Weekly Security Brief - April 14th 2014

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. Please feel free to forward this document to colleagues.

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:

One of the killers of soldier Lee Rigby, has launched an appeal against the life sentence awarded to him in February. Michael Adebolajo had received a sentence of a minimum of forty five years after the judge declared that Adebolajo had ‘no real prospect of rehabilitation’. The grounds for Adebolajo’s appeal have not been made public.

Home Secretary Theresa May last week issued a warning to MPs about the "unprecedented" terrorist threat posed by the Syrian conflict, as she unveiled an updated counter-terrorism strategy in Parliament. The Home Secretary revealed 14 British extremists have had their passports seized to stop them joining fighting overseas, and said there were "several thousand extremists" in this country potentially involved in plotting attacks here. Mrs May said that dealing with terrorism in Syria poses "a very significant challenge." She also warned that al-Qaeda extremists "pose a threat to the UK and UK interests" in Yemen, North and West Africa, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Urgent inspections are to take place in about a dozen schools in Birmingham amid mounting concern at claims of attempts to infiltrate them by hardline Muslims, The Times has reported. Eight schools are to be inspected by the end of this week, in addition to four in the northeast of the city that were visited by Ofsted teams last month to investigate the allegations.

Syria-related terrorism is now the main challenge for the UK security services. That was the view of Charles Farr, the government's chief anti-terrorism official, releasing his annual report. He said leaks by US whistleblower Edward Snowden had "made our counter- terrorist work harder than it was before and means we can no longer do some of the things we were doing". But he revealed that "handfuls" of people had been stopped from boarding aircraft to the UK due to threat fears. "The terrorist threat to the UK comes from an increasingly wide range of countries and groups, many of which are new," the report said.

Figures recently compiled by MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence service, indicate that at least 500 British Muslims have travelled to Syria as jihadis, where they have met up with radical Islamist groups. ... Home Secretary Theresa May is right to warn that we must be on our guard against British jihadis.

Al Arabiya reports on the story published in The Independent on Sunday from a week ago, that a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, said that “it seems almost inevitable that some sort of a threat back to the UK will come off the battlefield in Syria, something supported by the fact that security services in the UK believe they have already disrupted at least one plot with links to Syria.” Experts warned that many fighters, who are gaining “combat experience and forging connections with extremists,” could return radicalised, seeking to carry out attacks on European soil. The article also quoted Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism coordinator, who described the threat as “unprecedented.”

A British man fighting with the Syrian rebels against President Assad has told ITV News that he has no intention of coming home to launch attacks against the UK. In a telephone interview [...] the man, who calls himself Abu Summayah al Britani said, "we are just freedom fighters, we are protecting our people and our religion from the oppressors and the enemies." When asked about fears of fighters returning to the UK and plotting attacks, he answers that "the Mujahedeen here have no intention of number one going back, and number two, attacking any other country."

According to The Daily Telegraph, a British doctor responsible for the care of some of the country’s most vulnerable people can be exposed as a senior leader of a radical Islamist party banned in several countries. The man is a consultant psychiatrist at Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Trust, one of the largest of its kind in the country. [...] But it can now also be revealed that he is also a leading member Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), which campaigns for an Islamic caliphate ruled by hard-line Sharia law.

Police have confirmed that the bombings of two Birmingham city center pubs will not be re- investigated. The two blasts, at the Tavern in the Town and Mulberry Bush on November 21, 1974 killed 21 and injured more than 200 people were blamed on the IRA – although no one claimed responsibility. On April 7, the West Midlands Chief Constable met with relatives of two of the 21 victims who died to inform them of the decision. He reassured families that although there would not be a new investigation, the case is not closed. He said, “Nothing would give me more satisfaction than to bring those responsible for this atrocity to justice.” More than 18,500 pieces of evidence were collected from the two blasts – all evidence was re-examined in 1991-1994 and re-assessed in 2001.

Northern Ireland and Eire:

Seamus Daly (43) has been charged with the murders of 29 people who were killed in the Real IRA attack in Omagh in 1998. Daly had been arrested on Monday and will face 33 charges, which also includes an attempted bomb attack in Lisburn . There has never been any convictions in relation to the Omagh bombing, although a civil action was made against five men, including Daly, with four being ordered to pay more than one million pounds in damages to the victim’s families. Daly has always denied any involvement in the bombing and is expected to appear in court later today.

Three men from Londonderry pleaded guilty to possession of a bomb and articles for use in acts of terrorism earlier this week. Jason Ceulemans, Damien Harkin and Neil Hegarty admitted the charges at Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday. Ceulemans and Hegarty also admitted possession of two walkie talkies and a torch for terrorist purposes in December 2012. All three will be sentenced in May

A 57 year old woman was arrested this week in connection to the 1972 IRA abduction and murder of Jean McConville. Only last month, Ivor Bell, a leader of the provisional IRA in the 1970’s was charged in connection to the murder, while a 56 year old man arrested last week was released without charge. No further details relating to the arrest have been disclosed.

A Dublin man, Vincent Banks, who had been acquitted last week of withholding information relating to the murder of Northern Ireland prison officer David Black, is to now stand trial on a charge of IRA membership. Banks is charged with membership of the group back in 2012. Black was remanded on bail till the trial date of November 2015.

Dissident republican terrorists are adopting tactics and techniques inspired by al-Qaeda in their attacks on police in Northern Ireland, The Times newspaper had reported. A mortar bomb fired at an armored police Land Rover in Belfast last month was a homemade rocket of a type widely used on jihadi battlefields in Iraq. Younger members of dissident groups are known to have researched weapons and explosives on the internet and accessed jihadi video bomb-making instructions, The Times claims. In addition to using homemade rockets, in recent months terrorists have also left bombs in bags at city center restaurants, thrown pipe bombs and planted booby-trap devices on cars. “A limited amount of success is all they want and need to get the attention they crave — they only have to get lucky once,” a counter-terrorism source said.

Crimes committed during [Northern Ireland’s] Troubles, including around 3,000 murders, should be left unsolved, Peter Hain, a former Northern Ireland secretary has said. He said, "I think there should be an end to all conflict-related prosecutions. That should apply to cases pre-dating the Good Friday agreement in 1998. This is not desirable in a normal situation. You would never dream of doing this in England, Scotland and Wales – but the Troubles were never normal."

Former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has revealed how there were "very significant arrests" made to protect Queen Elizabeth prior to her Irish State visit. In a new RTE documentary, The Insiders, the recently resigned Garda chief revealed there was a very real threat to the Queen's life from the IRA before she flew into the country on May 17 last year under the protection of the largest security operation in the history of the State. Mr Callinan said in the documentary that the IRA posed a very real danger to the British monarch during her historic Irish visit. "The threat is real and substantial in terms of the IRA, who, it was very clear, were out to, if they could, inflict fatal damage. That's the naked reality," he said.

Ireland could face a surge of dissident activity in 2016 as hard-line republicans look to mark the Easter Rising centenary, according to a former IRA commander turned informant. Sean O’Callaghan said the anniversary should “give everybody cause for concern” just weeks after the New IRA sent parcel bombs to Britain. Despite previously warning of the potential for attacks in Britain, he claimed last week that the biggest threat in 2016 would be posed by dozens of dissident parades in the North of Ireland.

International:

Breaking news: Blast rocks crowded bus station near Nigeria's capital and reports quoting witnesses say there are many casualties.

Pro-Russian protesters have seized state buildings in several east Ukrainian cities, prompting accusations from Kiev that Moscow is trying to "dismember" the country and carry out a replay of Crimea. The protesters broke into a regional administrative building in the mining city of Donetsk last weekend as well as security services offices in nearby Luhansk, where police said they had seized weapons. The United States has accused Russia of sending spies into eastern Ukraine to "create chaos" and provide a pretext for a possible Crimea style military intervention. In Washington's strongest comments to date, the US secretary of state described a series of pro-Russian building seizures in eastern cities as an "illegal and illegitimate effort to destabilize a sovereign state", funded by the Russian special services. Nato has released satellite images of the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s eastern border: a powerful concentration of fighter planes, helicopters, artillery, infantry and special forces which officials say could be ready to move with just 12 hours’ notice. The images appear to undermine official suggestions from Moscow that there is nothing unusual about the troop movements, nor any reason to be alarmed.

Russia has urged the authorities in Kiev not to use force against pro-Russian protesters in eastern Ukraine. At a special UN Security Council session, Russia's ambassador called on Kiev to "start a genuine dialogue". But Ukraine's UN ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev said Moscow had artificially created the crisis in eastern Ukraine. A deadline set by Ukraine for pro-Russian activists to leave the government buildings they are occupying expired at 06:00 GMT today. Kiev had promised military action if they failed to leave and people in eastern Ukraine are now waiting to see if interim president Olexander Turchynov uses the army to try to take back control of the buildings. Yesterday, he said his military forces would launch a "full-scale anti-terrorist operation" against the armed men holding the buildings. The Assistant UN Secretary General had warned that Ukraine "teeters on the brink".

Russian secret services have confirmed the killing of their "most wanted" man, Islamic terrorist leader Doku Umarov. Umarov was "neutralised" in a "combat operation" which left dozens of terrorists dead, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) announced. A website had reported that Umarov had been killed on 18 March, but Moscow has now confirmed the report. Umarov was the leader of the Caucasus Emirate organization that aims to establish an independent Islamic State in the region. The group is blamed attacks in Moscow in 2010 and 2011 that killed 77

people, and three suicide bomb attacks last year in Volgograd that killed 41 people.

The trial of Abu Hamza al-Masri, the radical cleric extradited from the UK to the US in 2012, is due to start at a federal court in New York later. The Egyptian-born preacher denies 11 terrorism charges including providing support to al-Qaeda and trying to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon. He was extradited from a UK prison, having been jailed for seven years for inciting murder and race hate. It was specified that he must be tried in a civilian court in the US. This stipulation was made by British and European court rulings, after a legal battle which began when the US requested Abu Hamza's extradition in 2004. The trial will begin with jury selection.

The trial is amid fears of a terrorist attack and concern that testimony from a key witness may not be allowed. Al-Masri, 55, is charged with conspiring in a 1998 kidnapping of tourists, including Americans, in Yemen, in which three Britons and one Australian were killed. Having asked the court to address him by the name of Mostafa Kamel Mostafa, Al-Masri is also charged with conspiring to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon and organizing support for the Taliban and their terrorist associates in Afghanistan while at a mosque in Britain. The Egyptian-born cleric, who was a naturalized Briton, pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in a New York City courtroom in October 2012, shortly after he was extradited from Britain.

Media reporting this week has highlighted how the US government has designated the militant group Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis a terrorist organisation. The Sinai-based group, which came to prominence in 2011 after the Egyptian uprisings, has claimed responsibility for several high-profile attacks including an attack last September that targeted the Egyptian Interior Minister. According to the US, the group is not formally linked to al Qaeda but shares some of its ideology.

A suspected aide to al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahri was arrested earlier last week by Egyptian security officials. It is understood that Tharwat Salah Shehata was arrested after being located in an apartment in the city of Sharqiya. Shehata is suspected of training militants in eastern Libya, a hub of extremist Islamist militia groups, and is considered as one of the most influential leaders in the jihadist movement. Shehata had previously spent three years in prison for his involvement in the assignation of the former president Anwar Sadat and was sentenced to death, twice in absentia, by military courts.

Security services at Cairo International Airport late last week said that they detected nine toy planes equipped with remotely-controlled spy cameras. The seizures also include two sophisticated wireless communication devices that are banned entry into the country due to their possible use in espionage and other criminal activities, MENA reported, citing the airport's investigation dept.

A bomb, detonated in a busy market near Islambad, killed at least twenty people and injured over seventy on Wednesday. The Taliban have denied responsibility for the blast, who last week extended a ceasefire, blaming it on ‘hidden hands’. Police stated the bomb had been concealed in a box of fruit and had been detonated as traders assembled for fruit auctions.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has claimed the upper hand in what he called a "turning point" in the three-year long civil war. President Assad made the comments in an address at Damascus University, His forces have been steadily recapturing rebel-held towns near the Lebanese border for several months. More than 150,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with millions forced to flee their homes. "This is a turning point in the crisis," President Assad said. He added that his army was winning what he called "the war against terror".

Three people, including a man and his grandson, have been shot dead at a Jewish community site and a retirement home in Kansas City in the US Midwest. The shootings occurred at the Jewish Community Campus at Overland Park and a nearby assisted living centre, Village Shalom, local media said. Police said a suspect, a bearded white man in his 70s, was in custody.

A Moroccan national has been arrested in Connecticut for allegedly planning to use a radio controlled model airplane as a ‘drone like flying bomb’ . El Mehdi Semlali Fahti was arrested after FBI officers found ‘wires and tools’ in his apartment. Fahti had communicated with an undercover officer stating he had been working on plans for a bomb attack for over five months and had already developed a chemical bomb while he had been a student. It is understood that one of Fahti’s targets was a federal building based near Connecticut. Fahti has been sent to a detention centre in Rhode Island as he is considered a danger to the community and a flight risk.

Approximately 3,000 people were arrested in Kenya last week during four days of security operations which were prompted by recent bomb attacks. A police spokesman declared that most of those arrested had later been released, but 69 suspects have already appeared in court and charged, with a further 447 suspects remaining in custody. The spokesman denied allegations that certain communities and faiths were being targeted by police, and said the aim of the operation had been to ‘detect illegal aliens, arrest and prosecute persons suspected of engaging in terrorist activities, identify places harboring criminals, and to contain and prevent general acts of crime and lawlessness’.

The BBC writes that separate far-right groups in Europe have traditionally been fragmented, but now, with support for the far-right rising, four parties - France's National Front, Austria's Freedom Party, Belgium's Lamas Belong and the Sweden Democrats - have joined up to form a European youth movement called Young European Alliance for Hope, or YEAH. At the group’s launch in Vienna, the talk was of uniting to create a ‘Europe of Fatherlands,’ rather than a United States of Europe. The creation of the movement follows a decision last year by National Front leader Marine Le Pen, and the Eurosceptic Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, to form a loose alliance for

the European elections.

A car filled with explosives was detonated outside the Bank of Greece in Athens on Thursday. Police confirmed that the car had been stolen and filled with 165 pounds of explosives and had been placed near to offices of Greece’s international leaders, a day before a visit to the area by the German Chancellor. The attack has been attributed to anarchist groups who the day before had launched the first anti-austerity demonstrations of the year in the country. No casualties were reported

The US State Department has issued a World Wide Caution, an extract of which states “that al- Qaeda and its affiliated organisations continue to plan terrorist attacks against U.S. interests in   multiple regions, including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. These attacks may employ a wide variety of tactics including suicide operations, assassinations, kidnappings, hijackings, and bombings”. It continues, “Extremists may elect to use conventional or non-conventional weapons, and target both official and private interests. Examples of such targets include high- profile sporting events, residential areas, business offices, hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, public areas, shopping malls, and other tourist destinations both in the United States and abroad where U.S. citizens gather in large numbers, including during holidays”.

The Russian government reportedly refused to help with FBI requests for more information about Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev and only agreed to help after the attack. The New York Times cites an Inspector General's report claiming that Russian officials warned the FBI in 2011 that Tamerlan "was a follower of radical Islam" who had become more extreme in his behaviour since 2010. Russia then blocked several FBI requests for additional information.

McDonald's has suspended work at its three Crimean restaurants following ongoing diplomatic tensions in the region. The company said that it would try to support staff, and hopes to re-open its restaurants as soon as possible. The firm is the second in the Crimea to alter its operations after heightened tensions between Russia and the west. Two weeks ago, Deutsche Post said that it was no longer accepting letters for Crimea.

An Iranian diplomat that America is refusing to accept as Tehran’s next ambassador to the United Nations was implicated in the death of an Iranian dissident in Rome in the 1990s, court documents obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal. Hamid Abutalebi was accused of overseeing the alleged assassination by Iranian agents of Mohammad Hossein Naghdi in Rome in 1993 where he had been the Iranian ambassador to Italy until the previous year.

Rep. Peter King is urging the US government to intervene in the case of a New York City police officer who has been detained in India for a month for possessing bullets in his luggage. Mr. King wrote in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry saying that he believes the officer's arrest is payback for the arrest and strip search of an Indian diplomat in New York last December. The 49- year-old NYPD officer was arrested on March 11 at New Delhi's Indira Gandhi Int’l Airport after authorities checking his luggage found three bullets in the pocket of a jacket.

Eric Harroun, sometimes known as the American Jihadist, who fought in Syria, has died of a [reported] overdose in Arizona. Eric Harroun, a US Army veteran who fought alongside al- Qaeda-affiliated rebels in the Syrian Civil War and was subsequently arrested by the FBI, has died. He was 31. His family confirmed his death this week. Harroun was arrested last year as he re- entered the US from fighting in Syria on charges of using a weapon of mass destruction. Those charges were later dropped, and in a plea bargain, Harroun was sentenced to time served, released, and returned home to his family in Phoenix.

Leaders of Thailand's pro-government movement have warned that any attempt to oust Prime Minister Shinawatra could trigger a civil war. They issued the warning at a rally outside Bangkok - the first staged by the "red shirt" movement near the capital since violent clashes broke out in November.

Cyber News:

Several tech firms are urging people to change all their passwords after the discovery of a major security flaw. The Yahoo blogging platform Tumblr has advised the public to "change your passwords everywhere - especially your high-security services like email, file storage and banking". Security advisers have given similar warnings about the Heartbleed Bug. It follows news that a product used to safeguard data could be compromised to allow eavesdropping.

Unable to breach the computer network at a big oil company, hackers infected with malware the online menu of a Chinese restaurant that was popular with employees. When the workers browsed the menu, they inadvertently downloaded code that gave the attackers a foothold in the business’s vast computer network. Security experts summoned to fix the problem were not allowed to disclose the details of the breach, but the lesson from the incident was clear: Companies scrambling to seal up their systems from hackers and government snoops are having to look in the unlikeliest of places for vulnerabilities.

In the last 12 months, Iran has emerged as a credible cyber terror threat to the US, targeting several US government agencies, but its lack of skills in this area means that for now, it has been unable to cause significant damage. Iran is more than five years behind the likes of China, the US and Russia in terms of its cyber capabilities but with the right resources, that gap could quickly be bridged ...

In the months before Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel’s arrival in Beijing last week, the Obama administration quietly held an extraordinary briefing for the Chinese military leadership on a subject officials have rarely discussed in public: the Pentagon’s emerging doctrine for defending against cyber-attacks against the United States — and for using its cyber-technology against adversaries, including the Chinese.

Websense has published the Websense Security Labs 2014 Threat Report. The report details the threats and trends that marked last year. The figures in the report show that 85% of the malicious links spotted in email or Web attacks last year pointed to legitimate websites that were hijacked by cybercriminals. Hackers mostly targeted business and economy, IT, shopping and travel websites. Malicious links and other malicious content was spotted in 3.3 % of all spam messages. The report also highlights the fact that ZeuS, which was initially developed to target financial organizations, has been repurposed. The malware has been used to target organizations in the services, manufacturing, finance, government, communications, education, retail, healthcare, transportation and utilities markets. “Cybercriminals continue to evolve their attack planning and execution to stay ahead of most existing security measures,” the vice president of security research for Websense said.

Trend Micro researchers have uncovered a new malware family targeting Word and Excel files: the Crigent worm (a.k.a. Power Worm). Crigent uses the Windows PowerShell scripting tool to carry out its routines, which is a clever way to hide its presence from IT admins as they are concentrated on looking for malicious binaries. It comes in the form of an infected Word or Excel document, downloaded by users or by some other malware that has already found its way to the victims' computer