will "vehemently oppose" any attempt to extradite him. Lauri Love, 28, of Stradishall, Suffolk, is accused of breaking into Federal Reserve computers. The indictment was revealed at Manhattan federal court on 27 February 2014.

Action Fraud, the UK’s national fraud reporting centre, is warning the customers of British Airways about phishing emails. The emails appear to come from the BA.CustSrvces@email.ba.com address and they inform recipients that their “order has been successfully processed.” The bogus notifications contain all sorts of information – including departure date/time, booking reference, and prices – in order to appear more convincing. However, the links in the emails point to a malicious website. Users who come across such emails are advised to report them to Action Fraud.

The United States has been cyber-attacked by governments and criminal organisations a lot more than any other country. At least that’s the conclusion of a study released this morning of 40,000 online attacks against customers of the cyber-forensics company FireEye. The US topped the list of countries targeted by advanced persistent threat (APT) activity, which FireEye denies as online attacks that were “likely directly or indirectly supported by a nation state.”

Brazilian hackers are threatening to disrupt the World Cup with attacks ranging from jamming websites to data theft, adding cyber warfare to the list of challenges for a competition already marred by protests, delays and overspending. In a country with rampant online crime, a challenging telecommunications infrastructure and little experience with cyber attacks, authorities are rushing to protect government websites and those of FIFA, soccer's governing body.

It was reported a week ago that cyber criminals have infected hundreds of thousands of computers with a virus called "Pony" to steal bitcoins and other digital currencies, in the most ambitious cyber-attack on virtual money uncovered so far, according to the security firm Trustwave. The firm said that it has found evidence that the operators of a cybercrime ring known as the Pony botnet have stolen some 85 virtual "wallets" that contained bitcoins and other types of digital currencies. The firm said it did not know how much digital currency was contained in the wallets.

And Finally ...

Several UK airports have been selling a magazine which contains an article explaining how to build a bomb while you wait for your flight. According to the feature in Wonderpedia, which was written by Evan Booth, 31, from North Carolina, £120 of items can be bought in duty free after passing security which can be used to make explosives. It goes on to explain where in the airport you can go to build a suitcase bomb, shotgun and even a crossbow. Bosses at BAA have ordered the magazine which costs £3.25 to be removed from shelves in WHSmith. The magazine was also being sold at Gatwick, Luton and Stansted airports. Publisher H Bauer told The Sun: 'Our article was simply an analysis of independent research which had been published on and offline over the last several months. The publisher said Wonderpedia acted 'entirely responsibly' because it had edited the original research.










Thankyou to Peret Yis and Janson for permission to post.