Weekly Security Brief - June 30th

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:
Controversial Saudi preacher Mohamed al-Arifi, has been barred from entering the United Kingdom. Earlier last week, the cleric was accused in British media of radicalising three young British citizens, allegedly now fighting in Syria, after he spoke at a centre in Cardiff. Al-Arifi is a Sunni Muslim who has been accused of stirring up tensions with between Shia and Sunni Muslims and has already been banned from entering Switzerland.

It is believed that groups linked to the extremist preacher Anjem Choudary have staged ‘pop-up’ radicalisation sessions in Cardiff, similar to those attended by three young men who have since joined jihadist groups in Syria. Choudary said he had been giving talks and attending meetings in Cardiff for a long time, but did not know any of the young men in a recent ISIL video. The preacher confirmed however, that offshoot groups from the banned group al-Muhajiroun, which Choudary led with the exiled cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, were active in Wales. One group linked to Choudary tweeted a series of pictures from a barbecue which showed men wearing T-shirts and flying flags bearing what appeared to be the emblem of ISIL.

Al-Qaeda inspired terrorists in Iraq are 'just a few hours flying time' from striking Britain 'and want to attack us', the Home Secretary warned in a speech at Mansion House. Theresa May said that Islamist fighters had carved out a "safe haven" in the Middle East, with "advanced technology and weapons" capable of threatening the UK. She said the terror threat was now "on the doorstep of Europe" and was the most serious since 9/11.
Britain will live with the consequences of the war in Syria and the rise of Islamic extremism within its own borders for "many years" to come, a top counter-terrorism expert has warned. Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police's assistant commissioner and head of specialist operations, spoke after footage appeared online purportedly showing several young British jihadists in Syria in a recruitment video for Islamist terror group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). She said, "I'm afraid I believe that we will be living with the consequences of Syria – from a terrorist point of view, let alone the world, geopolitical consequences – for many, many, many years to come." Reports also surfaced on 22 June that counter-terrorism officers were targeting jihadist recruiters operating within Britain.
As many as 2,000 young men may have travelled from Britain to join extremist groups in Syria and Iraq, a Labour MP has claimed this week. Khalid Mahmood (MP for Birmingham Perry Barr) made the claim as YouTube and other internet video-streaming sites were being urged to swiftly take down footage of British jihadists encouraging other young Muslims to join them abroad. Mahmood commented that there had been several waves of young men going out to fight in Syria in the last few years and said, “Certainly close to 2,000 would be a reasonable estimate.”

The Times has reported that two British jihadists who appeared in a terrorism recruitment video urging Muslims to fight in Syria, were followers of an austere sect which is the fastest growing branch of Islam in Britain. Nasser Muthana and Reyaad Khan, both 20, went to the Al-Manar Centre in Cardiff, which is aligned to the ultra-conservative Salafi wing of Islam, the newspaper noting that Abu Hamza and Abu Qatada were also Salafists. The Times commented that Salafi places of worship in Britain have increased by 50 per cent in four years.

Counter-terror chiefs have taken steps to prevent banned organisation, Al-Muhajiroun, from circumventing the law by changing its name. Need4Khilafah, The Shariah Project and The Islamic Dawah Association are now banned as aliases for the group, which is also known under already- banned names Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect. Islam4UK, which was led by radical preacher Anjem Choudary, is also covered by the order. Immigration and Security Minister James Brokenshire said, "Terrorist organisations should not be allowed to escape proscription simply by acting under a different name. That is why we have today laid an order which will, from tomorrow, recognise the Need4Khilafah, the Shariah Project and the Islamic Dawah Association as aliases of the group already proscribed as both Al Ghurabaa and The Saved Sect... also known as Al Muhajiroun. He added that the proscription means that “being a member of or supporting the organisation is a criminal offence.”

Northern Ireland and Eire:
PSNI have arrested six people in connection with attacks carried out by Oglaigh na hEirean. The arrests last Tuesday were made following searches carried out at locations in west Belfast and Dunmurry. Five men aged between 31 and 58 were arrested along with a 32-year-old woman. All six are being questioned under section 41 of the Terrorism Act.

A 27 year old man appeared in court last week, having voluntarily attended Antrim Police Station on Monday in connection to dissident republican activity. William Martin McDonnell is said to have attended Maghaberry prison on 5 June in possession of a handwritten note which was to be passed to dissident republican prisoner Seamus McLaughlin. McLaughlin awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to charges relating to a foiled mortar bomb attack on a police station last year. McDonnell was further charged that between 5 and 23 June he failed to notify police of information required under the Counter Terrorism Act 2008. McDonnell denied both charges and was remanded in custody for a video link hearing on 23 July.
Queen Elizabeth and Sinn Féin Deputy First Minister Martin McGuiness passed another peace process milestone last week when they held their first private, “positive” and “substantive” one- to-one meeting. The former IRA leader spoke with the British monarch for some 15 minutes after she arrived at Hillsborough Castle for the start of her 21st visit to Northern Ireland.

Richard Haass, the American diplomat who chaired the inter-party talks aimed at addressing some of the unresolved issues from the peace process, has risked the anger of unionists after he said the Irish language should be considered for official use in Northern Ireland. In an acceptance speech after being awarded the Tipperary Peace Award, Haass also called for a Troubles museum to be built.
The IRA should not be blamed for keeping the Guildford Four, Birmingham Six and other innocent people behind bars, despite knowing they were not guilty of IRA bombings, Gerry Adams has said. In the wake of the death of one of those wrongly jailed, Gerry Conlon, the Sinn Féin leader said the burden of guilt for the miscarriages of justice rests absolutely with the British establishment. Conlon, who died over a week ago, spent 14 years in jail for the 1974 IRA bombing of the Horse and Groom pub in Guildford, Surrey, in which four soldiers and a civilian were killed and 65 people were injured.

A 44-year-old Spanish man has been extradited from Northern Ireland to Spain to stand trial for a number of terrorist offences. Fermin Vila Michelena was detained by the PSNI on a European Arrest Warrant in June 2010. The charges relate to separate killings of a military general and police officer in Madrid 11 years ago. He is also wanted over a car bomb attack on a bank in the Spanish capital in 2001 that injured 18 people.

International:
Islamist militant group Isis has said it is establishing a caliphate, or Islamic state, on the territories it controls in Iraq and Syria. It also proclaimed the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as caliph and "leader for Muslims everywhere". Setting up a caliphate ruled by the strict Islamic law has long been a goal of many jihadists. Meanwhile, Iraq's army continued an offensive to retake the northern city of Tikrit from the Isis-led rebels.

The number of Islamist extremists fighting for ISIS could double after al-Qaeda's 15,000 strong offshoot in Syria is said to have pledged allegiance to the militant group. News of the merger between ISIS and the al-Nusra front were made by both the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and an Islamist website. Images widely shared by ISIL supporters online appeared to show al-Nusra's alleged leader [...] embracing ISIS fighters after apparently taking an oath of
 allegiance. In April the al-Nusra Front pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who has previously condemned ISIS' brutal attempts to establish an Islamic state in the Middle East as too extreme, so the development points to a new split within al-Qaeda's ranks.

The United States government has identified an Islamic charity as a front for one of the world’s largest terrorist groups and accused it of carrying out an attack on an Indian consulate in Afghanistan last month. According to US State Department officials the group, Jamaat ud Dawa, is an alias of the Lashkar e Taiba, the Kashmir-focused terror group which is believed to have carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which ten suicide commandos killed more than 150 people in a three day massacre.
An Airbus A310 [...] operated by Pakistan International Airlines, was hit by ground fire while on approach to Peshawar Airport in Pakistan. One crew member, a flight steward, and a female passenger were hit by bullets. The passenger died on the way to hospital. The airplane operated on flight from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to one cabin crew member, the airplane was at about 300 feet just north of the airport when it was hit.

Thirty two alleged terror groups in China were disbanded and 380 people linked to the groups detained last week as part of a crackdown against Islamist militants in the restive Xinjiang province. The crackdown was ordered by President Xi Jinping following a suicide attack at a market in Urumqi last month, which killed over forty people and injured nearly one hundred.

North Korea says it will put two detained US men on trial, accusing them of "committing hostile acts". Matthew Miller and Jeffrey Fowle had been investigated and would be brought before a court, the state news agency KCNA reported. It said that suspicions about the two men had been confirmed by evidence and the pair's own statements, but gave no further details. A US-Korean missionary, Kenneth Bae, is currently serving a 15-year sentence. He was arrested in November 2012 and later convicted of trying to overthrow the North Korean government. US attempts to secure his release have so far proved unsuccessful, despite fears over his health.
 Both of the US nationals to be put on trial entered North Korea on tourist visas.
In Morocco, Police have allegedly disrupted a terrorist cell recruiting and sending volunteers to fight alongside Islamists in Syria and Iraq, arresting six people. It is reported that among those arrested in the operation, carried out in the city of Fez in coordination with the domestic intelligence agency, was a Moroccan Islamist formerly held under the country’s anti-terrorist law.

King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect Saudi Arabia against potential "terrorist threats" after chairing a security meeting to discuss the fall-out from Iraq, the state news agency SPA said last week. The world's top oil exporter shares an 500-mile border with Iraq, where the militant Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other Sunni Muslim groups have seized towns and cities in a lightning advance this month. Riyadh has long expressed fears of being targeted by jihadists, including some of its own citizens, who have taken part in conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and earlier this year decreed long jail terms for those who travel overseas to fight.

The United Nations Security Council sanctioned the leader of Nigeria's Boko Haram and a splinter group this week, the first individual and entity to be designated by the world body since the Islamist militant group was blacklisted, diplomats said. Leader Abubakar Shekau and Boko Haram faction Ansaru will be banned from international travel and their assets frozen under the U.N. al-Qaeda sanctions list.
Russia has said the United States is to blame for the continued fighting in eastern Ukraine. It made clear its anger after yesterday's free-trade deal between Ukraine and the European Union. There has been more fighting between government forces and the pro-Russian separatists, despite a declared ceasefire.

Cyber News:
UK consumers have lost more than £21m to "social engineering" scams where fraudsters impersonated bank employees and tech support since the beginning of the year, according to GetSafeOnline. A range of tactics including phishing emails, fraudulent phone calls asking for personal or financial information or phone calls from fraudsters impersonating computer technical support agents have been used to defraud punters. So-called voicemail phishing (or visiting) in particular is having a big impact. According to Financial Fraud Action UK, approximately 23 per cent of people in the UK have received a cold call requesting personal or financial information. In the first five months of this year alone, some of the UK’s main high street banks have reported losses of over £21m from voice phishing (or "vishing" attacks on their customers, with over 2,000 attacks resulting in an average loss of over £10,000 per victim, according to GetSafeOnline.

Some 12% of organisations globally experienced at least one targeted attack last year, a noticeable increase from previous years, with the government and defence sector the most frequently affected, according to new research from Kaspersky Lab. The Russian internet security firm surveyed 4,000 IT managers from across 27 countries to compile its ‘2014 IT Security Risks’ report. It revealed that the number of firms affected by targeted attacks rose from 9% or lower in the 2012 and 2013 reports to 12% in the current study. Some 18% of government and defence organisations were hit by at least one attack. [...] As for other industries, relatively large numbers of respondents from telecoms (17%), financial services (16%) and transport and logistics (16%) reported targeted attacks last year. On the other hand, those in real estate (8%), media (9%) and consumer services (8%) were rarely affected.

Over 190 clients of a large European bank have been targeted in a man-in-the-browser (MITB) campaign that allowed cybercriminals to pull at least half a million euros (approx. $680.000) out of their accounts. Detecting this type of attack is quite difficult because all security controls are still displayed and work normally.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is taking a holistic approach to cybersecurity that focuses on preventing or mitigating the effects of a cyber intrusion on the critical infrastructure, according to a department undersecretary. Suzanne Spaulding, undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate at the department, said that continuity of operation is the key to resisting cyber attacks.
Call it the “IMSI catcher” war, with the acronym standing for International Mobile Subscriber Identity. Every device that communicates with a cell tower—mobile phone, smartphone or tablet—has one. What StingRay (manufactured by Florida-based Harris Corp.) and its competitors do is act like a cell phone tower, drawing the unique IMSI signals into their grasp. Once the device is locked onto a signal, the quarry’s data is ripe for the plucking. Major targets include people working for US national security agencies, defence contractors and officials, including members of such congressional panels as the armed services and intelligence committees.


Significant Forthcoming Anniversaries:
30 June 2007 Two individuals attempt to crash a VBIED into a Glasgow Airport passenger terminal.
1 July 2010 Muhammad Oudeh (aka Abu Daoud), mastermind of the Munich Olympic Games terrorist incident in 1972, dies in Damascus
 4 July 2014 U.S. Independence Day
4 July 1976 Israelis mount a rescue mission on Entebbe to free 246 hijacked hostages; two hostages and one hijacker killed
 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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