The Transportation Security Administration (7/20) warned:

A surge in recent suspicious incidents at U.S. airports may indicate terrorists are conducting pre-attack security probes and “dry runs” similar to dress rehearsals. Past terrorist attacks and plots show that such testing generally indicates attacks will soon follow, according to a joint FBI and Homeland Security assessment. ...

5 July 2007, San Diego, CA – A U.S. Person’s (USPER) checked baggage contained two icepacks covered in duct tape. The icepacks had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.

4 June 2007, Milwaukee, WI – The carry-on baggage of a USPER contained several items resembling IED components, such as a wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes, and two blocks of cheese.

8 November 2006, Houston, TX – A USPER’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals, and pipes.

16 September 2006, Baltimore, MD–The checked baggage of a couple contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.

WorldNetDaily reports:

Medical clinics across the country have been flooded with requests from foreign nationals from Pakistan and other Muslim countries to help them gain visa entry into the U.S. as patients.

The post-9/11 trend concerns authorities who fear al-Qaida could be using the medical industry to infiltrate terrorist cells into the country.

Some clinics have sponsored foreign patients only to have them fail to show up at their facilities.

The Caster Eye Center in Beverly Hills, Calif., for example, stopped granting such foreign requests after a couple of no-shows.

London Times Sunday edition:

Speaking from the Clairvaux prison in northeast France last week (Carlos the Jackal) berated terrorist cells said to have targeted Britain, criticising them for plotting to kill ordinary people.

In his first telephone interview with a newspaper, the Venezuelan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, 57, said he was saddened by any loss of life in London, where he lived as a young man. He also attacked what he called a lack of professionalism in some cells linked to Al-Qaeda.

Sanchez is serving a life sentence for three murders in Paris in 1975. He will go on trial again in January over four bomb attacks in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 12 people and wounded more than 100.

Sanchez, who is now overweight and diabetic, showed no remorse, laughing when asked about the number of his victims. ...

“Kensington and Chelsea were places where I spent my youth, so I’m not happy about people getting killed in the streets of London,” he said.

He condemned Al-Qaeda followers (for attacks) without specific targets, saying: “They are not professionals. They’re not organised. They don’t even know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.”

ABC NEWS reports:

As senior intelligence and law enforcement officials met again today in the White House Situation Room to deal with the “summer terror threat,” a top terror commander said an attack was coming that would dwarf the failed bombings in London and Glasgow.

Taliban military commander Mansour Dadullah, in an interview broadcast on ABC News’ “World News With Charles Gibson,” said the London attacks were “not enough” and that bigger attacks were coming.

“You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks,” he told a Pakistani journalist in an interview conducted just four days ago.

The same news agency also is reporting on the possibility of Zawahiri’s latest tape containing the signal for an attack.

Fearing a possible coded signal to attack, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are studying an unusual pattern of words in the latest audiotape from al Qaeda’s No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri.

On the tape, posted on the Internet Wednesday, Zawahri repeats one phrase three times at the end of his message.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.

A new FBI analysis of al Qaeda messages, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, warns that “continued messages that convey their strategic intent to strike the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests worldwide should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise.”

Intelligence analysts are also investigating technical clues that Zawahri’s most recent audio message was phoned in via computer phone, using voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune that he “has a gut feeling” that al Qaeda is planning to attempt a major US attack this summer.

I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk,” Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune’s editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America’s terror threat level.

“Summertime seems to be appealing to them,” he said of al-Qaeda. “We do worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

Still, Chertoff said there are not enough indications of an imminent plot to raise the current threat levels nationwide. And he indicated that his remarks were based on “a gut feeling” formed by past seasonal patterns of terrorist attacks, recent al-Qaeda statements, and intelligence he did not disclose.

There is an assessment “not of a specific threat, but of increased vulnerability,” he added.

There have been reports already that suggest intelligence warnings at a similar level to the summer before Sept. 11, 2001 and that al-Qaeda may be mobilizing.

In recent days, ABC news reported that a secret law enforcement report prepared for homeland security warns that al-Qaeda is preparing a “spectacular” summer attack. On Tuesday, ABC News also reported that “new intelligence suggests a small al-Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.”

Chertoff sternly echoed those sentiments at the Tribune.

“We’ve seen a lot more public statements from Al Qaeda,” he said. “There are a lot of reasons to speculate about that but one reason that occurs to me is that they’re feeling more comfortable and raising expectations.

“We could easily be attacked,” Chertoff added. “The intent to attack us remains as strong as it was on Sept. 10, 2001.”

And similar hints were made by unnamed officials to ABC News:

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

The White House has convened an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday afternoon to deal with the new threat.

Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to assemble in the Situation Room to report on:
—what steps can be taken to minimize or counter the threat,
—and what steps are being taken to harden security for government buildings and personnel.

“It suggests they have information that the cell or cells coming this direction want to attack a government facility,” Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent and ABC News consultant, said.

But John Amato, blogging on the left, knows better, and is demanding that Chertoff be fired for issuing warnings inconvenient to the left’s political agenda.

What gives Chertoff the right to tell the country that he has a “gut” feeling that we’re going to be hit with a terrorist attack this summer? ...

This is a calculated move to ratchet up the terror in this country to help Republican candidates—PERIOD. They are far behind in raising money and in all the polls. He should be fired, but of course since he’s being instructed to say these things (sounds like a Cheney/Rove play) he won’t be. What a tool…

His comments are priceless, too:

Jr says:

Chertoff will say anything to scare the mouth-breathers into giving their last few freedoms away

The Guardian indicates that the recent bomb attacks in Britain were thwarted by means of surveillance of telephone and email traffic.

The plot to mount car bomb attacks in Britain was hatched outside the UK, with the doctors allegedly involved linked to a ringleader or mastermind abroad, counter-terrorism officials believe. One theory is that the alleged plot was orchestrated by one or two jihadists who infiltrated the NHS and indoctrinated others.

It emerged last night that investigators suspect that the two men caught at Glasgow airport trying to ram a Jeep into the terminal building were also behind the failed attempt to detonate two car bombs in central London last Friday.

Sources also suggested that all known members of the cell had been accounted for. “There is not a huge manhunt,” one well-placed official said. Though the terrorist threat level remains at “critical” there were indications that it would soon be downgraded to “severe”, meaning an attack is highly likely but not imminent.

All eight people arrested have links with the NHS - seven are doctors or medical students and one worked as a laboratory technician. All entered the UK legally.

Intelligence sources last night declined to say where the “guiding hand” or mastermind behind the plot was based. It is likely, given the dates on which some of the suspects entered Britain, that the plot was hatched a year ago, or even earlier.

Though MI5 insists none of the suspects arrested in connection with the plot were under surveillance, the mobile phones detectives recovered from the would-be car bombs contained details that matched material on the security service database. Counter-terrorism officials say data from the phones and email traffic was checked on the database used by MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre. Connections were found linking that information and communications abroad, which enabled the police and security services to speed up their investigations in Britain.

“This linkage allowed the police to move quickly,” said a source. The foreign intercepts included talk of jihad, an official added. Counter-terrorism officials say the links between members of the British-based cell were via the foreign intercepts. It is believed, for example, that Mohamed Haneef, the doctor arrested at Brisbane airport, had long conversations with one of the suspects arrested in Britain.

Meanwhile ABC News reports:

Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the United States and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape ...

Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9.

A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions.

Terrorist graduation slideshow

1:52 video

The Guardian reports:

The award of a knighthood to the author Salman Rushdie justifies suicide attacks, a Pakistani government minister said today.

“This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision,” Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. “The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the ‘sir’ title.”

After his comments were reported on local news stations, Mr ul-Haq told MPs that his aim had been to look into the root causes of terrorism.
The comments follow other condemnation of the award for Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic Verses provoked worldwide protests over allegations that it insulted Islam.

He received the knighthood for services to literature in the Queen’s birthday honours list published on Saturday.

Earlier today Pakistani MPs demanded Britain withdraw Rushdie’s knighthood.

A government-backed resolution condemning the author’s knighthood was passed unanimously by the lower house of the Pakistani parliament amid angry protests across the country.

AP:

The Basque separatist group ETA called off its cease-fire today, saying the government was not committed to ending the nearly 40-year conflict. ...

Today, however, the group notified two Basque newspapers that the cease-fire will end at midnight and described itself as “active on all fronts to defend the Basque homeland.”

ETA had declared the cease-fire unilaterally, saying it wanted to negotiate an end to the conflict, which has left more than 800 people dead. ...

The group reiterated assertions that the Spanish judicial system continued to arrest and try ETA members and suspects while the truce was in effect.

“Minimum democratic conditions for a negotiating process do not exist,” ETA said in the statement sent to the pro-independence newspapers Berria and Gara.

“Zapatero’s character has turned into a fascism that left parties and citizens without rights,” ETA said.

ETA also complained that Spanish courts barred most pro-independence candidates from Basque local elections on May 27.

Zapatero, who planned to address the nation later today, has said peace with ETA is one of its priorities.

ETA took up arms in 1968 in a goal of carving out an independent Basque homeland in the mountains between Spain and France.

In 2004, when Al Qaeda bombed a Spanish train, Spanish voters elected the current Socialist government so that it could withdraw from Iraq.

Will the next successful act of terrorism by ETA persuade Spanish voters to withdraw from the Pyrenees?

Hat tip to José Guardia.

And our liberal friends sound like they’re talking sense, observes Tim Blair.

Global warming alarmists actually make a great deal of sense. That is, once you imagine that every time they open their mouths they’re talking not about the environment but about Islamic terrorism. ...

Al Gore’s hard-hitting documentary about the Islamist threat – An Inconvenient Faith – might face the occasional bombing attack, but would otherwise be crucial viewing for those wishing to be informed on the great menace of our age.

Let’s work through several typical greenoid statements to see this process at work, whereby formerly irrational and fear-mongering comments on global warming (confirmed kills: exactly zero) become entirely reasonable and defensible when framed as statements on Islamist terror (confirmed kills: many thousands and counting):

“It doesn’t make sense for us to sit back and wait for others to act. The fate of the planet that our children and grandchildren will inherit is in our hands, and it is our responsibility to do something about this crisis.” – former US president Bill Clinton.

ABC reports that US air marshals are currently “flooding” flights from Germany and Britain.

As many as five or six U.S. air marshals are now assigned to each U.S.-bound flight from airports in Frankfurt, London and Manchester, England, because of fears terrorists might attempt a coordinated series of mid-air explosions, law enforcement officials tell the Blotter on ABCNews.com.

“We’re afraid someone in the back is going to mix something or light something up, so air marshals are being placed strategically through the plane,” said one senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the stepped-up security.

The stepped-up security on flights out of Britain’s Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester airports began about two weeks ago, based on intelligence reports that another al Qaeda hijacking plot was in the making, the officials said.

Greg Sheridan, in The Australian, describes how Al Qaeda is winning, not by battlefield success, but via propaganda.

the awesome power of what the boffins call al-Qa’ida’s “single narrative” for Muslims everywhere. The single narrative is the most powerful propaganda tool yet devised. It presents all of Muslim experience worldwide as a story of Western and Zionist persecution of Muslims. This embraces obvious cases such as Palestinians, Kashmiris and Bosnians, but also the experience of Muslims in the Middle East under corrupt governments, the experience of Muslims in India, the marginalised status of Muslims in western Europe, the conflict in Iraq and everything else. The beauty of the single narrative is that any grievance at all, real or imagined, whether based in fact or fantasy or conspiracy, can be fitted into it.

(Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer observes) “In terms of their PR, I give full marks to al-Qa’ida. They’ve been very successful.”

“Every time there’s a terrorist attack in Iraq there’s a Western reaction not of how horrible these people are but that we must pull out, we should give up. I give full credit to al-Qa’ida for their excellent public relations.”

Downer is right in this withering analysis. Al-Qa’ida in a sense wins whether it wins or loses. If it kills a large number of innocents, the chief reaction among most commentators is that this is somehow the fault of the US or its coalition allies.

The Western commentariat, not least in Australia, has embraced the pro-terrorist proposition that almost the only people not morally responsible for terrorism are the terrorists.

whole article

Depkafile reports a that high-ranking Syrian delegation of 40 generals is currently visiting Tehran, clearly conferring about further forms of Syrian-Iranian military cooperation.

Led by Maj. Gen. Yahya L. Solayman, War Planning chief at the Syrian armed forces General Staff, the delegation represents all branches of the Syrian armed forces. On their arrival on April 18, the Syrian officers went straight into conference with Iranian defense minister Brig. Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, Revolutionary Commanders chief Maj. Gen. Yahya Rahim-Safavi and dep. chief of staff Maj. Gen. Hassani Sa’di, who is Iran’s chief of military war preparations. The Syrian visitors were taken around RG and armed forces training installations and given a display of the latest Iranian weapons systems, including stealth missiles, electronic warfare appliances and undersea missiles and torpedoes. They also visited the big Imam Ali training base in N. Tehran, where hundreds of Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami terrorists are taking courses.

In Washington and Jerusalem, there is little doubt that the two allies timed the Syrian delegation’s mission to Tehran as a rejoinder to US defense secretary Robert Gates’ Middle East tour last week.

Israel sees four causes for concern:

1. The unusually large size of the Syrian delegation and the presence of operations officers from the various army corps.

2. The elevated positions of the Iranian officials hosting the Syrians: the top men with responsibility for preparing the RGs and armed forces for armed conflict.

US and Israeli intelligence experts agreed in their talks during Gates’ two-day visit to Israel last week on the object of the Syrian mission: to tighten operational coordination at the highest level between the Syria military and Iran’s armed forces and Revolutionary Guards.

3. The installations and weapons shown the Syrian officers. The intelligence estimate is that they saw the weapons systems soon to be consigned by Iran to the Syrian army and Hizballah, as well as the types of assistance pledged for Syria in the event of a military showdown with the United States or Israel. Syrian-Iranian consultations must also be presumed to have cleared the routes by which these weapons would reach Syria and Hizballah in a military contingency.

During the 2006 Hizballah-Israel war, Iran ran an airlift to Damascus through Turkish airspace and over the Mediterranean.

4. The unusual length of the visit. Monday, April 23 the Syrian officers were still busy in Tehran after six days and showed no sign of leaving.

The London Times quotes an MI5 report.

Al-Qaeda leaders in Iraq are planning the first “large-scale” terrorist attacks on Britain and other western targets with the help of supporters in Iran, according to a leaked intelligence report.

Spy chiefs warn that one operative had said he was planning an attack on “a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki” in an attempt to “shake the Roman throne”, a reference to the West.

Another plot could be timed to coincide with Tony Blair stepping down as prime minister, an event described by Al-Qaeda planners as a “change in the head of the company”.

The report, produced earlier this month and seen by The Sunday Times, appears to provide evidence that Al-Qaeda is active in Iran and has ambitions far beyond the improvised attacks it has been waging against British and American soldiers in Iraq.

There is no evidence of a formal relationship between Al-Qaeda, a Sunni group, and the Shi’ite regime of President Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, but experts suggest that Iran’s leaders may be turning a blind eye to the terrorist organisation’s activities.

The intelligence report also makes it clear that senior Al-Qaeda figures in the region have been in recent contact with operatives in Britain.

It follows revelations last year that up to 150 Britons had travelled to Iraq to fight as part of Al-Qaeda’s “foreign legion”. A number are thought to have returned to the UK, after receiving terrorist training, to form sleeper cells.

The report was compiled by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) – based at MI5’s London headquarters – and provides a quarterly review of the international terror threat to Britain. It draws a distinction between Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda’s core leadership, who are thought to be hiding on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and affiliated organisations elsewhere.

Read the whole thing.

Richard Miniter warns that Iran have a network of sleeper cells inside the United States that could strike us if we bomb their nuclear facilities.

The consensus view among intelligence analysts, in and out of government, is Hezbollah maintains an extensive network inside the U.S. and Western Europe.

The sleepers in the U.S. may number as many as 800.

This has been the consensus view for some time. There are “hundreds” of Hezbollah members here, a U.S. official told USA Today on May 13, 2003. A senior FBI official told the paper that some 20 potential Hezbollah cells are being investigated.

Senator Bob Graham reiterated to the Miami Herald on Nov. 13, 2002: “recent warnings that Hezbollah, backed by Iran and Syria, had a more established presence in the United States than al Qaeda, and was just as dangerous.” ...

Sen. Graham told the Miami Herald that Hezbollah has substantially greater numbers in the United States than al Qaeda.

Hezbollah has killed more Americans since 1982 than any other terrorist group, except al Qaeda.

Most of those are not “operational terrorists,” one American intelligence official cautioned Pajamas Media.

Many are here for illicit fundraising. Some channel donations from mosques or peddle videos and books. Others run criminal enterprises for the terror group, everything from car-theft rings to high-end cons.

One cell was involved in cigarette smuggling, capturing the difference between the wholesale price and the high-tax price paid by consumers. Cigarette taxes range from $1 to $3 per pack. The North Carolina cigarette operation was apprehended by the FBI and prosecuted by the Justice department.

Three Yemeni-born men in Rochester, New York were charged with funneling some $15 million to Hezbollah between 2002 and 2004, according to a filing at the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York on Feb. 27, 2007. They were caught thanks to a sting operation by the FBI, conspiring to send $200,000 to Hezbollah. The three owned or operated delis, mini-marts and restaurants, from which they allegedly sold fake green cards and engaged in credit card fraud.

Other Hezbollah operatives are here to gather information on potential targets, searching for weak points in schools, malls and office towers.

Still others are foot soldiers who are loaned out Mexican drug cartels, where they serve as bodyguards and enforcers. The Mexicans call them “Turcos.”

Read the whole thing.

Neo-Neocon, blogging at PJM, considers Suicide, Homicide, Terrorism and Romanticism, concluding that “Romanticism has found a cozy home on the Left. Toss in a soupçon of “sympathetic vibration with the anger of the suicide/homicide bomber,” and disaster follows. It’s all part of a long tradition whose end is in sight.”

The anger on the Left is more visible right now, fanned by the flames of frustration at being at last in power, but still not in control. That feeling had its roots in the continuing sense that the Left’s fell out of power in the first place as a result of election fraud. It’s not necessary that this perception be correct to be a powerful motivator; just that it be perceived as correct by those who believe it.

Some—although not all—of those on the Left who sport this anger feel an added sympathetic vibration with the anger of the suicide/homicide bomber. The Romantic glorification of the downtrodden Third World by the Left adds to that sympathy and gives it further political underpinnings.

There’s an interesting socioeconomic trend to Romanticism: it’s a philosophy that seems to attract a surprising number of the more well-to-do and well-educated. In Arab countries terrorists are at least as likely to come from the ranks of the relatively affluent as they are to be poverty-stricken. And in the West it seems to be the relatively well-to-do these days who are influenced most strongly by Romanticism.

Perhaps ‘twas ever thus. Romanticism—here and elsewhere—is not only fueled by the guilt sometimes felt by people who have relative plenty when others are suffering, but it’s also fostered by an educational system that teaches and glorifies Romanticism in ways both subtle and overt.

So guilt and education are part of it. But there are other ways in which affluence—at least, relative affluence—feeds into Romanticism, especially in this country. Romanticism is idealistic (I would say, naively so). Belief in Romanticism in its purest and most philosophical form requires a certain remove from the struggles of day-to-day existence only available to those not on a subsistence level (see here for a more in-depth discussion of how this might work).

The affluent may also be attracted to the intensity of feeling and experience of the terrorist and the suicide bomber for another reason. Many human beings are probably hard-wired to seek excitement. Those who are no longer engaged in an obvious struggle for existence—no lion hunts, for example—can sometimes feel a sense of ennui and a lack of thrills. Filling this need can take the form of seeking out extreme sports such as skydiving or auto racing, or by high-risk behavior such as gambling or taking drugs. But for some people the quest takes the form of an urge towards nihilism.

As for the Middle East, the influence of the West and of Romanticism—both the homegrown and the grafted variety—have never been absent from the modern Arab scene. From T.E. Lawrence to the Nazis (see Bernard Lewis’s book Semites and Anti-Semites) to the present-day Leftists, Romanticism seems to have blended in well with the pre-existing ethos of the area.

Romanticism and politics make strange bedfellows. They lead inexorably from a philosophy that celebrates nature and considers humankind to be essentially good to one that glorifies murder and rage. But whoever said people were rational? Certainly not the Romantics.

Read the whole thing.