US army veteran shoots dead five persons in Fort Lauderdale airport, Florida

A US army veteran who said the government was controlling his mind has shot dead five people in a baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale airport in Florida. Apart from the five dead, eight others were injured in the attack.
The 26-year-old killer has been identified and arrested - he had served in Iraq with the National Guard before being demoted and discharged last year for poor performance.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 7 January 2017.

The killer has been taken into custody and is being questioned by the FBI and detectives. They are looking at the terrorism angle also. It seems he had a history of mental health problems and was getting psychological treatment. He arrived at Fort Lauderdale just before 1pm local time on a flight from Minnesota. He was dressed in a Star Wars T-shirt, and he took out a 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage and began to fire at people.
Incidentally, as per TSA rules, flying with guns is legal in the US so long as they are kept in a locked hard-sided container as checked baggage only. Ammunition is not allowed in cabin baggage but is allowed in checked baggage.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Anonymous caller threatens terror attack in Los Angeles near a Hollywood theme park

Security has been tightened at metro stations in Los Angeles following a "specific" threat of a terror attack close to a major Hollywood theme park. As per FBI, the threat was made on an anonymous tip line and passed on to the US Joint Terrorism Task Force by an international partner.
This has been reported in news.sky.com dated 6 December 2016.

The call was apparently made by a man who was speaking English. He threatened an attack on the "off-ramp" at the Universal City/Studio City Red Line metro station situated north of Los Angeles, about half a mile from the Universal Studios attraction.
The FBI, the Los Angeles police and sheriff's departments will step up security on the metro system and there will be more number of uniformed and undercover officers on duty. The red and purple lines carried around 145,000 passengers a day.
Major employers in the area around Universal City have alerted their staff accordingly.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Ohio student stabs people with a butcher knife before being shot dead

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Ohio student stabs people with a butcher knife before being shot dead

A student of Ohio State University went on a stabbing spree in the campus of the University. He was a Somali-born student and he plowed his car into a group of pedestrians on campus. Then he got out of the car and began to stab people with a butcher knife today before being shot dead by an officer.
The incident happened on on the 60,000-student campus of the University.
This has been reported in nzherald.co.nz dated 29 November 2016.

A total of eleven people were hurt, one of them is critical. Most of the injured were hurt by the car, and at least two were stabbed and one had a fractured skull.
It seems the assailant deliberately drove his small grey Honda over a curb outside an engineering classroom building and then began knifing people. He has been identified as being born in Somalia and he was a legal permanent US resident. The FBI has joined the investigation.
The Islamic State group wants its sympathizers online to carry out "lone wolf" attacks in their home countries with whatever weapons are available to them. Police are investigating whether this was a terrorist attack.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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US admits - there is no way to monitor online encrypted messages of ISIS

The multiplying effect of the online propaganda blitz of ISIS has put the US on the back foot and they have been forced to admit that there is no way to monitor the online encrypted communications of the terrorists.
This has been reported in foxnews.com dated 3 June 2015.

The ISIS was distributing its propaganda and recruiting messages to as many as 200,000 people on social media worldwide, and, with 200-plus social media companies, the problem aggravates.
Michael Steinbach, head of the FBI's counterterrorism division, has revealed that some of these companies build their business model around end-to-end encryption which adds to the problem. While the number of ISIS propagandists were a few thousand, technology was complicating efforts to monitor them.
In his opinion, evolving technologies were outpacing laws that allow law enforcement to intercept communications by suspects. It is a sensitive issue and has go be approached cautiously because with the advanced communication systems available, secrets can no longer be kept secrets for a longtime.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Two women of New York planned to carry out a Boston style bombing in NYC

#FBI #HeraldSquare #NYC #BostonBombing #terrorists FBI has arrested a team of two women of New York who had planned a terrorist attack on NYC on the lines of the Boston bombings – they had conspired to use weapons of mass destruction. One of these women was apparently in possession of a number of gas tanks and instructions on turning them into bombs.
This has been reported in bbc.com dated 3 April 2015.
A Brooklyn court has charged both the women who are US citizens. They have said that they understood the charges.
As per court documents, they had referred to themselves as "citizens of the Islamic State" and one of them had been in regular contact with members of the foreign terrorist organization al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Her accomplice referred to Osama Bin Laden as a hero.

It seems the two of them had plotted to unleash terror by creating explosive devices. They had even researched the pressure cooker bombs used during the Boston Marathon bombing. This has been revealed by the FBI.
The women had been plotting to build an explosive device since at least August of last year and had, accordingly, studied chemistry and electricity. They did not have any specific target in mind but had considered Herald Square in Manhattan as a target.
Interestingly, one of the women had criticized a US Air Force veteran who was arrested for trying to go to Syria engage in violent jihad. Her logic is – why go to Syria when there were targets in the US that could be put to use.

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Ohio man had planned to shoot President Barack Obama in the head

#pipebombs #ISIS #FBI #USCapitol #Ohio 20-year-old Christopher Cornell of Ohio has admitted that if he had not been arrested by FBI agents in January, he would have gone ahead and shot President Barack Obama in the head. He would also have carried out an alleged plot to plant pipe bombs on the Capitol and at the Israeli Embassy.
He has sympathies with the Islamic State militants and appeared to be nonchalant about the whole thing – that is what he has told in a TV interview from his prison cell over the telephone. This has been reported in zeenews.india.com dated 7 March 2015.
He was arrested and is being held without bail after he researched how to make pipe bombs, purchased a rifle and ammunition and made plans to travel to Washington to carry out the plot. This has been revealed in a court testimony from an informant of FBI.
The charges against him are of attempted murder of government officials, possession of a firearm to commit a crime and solicitation to commit a violent crime.
In the interview he has said that he would have released more bullets on the Senate and the House of Representative members, and also attacked the Israeli Embassy and various other buildings full of kafir.
Kafir is the name given by Muslims to an infidel.
His logic was that the kafirs want to wage war against us Muslims and shed their blood. He has gone on to say that he gets his orders from his brothers overseas in Syria and Iraq. They had apparently asked him to carry out jihad in the West.

Another interesting blog - Citizen Journalist

Another interesting blog - Ramblings