Rogue Jeep on Philadelphia Airport runways causes terrorism scare

A runaway Jeep Grand Cherokee caused quite the disturbance in The Force Philadelphia on Thursday, March 1, when it broke through a chain-link fence and careened onto and across several active runways at Philadelphia International Airport.

Air traffic control contacted all incoming planes – including one U.S. Airways Express plane that was 10 seconds from landing on the now-occupied runway – that there would be a delay after their radar showed the vehicle on the runway. According to Philly police, the incident took place around 11:00 am, and foggy weather prevented pilots and crew from seeing the dark-colored Jeep, which had its headlights turned off.

Authorities chased the Jeep across three runways. Said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, "A man is in custody and being processed by Philly police. It appears he was high on something. There is no apparent nexus to terrorism."

High on something? Never would have guessed... In any case, the airport was shut down for 35 minutes out of "an abundance of caution," said Vicki Lupica, public information officer at Philadelphia's airport. The driver, Kenneth Richard Mazik, 24, of Chadsford, Pennsylvania, has been charged with driving under the influence, recklessly endangerment, resisting arrest, defiant trespass, criminal mischief, aggravated assault and simple assault.

Jihadist Calls Upon US Muslims to Cut off Letterman's tongue and "break his neck"

More peace and tolerance from the religion of pieces. Just another of one of millions of poor misunderstanders of Islam ..... all misunderstanding it in the exact same way, pointing to the exact same literal text commanding this very thing. *headscratcher*

It's no joke - David Letterman is now terror target No.1.
US Muslims were called upon to cut off Letterman's tongue and "break his neck" in a chilling post by a suspected terror operative on the al Qaeda online forum Shumoukh al-Islam.

The late-night funnyman angered a crazy jihadist bearing the moniker Umar al-Basrawi, "Omar from Basra, Iraq," because he joked about the deaths of Osama bin Laden and his successor.
In the missive, al-Basrawi said Letterman, a Presbyterian, is Jewish and part of a "Zionist" conspiracy.

"I have seen with my eyes and heard with my ears one of the scum of the Jews, one of their pigs, mocking the leaders of the mujahedeen," al-Basrawi wrote Tuesday, according to translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a nonprofit that monitors online chatter.

YUKS STOP HERE: A terrorist urged US Muslims to cut out the tongue of David Letterman for mocking Osama bin Laden and Ilyas Kashmiri.

"We pray to Allah to paralyze his tongue, and that the righteous believers will break his neck," the threat continued.

A source said al-Basrawi is connected to al Qaeda because in order to post on the Shumoukh forum, the terror group must approve of the author.

Letterman, who is on vacation this week, has often goofed on terrorists.
"So [al Qaeda] picked a successor to Osama bin Laden, and his name was Ilyas Kashmiri," the CBS "Late Show" star said during his opening monologue on June 8. "Well, guess what: He was blown up by an American drone.

"It wasn't going to work anyway, because they got off to a rocky start with this guy," Letterman continued. "He botched up the story of Paul Revere."

The quip referred to when Sarah Palin bungled an explanation of Revere's role in the Revolutionary War.
Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a one-eyed top al Qaeda operative, was killed June 3.

Terror ring's conspiracy to sell drugs to finance weapons for Taliban, Hezbolla foiled

Authorities cracked a conspiracy to supply thousands of weapons - including Stinger missiles - to Hezbollah and the Taliban, according to federal indictments unsealed Tuesday.
Four would-be drug and weapons dealers were charged with conspiring to sell drugs to finance missiles, rifles and handguns for the two terror organizations, the court papers alleged.
U.S. agents - running two separate, world-wide sting operations worthy of a James Bond movie - received thousands of dollars in down payments.
They even convinced two suspects to sign contract for $9.5 million, the indictments charge.
The contract was for 48 Stinger missiles, 100 Igla surface-to-air missiles and thousands of AK-47s and other guns, according to papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court.
"Today's indictments provide fresh evidence of what many of us have been seeing for some time: the growing nexus between drug trafficking" and terrorism, said U.S. Attorney Preet Bhahara.
The suspects met with undercover agents and confidential sources working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in Turkey, Romania, Greece, Malysia and Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Taza Gul Alizai, of Afghanistan, sold "assault rifles and heroin to a confidential source ... who purported to be a broker of weapons and narcotics," according to one indictment.
The source assured Gul Alizai that the weapons and drug profits would be given to the Taliban, the indictment said.
A second indictment names Siavosh Henareh, known as "The Doctor," along with Bachar Wehbe and Cetin Aksu in a plot that aimed to funnel cash to Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group.
Three other unidentified co-defendants were not charged.
"Today's indictments provide fresh evidence of what many of us have been seeing for some time: the growing nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism," said US Attorney Preet Bharara.
It's "a nexus that threatens to become a clear and present danger to our national security. Combating this lethal threat requires a bold and proactive approach," he said.
"And as crime increasingly goes global and national security threats remain global, the long arm of the law has to get even longer."

Credit : NY Daily News

NYPD Trains for New Type of Attack

Earlier this month the New York Police Department ran an antiterrorism exercise simulating an attack on the city.

A team of terrorists unleashed a coordinated series of bombings and gun attacks around the city in the simulation. At one point, terrorists attacked New York police officials visiting wounded officers in a hospital. By the time the daylong attacks were over, dozens of people had been killed and many more wounded.

The NYPD simulation was different from any of the terrorist incidents that have actually hit New York, such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks where terrorists hijacked planes to destroy the World Trade Center, or the foiled Times Square car-bombing attempt in May of this year.

Instead, the simulation deliberately mirrored the 2008 massacre in Mumbai. Within minutes of one another on the night of Nov. 26, 2008, 10 gunmen attacked various locations in the Indian capital, including two luxury hotels, a hospital and a railway station. The attack stretched on for three days as hostages were taken at several of the locations. Ultimately, 174 people were killed.

Until Mumbai, NYPD counterterrorism officials felt reasonably comfortable that they were prepared for any type of terrorist attack. But that comfort level was built on preparing for a single event, not a series of coordinated attacks that would terrorize a city for days on end.

"The Mumbai attack two years ago was a bit of a game changer," Mitchell Silber, head of the NYPD's intelligence analysis division, said. "It was a model that most counterterrorism practitioners hadn't really considered. The armed gunmen roaming around the city taking hostages, that wasn't something we had seen by any jihadist group. That was a real eye-opener." Mr. Silber said the more NYPD officials learned about the Mumbai attacks "the more similarities we saw between Mumbai city and New York City." Both, he said, are financial centers; both are surrounded by water on three sides; both get intense media attention.

The latest simulation made additional sense, he said, in light of the rumors this past fall that jihadists were planning another "Mumbai-style" attack somewhere in Europe.

So on Dec. 3, the NYPD's top brass gathered inside the department's headquarters in downtown Manhattan, in the Police Academy on East 20th Street and a third location, which police don't want to identify, that will be activated in the event police headquarters is destroyed. More than 40 senior commanders took part, and a facilitator introduced "injects," or new complications, into the exercise.

According to a memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, the police were given a fictional scenario that began with President Barack Obama visiting New York for a bill signing. At the same time, convicted Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was scheduled to appear in federal court. The attacks began with bombings in downtown that resulted in 18 dead and dozens injured. The president went ahead with the bill signing at the World Trade Center site, when another bomb went off nearby. He was whisked away.

The attack wasn't over. Six gunmen piled out of a van at Herald Square and opened fire on shoppers and pedestrians. They then entered the Macy's department store and took 26 hostages.

As in Mumbai, police in the simulation had trouble containing and anticipating the terrorists. At one point, police who tried to rescue hostages were shot by snipers. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Chief of Department Joseph Esposito went to Bellevue Hospital to visit wounded police officers, then both were incapacitated when a bomb exploded inside the emergency room, according to the simulation.

This is the eighth such large-scale tabletop exercise held by the NYPD since Mumbai, according to Paul Browne, the NYPD's spokesman. He said this exercise provided several valuable lessons. For instance, conventional wisdom was that the best way to deal with multiple subway bombings was to shut down all mass transportation and evacuate everyone by foot, Mr. Browne said. But the exercise showed the advantage of continuing to use buses during an attack to shepherd civilians out of lower Manhattan.

The exercise also showed that the first responding officers to Macy's shouldn't have evacuated people and waited for reinforcements, the traditional response in a hostage situation. Instead, the police could have minimized casualties by quickly finding and killing the terrorists who were shooting people.

Mr. Browne said the exercise also served as a reminder that the NYPD needs to obtain or update floor plans of the city's large department stores in case hostage-taking or some other standoff occurs there. Currently, the NYPD keeps floor plan copies for all of the city's major hotels and many popular buildings.

The department has taken other steps to prepare for a similar attack. Since Mumbai, Mr. Browne said, the NYPD has trained and equipped an addition 375 officers to use "heavy weapons" for a prolonged siege situation. The heavy weapons—MP5 submachine guns and Mini-14 semiautomatic carbine rifles—are needed to counteract military-style assault weapons like the ones used in Mumbai.

Lastly, police are preparing for more chaos. They now assume that when they advise civilians to "shelter in place," many will flee the island on foot as they did during the last major power blackout. That means police will need to protect pedestrians leaving Manhattan via the East River bridges or ferries.