1. package destroyed in Milan
ROME - BOMB experts destroyed a suspicious package that was found at Milan's Malpensa airport on Tuesday, but officials said it contained no explosives.
...The package - about 20 by 10cm - was scotch-taped all around and had an antenna sticking from it. Pepe said it contained no explosives, but police were trying to determine its contents.
The parcel was abandoned in a men's bathroom in the check-in area for charter flights, said Carla Fossati of the SEA company that operates Milan's airports. Mr Pepe said that the area is near the part of the terminal where US-bound passengers check in.
Following a botched Christmas Day attack aboard a Detroit-bound plane from Amsterdam, Italy's civil aviation authority ordered airports to tighten security for passengers leaving for the United States. Measures include increased body and baggage searches.
Tuesday's scare caused no air traffic disruption at the airport, Mr Pepe said. The area where the parcel was destroyed was cordoned off and passengers were taken to a different check-in area. -- AP
source: straits times2. white powder in envelope triggers Commons terror scare - UK
An envelope containing suspicious white powder was sent to the communities minister Shahid Malik at the House of Commons, triggering an anti-terrorist investigation, the Guardian has learned.
The letter, sent from within the UK, led to a major alert on Monday as it was intercepted by security screening staff who feared it held potentially deadly anthrax. Comments on the envelope suggest it was sent by a supporter of the far right or someone purporting to be one.
Emergency procedures were activated and the powder was tested and found to be harmless. It is understood that the Speaker, John Bercow, and his most senior officials were kept fully informed.
Detectives are examining the envelope, the written comments and the postmark to try to trace the sender. They want to establish whether this is an isolated incident or the beginning of a campaign by criminal elements on the far right.
Malik, Britain's first Muslim minister, was unavailable for comment but a spokesman said: "Mr Malik is grateful to the police and very grateful to the parliamentary authorities for their alertness and dedication in ensuring the safety of all correspondence to parliamentarians. He has been in his Dewsbury constituency all week and will continue serving constituents and carrying out his ministerial duties."
Many high-profile minority politicians endure racist hate mail but Malik has long been a particular target for violent and abusive supporters of the far right.
read more @ the guardian3. HAARETZ: would-be airline bomber: there are many like me in Yemen
The messages **likely posted** by failed airliner bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on an Islamic web forum reveal a young man who suffers from loneliness and struggles between a commitment to Islam and the temptations of the West.
...Officials have not yet confirmed that the internet postings by Farousk1986were written by Abdulmutallab, but the many biographical details written by the poster match reports about Abdulmutallab's life. [and WHO ELSE COULD POSSIBLY HAVE SUCH INFORMATION???? - ed.]
Abdulmutallab told U.S. investigators that he is only one of many trained in Yemen who plan to attack Western targets. "There are more just like me who will strike soon," he warned.
According to ABC news, FBI sources claim that Abdulmutallab underwent a month-long training in Yemen, and during this training he learned how to detonate explosives and how to pass the security check by sewing the explosives to his underwear. ABC also reported that two former inmates of Gunatanamo prison were among the architects of the attempted terror attack. [nice touch - ed.]
Yemen's foreign minister said on Tuesday that there are over 300 Al-Qaeda activists in his country and requested intelligence aid from the West.
CNN also reported on Tuesday that U.S. and Yemeni officials were looking at fresh targets for a possible retaliation strike in Yemen, citing two unidentified American officials.
The officials stressed that efforts were aimed at being ready with options in the event that U.S. President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike, CNN reported. It said the officials were trying to identify targets linked directly to the airline incident.
A RETALIATORY STRIKE?????? - ed.
more at haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1138739.html
REACTION: nobody has ever learned anything in all this time since 911. people are making the same stupid human errors that they did when 911 happened. oh my gosh, this is terrible. Woe. WOE. HUMAN ERROR HUMAN ERROR HUMAN ERROR!!!!! YOU HUMANS MAKE SO MANY DAMNED ERRORS!
4. CIA sat on suspect warning
WASHINGTON - THE father of the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a US airliner bound for Detroit on Christmas Day spoke with a CIA official in Nigeria about his son's radicalisation, CNN reported on Tuesday.
The official prepared a report on the meeting, but it was not disseminated by CIA headquarters, according to CNN, which cited an unidentified source.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to ignite the explosives on Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam as it approached Detroit on Dec 25. Abdulmutallab's father, a prominent Nigerian banker, had relayed concerns about his son's behaviour to the US Embassy in Abuja, but the son's name was never placed on a no-fly list. President Barack Obama on Tuesday blamed a combination of 'human and systemic failures' in security for allowing the botched attack.
Mr Obama said in Hawaii: 'When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been so that this extremist boards a plane with dangerous explosives that could have cost nearly 300 lives, a systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable.' -- AFP
President Barack Obama lashed out at systemic intelligence failures, after learning a US security agency had prior information that might have averted the attempted attack on a US jet. "There was a mix of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security," Obama said.
"A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable," Obama added, breaking his Hawaii vacation for a second straight day as recriminations mounted over the botched December 25 attack on a Northwest airliner.
...It was not the first time that intelligence failures had opened the door to "a terror attack": the September 11 attacks in 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people, were blamed on similar errors.
read more @ al manar tv
SOLUTION: we must "crack down" we must submit to more inconveniences we must give up our privacy
and our money and our very lives to the never-ending fight against the evil terrorists. ASSUME THE POSITION. SIGH. it never ends why does it never end?????6. Yemen: Please help us crack down on these al qaeda militants!!!!!
Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr Al-Qirbi called for more help from the Western community to train local security forces to "crack down on several hundred Al-Qaeda militants who may be operating in Yemen."
He added that they also could be planning attacks like the alleged attempt to blow up a US-bound passenger jet. "Of course there are a number of Al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realise this danger, they may actually plan for attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit," he told the BBC.
Asked to specify the number of Al-Qaeda operatives, he answered: "I can't give you really an exact figure, maybe hundreds of them, 200 or 300. I don't have a real figure."
read more @ al manar tv
7. Dutch to use full body scanners
The Netherlands will immediately begin using full body scanners for flights heading to the United States to prevent future terrorist attacks like the foiled Christmas Day attempt.
read more @ independent
8. German police against body scanners as airport security debate reignites
The failed terrorist attack on a transatlantic flight to Detroit has re-started a debate in Germany on full-body scanners. The national police union (GdP) has declared itself against their use.
National GdP chairman Konrad Freiberg told reporters on Monday that while there was always a need for better security technology, the so-called 'naked' scanners, which allow personnel to see through clothing, were an unacceptable compromise.
"The private or intimate sphere of passengers should not be invaded," he said.
But Freiberg also warned the German government against watering down security measures.
"If the security laws are diluted, it will give terrorists the opportunity to strike," he said, commenting on the Free Democratic Party's (FDP) intention to limit police powers for keeping an information database. "No-one should believe that Islamist terror has become less dangerous."
Freiberg also argued that while the technology for detecting potential bomb threats at airports needed to be constantly updated, it was just as important that there was constant pressure on suspected terrorist cells. "A potential terrorist should not be allowed to get as close to execution as in the recent case," he said.
read more @ the local
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