Weekly Security Brief - April 21st

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:

The number of schools, including primary and secondary schools and academies, to be investigated over fears children are being “radicalised” by extremist Muslims attempting to seize control of institutions has increased to 25. Teams of inspectors are to be sent into schools and will be able to penalise those where religious conservatism is believed to be getting in the way of teaching. The Department for Education (DfE) launched the investigation after an alleged Islamic takeover plot to force out governors and head teachers was reported in Birmingham. Peter Clarke, the anti-terror police chief who led the investigation into the 7/7 London bombings has been picked to investigate the alleged 'Trojan Horse' plot to put Muslim extremists in charge of schools in Birmingham.

A teenager accused of plotting a 'new Columbine' massacre laughed in the dock as he said that his threat to shoot children at his school was just a 'joke'. Michael Piggin, 18, allegedly drew up a 'hit list' of pupils and teachers that he wanted to murder as he stored weapons, including a crossbow, knives and homemade bombs in his bedroom alongside terrorist manuals. The teenager, who also had a giant swastika flag above his bed, planned to target two schools in his hometown of Loughborough, as well as a mosque, cinema, university and council offices.

For the past year and a half, two academics from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), have been gathering, analysing and sifting the information about the increasing numbers of foreigners from countries including the UK, Belgium, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Australia, who have travelled to Syria and apparently joined the jihadi fighting groups. Research from the King's College-based ICSR in December estimated that 1,900 people from Western Europe had travelled to Syria to fight, including up to 296 from Belgium, 249 from Germany, 412 from France and 366 from the UK.

A former computer student from Croydon is set to be named as a key lieutenant of Abu Hamza, the hook-handed Islamic preacher who has gone on trial in New York this week. Feroz Ali Abbasi, 34, was among nine British Guantánamo detainees whose detention became a cause célèbre among those campaigning for the closure of the US military camp. His supporters have protested his innocence and insisted that the Americans could have no evidence against him. But as the trial of Hamza gets under way, testimony prepared for the court is expected to paint Abbasi in a very different light.

The BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner asks if London could once again become a haven for Arab dissidents bent on removing their own governments, as it was in the 1990s? Gardner mentions that Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered a review into the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood after unsubstantiated reports that some of its leaders were linked to terrorist attacks in Egypt. Gardner asks if scrutiny may risk driving harmless dissidents underground and into the arms of extremists. In a statement sent to the BBC, the Home Office said it was looking to improve ways of tackling terrorism and extremism, including deportation and depriving people of citizenship. "Coming to live in the UK is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those we believe are seeking to subvert our shared values and represent a threat to our society," a spokesman said.

The UK faces a significant threat from international terrorism. [...] Whilst there have been attacks against well protected targets around the world, experience shows that crowded places remain an attractive target for terrorists who have demonstrated that they are likely to target places which are easily accessible, regularly available and which offer the prospect for an impact beyond the loss of life alone (for example, serious disruption or a particular economic/political impact). See the government guide to ‘Protecting Crowded Places: Design and Technical Issues’

Northern Ireland and Eire:

Police have arrested a 44-year-old man in connection with a republican dissident mortar bomb attack that almost killed a family in west Belfast last month. The device was detonated from a firing point in the Belfast city cemetery as a police patrol was passing along the Falls Road on 14 March. A Filipino and his children were also driving by at the time of the blast and were treated for shock after their car was hit with masonry that sprayed across the road. The dissident republican new IRA group admitted responsibility for the attack and according to some sources they had used recently acquired Semtex to trigger the blast. Security forces in Northern Ireland are bracing themselves for attempts by the new IRA, the Continuity IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann to launch terror attacks over the Easter period. Armed republican groups have a long record for intensifying their violence in the run-up to Easter to mark the 1916 rising against British rule.

he trial of a man accused of being a member of the Provisional IRA has collapsed at Belfast Crown Court. Martin Edward Morris, 49, from London, was due to stand trial on a single charge of professing to be a member of the IRA between 1 August 1997 and 30 June 2000. A prosecution A prosecution lawyer told the court that the Crown were "offering no evidence against the defendant".

Two men are due to appear in court charged with theft in connection with a van that prompted a security alert in Co Tyrone. The men, aged 33 and 45, have been charged with theft and going equipped for theft. Officers detained two men during the incident, and police later said a substantial quantity of material, believed to be fertiliser, had been removed and taken away for examination. The pair are due to appear at Omagh Magistrates' Court on May 13.
he Old Bailey bomber, Dolours Price-Rea, died after taking a mix of prescribed sedative and anti- depressant medications, an inquest has heard. Ms Price-Rea (62) was found dead in bed by her son at their home in Co Dublin in January 2013. She was a member of the Provisional IRA unit that carried out the bombing of the Old Bailey in London in 1973. Along with her sister Marian Price, she was jailed for her involvement in the attack.

International:

Ukraine says it will launch an investigation into a fatal shooting in the east of the country which has raised tension with Russia further. At least three people died in the raid on a checkpoint manned by pro-Russian separatists near the town of Sloviansk. Russia expressed "outrage" at the shooting and said Ukraine's Right Sector nationalists were to blame. The incident came as pro-Russian groups continued to occupy government buildings defying a deal to leave. The deputy secretary of Ukraine's national security council, Viktoriya Siumar told the BBC that it was too early to tell who was responsible for the attack. Criminal groups could have been behind the incident, she said, adding that "the level of criminality in eastern Ukraine has increased substantially recently". Ms Siumar said that Kiev was "concerned" about the fact that Russia had already reached its own conclusions.

Nato has said it is taking immediate steps to boost its military presence in eastern Europe in response to Russian "aggression" in Ukraine. Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced the 28-nation alliance - which does not include Ukraine - had agreed on a package of further military measures to reinforce its members' defences. It also agreed to deploy more air and sea forces, as well as increase the readiness of land forces, in the Baltic and eastern Mediterranean.

Ukraine is “on the brink” of civil war as the government launched an “antiterrorist operation” against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. In the first sign of a fight back against militias who have now seized key buildings in a dozen eastern cities, Kiev dispatched Special Forces, combat aircraft and heavy armor to the area. Amid fears that the fighting could push Ukraine and Russia into full-scale hostilities, William Hague, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, accused Moscow of “deliberately” stirring the confrontation. He warned that it would damage relations for at least a decade

Fresh violence has erupted in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, between police and opponents of President Nicolas Maduro. Masked protesters burned effigies of the president after a rally called "Resurrection of Democracy". Police responded to petrol bombs in the Chacao district with tear gas and water cannon. More than 40 people have died in violent protests since February and hundreds of people have been arrested. The demonstrations started with students demanding action to tackle Venezuela's high crime rate, its growing inflation and shortages of certain food staples. They have since grown into a wider opposition movement and many of the protesters say they will not stop until the government of President Maduro resigns. 
The al-Qaeda-linked group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has threatened to attack Canada and the West in a new viral video. One of the terrorists in the short film stated that, after ending the "jihad" in the Middle East, the war will be taken to North America - specifically to "destroy" Canada, according to Shalom Toronto. "This message is directed to Canada and all American tyrants," the unidentified terrorist states. "We will destroy you, with the help of Allah." The terrorist, who spoke in English, had a North American accent; it is not known whether or not he is a Canadian citizen. He did say, however, that he "emigrated" to Syria to join the Islamists.

A Yemeni faction of al-Qaeda may be planning to attack western targets, including the United States, a recent video indicates. The video allegedly shows a gathering of hundreds of al-Qaeda members, filmed during a celebration of a mass jailbreak of fighters in Sana'a, Yemen. During the 15-minute clip, which was reportedly shot last month and just emerged, the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) speaks of 'removing America'. A promotional al-Qaeda video featuring an open public appearance, apparently in Yemen, by a man seen as the group's second in command surfaced this week providing unusually bold and defiant evidence of the group's continuing determination to attack the US. The clips of Nasser al-Wuhayshi, who is also leader of al-Qaeda's most dangerous affiliate, showed one of the US's most-wanted terrorists willing to appear in the open in a country in which the US runs two drone-strike programs. US counterterrorism officials are studying the video, which appears to be real and filmed earlier this year, and shows. Wuhayshi presiding over an event in Yemen with roughly 100 armed fighters. "The depiction of such a large gathering of fighters and the appearance of senior leaders are atypical of AQAP's propaganda videos," a US official said.

Heavily armed Boko Haram Islamists kidnapped more than 100 girls from a school in northeast Nigeria. The radical group, which has attacked schools in the area before as part of their anti- government rebellion, carried off the students from a school in Borno state.

An apparent FBI investigation has at least temporarily shut down the effort to try five Guantánamo Bay prisoners by military commission for the Sept. 11 terror attack. The US government brought about 200 people to the US base in Cuba for a hearing into whether one defendant is mentally competent to stand trial in the death penalty case. But that plan has been dashed by the revelation that the FBI is investigating how the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attack was able to send two letters and an essay out of the prison without passing through a security review.

The United States government has released a 28-minute video about the case of Glenn Duffie Shriver, an American who took money from Chinese intelligence officers while living in Shanghai and was convicted of trying to acquire United States defence secrets for them. The FBI says it wants American students preparing to study abroad to watch the video so they will be able to recognise when they might be the targets of recruiting efforts by foreign intelligence agencies.

The New York Police Department has disbanded a secret program designed to eavesdrop on Muslims to identify potential terrorist threats. The Demographics Unit had dispatched plainclothes detectives to listen to conversations and build files on places frequented by Muslims, US media say. The squad had been the subject of two federal lawsuits in the past, and drew anger from civil rights groups. It is also said to have sowed Muslim mistrust for law enforcement.

A 14-year-old Dutch girl who tweeted American Airlines saying ‘I'm part of Al Qaeda and on June 1st I'm gonna do something really big’ has been arrested, police have confirmed. The girl, who is believed to be called Sarah, tweeted the airline saying ‘hello my name's Ibrahim and I'm from Afghanistan. I'm part of al-Qaeda and on June 1st I'm gonna do something really big. Bye’.

Cyber News:

Israeli hackers attacked computers belonging to Anonymous and allied hacker groups, taking pictures with exploited webcams and posting the photos online, during the organization’s OpIsrael hacking attack last week. A hacker called ‘Buddhax’, a member of the Israeli Elite Force hacking group, posted the information on the IEF’s Facebook page two days after anti-Israel hackers attempted to repeat last year’s mass attacks on Israeli sites (on 7 April). While Anonymous hackers were attacking Israeli sites, Buddhax traced the IP addresses of some of the attackers and broke into at least 16 computers, taking screenshots, scraping computers for logins and passwords of online accounts and using their webcams to take photos of the hackers, Buddhax said. He sent a message to each hacker reading, “Next time don’t take part in OpIsrael. We know who you are. We know where you are. Long live Israel!”

A group of alleged hackers has been charged with breaking into the computer systems of the US Army, Microsoft, and several other firms to steal pre-release copies of popular video games like “Call of Duty,” simulation software for Apache attack helicopter pilots, and confidential data that was used to create counterfeit versions of the Xbox gaming system, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Insider threats are no longer only made up of traditional insiders with legitimate access rights who abuse their positions to steal data for personal gain. Privileged users who maintain systems and networks are now an additional concern, as their roles typically require access to all data accessible from systems to perform their work. In the study from industry analyst Ovum, nearly half of UK-based respondents (42%) acknowledged it is these privileged users (system administrators, database administrators, network administrators, and so on) who pose the biggest risk to their organisations. A third insider threat concern comes from the outside-in, with cybercriminals actively seeking to compromise insider accounts (focusing most heavily on privileged users) to infiltrate systems and steal data using their credentials. This was likely the case, for instance, in the Target breach, which is one of the largest in retail sector history. “Almost half of European organisations [47%] believe that insider threats are now more difficult to detect, with senior IT managers being very worried about the things their own users can do with corporate data,” the principal analyst at Ovum, said in a statement.

More on the Heartbleed bug: Heartbleed, a long-undiscovered bug in cryptographic software called OpenSSL that secures Web communications, may have left roughly two-thirds of the Web vulnerable to eavesdropping for the past two years. Heartbleed isn't your garden-variety vulnerability. Nine hundred Canadians have had their Social Insurance Numbers stolen from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) website, as a result of the Heartbleed security bug. A 19-year-old Canadian became the first person to be arrested in relation to the Heartbleed security breach.