by Lionel Bascom — August 8th, 2008 — 1 comment
In Cuba the press, including the Washington Post, report that a former driver for Osama bin Laden was sentenced by a military jury Thursday to 5 1/2 years in prison for supporting terrorism, a far shorter term than demanded by government prosecutors. The judge gave Salim Ahmed Hamdan credit for five years and one month of his pretrial incarceration at Guantanamo Bay, making him eligible for release from custody in five months, the Post reports.
“The sentence was a stunning rebuke to prosecutors who had insisted on a prison term of at least 30 years and portrayed Hamdan throughout the trial as a hardened al-Qaeda warrior. The jury of six military officers convicted him Wednesday of supporting al-Qaeda by driving and guarding bin Laden and ferrying weapons for the terror group, but he was acquitted of terror conspiracy.”
by Lionel Bascom — August 7th, 2008 — No comments
The world first became fully aware of Osama bin Laden 10 years ago today, The National Reports. On August 7, 1998 simultaneous car bombs exploded at the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya killing hundreds, a report in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) newspaper says. “Responsibility for the atrocities was claimed by bin Laden and his al Qa’eda organization. The attacks were supposedly a protest against the presence of US troops in Saudi Arabia following the first Gulf War, and Israel’s suppression of Palestinians with American collusion. It was precisely the type of notoriety bin Laden was looking for, having declared war on the US two years prior.
Al Qa’eda had been responsible for several other attacks meant to punish or terrorise the US, including the 1993 lorry bombing of the World Trade Center, and two attacks on American targets in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996. But the death toll and the spectacular nature of the embassy bombings put bin Laden on the front page of every newspaper in the world.
The group’s efforts continued with several more spectacles of carnage. In 2000 the USS Cole, a US destroyer, was targeted off the coast of Yemen. Seventeen soldiers and sailors were killed. And on September 11, 2001 the world was again rocked when three passenger airliners were flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing thousands. The next day George Bush appeared before the US Congress and declared war on terror — the war that bin Laden had been looking for.
Much has happened in the first 10 years of this war, so much so that it can be hard now to recall the sense of security that prevailed in the mid-1990s, the Cold War having ended at the beginning of the decade. Real wars have taken place in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Taliban and Saddam Hussein have both been overthrown. Terrorist bombs have killed hundreds in Bali, Madrid and London – and even more in Iraq.”
Read the entire story by going to www.thenational.ae
by Lionel Bascom — August 5th, 2008 — No comments
One of the things learned from the Twin Towers disaster was giving first responders communications systems that do not fail.
Verizon Business has introduced a new service designed to enable police, fire and other public safety personnel to communicate directly with one another by radio, phone or e-mail during an emergency — even if they are using incompatible communications systems.
The service, Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution, is an Internet protocol (IP)-based platform that integrates radio as well as voice, data and wireless networks so that they can operate as a single network, thus enabling better communications among diverse federal, state and local public safety organizations.
This service helps remedy a long-standing problem that public safety and federal regulatory officials have been attempting to resolve. The issue was highlighted during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center, when New York City’s police and fire departments could not communicate with each other during the rescue efforts because their radios operated on different frequencies.
[Note: An audio podcast discussing Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution is available at http://www.podtech.net/home/5315/verizon-business-leverages-ip-to-link-first- responders-during-times-of-crisis (Due to length of URL, please copy and paste into web browser).]
“The ability to effectively communicate during crisis situations is critical, especially given today’s legacy patchwork of first-responder communications systems,” said Nancy Gofus, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Verizon Business. “Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution is a powerful tool that underscores how Verizon Business continues to bring innovation through IP.”
The state of West Virginia has signed up to use the new service, which is now available throughout the U.S. and is also well-suited for business customers with large campuses or widespread facilities, such as universities and manufacturing plants.
“Under the leadership of Gov. Joe Manchin, West Virginia has made emergency communications a top priority,” said Jimmy Gianato, director of the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. “Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution solves a long-standing critical need and will be instrumental in enabling our agencies to better communicate with other critical first responders during times of crisis and, in the process, help save lives and protect property.”
The Verizon Business interoperability service works this way:
Police and fire departments, emergency medical services and other public safety organizations identified by a government entity as primary points of contact during a crisis each set aside a channel on their radio systems. When activated, the service — using routers, interfaces and other equipment placed at the customer’s premises — links up all of the set-aside channels and converts them into IP. This enables all of the participating public safety organizations to communicate directly with one another, regardless of radio frequencies or other communications platforms.
The service can also link wireline and wireless voice calls and e-mail and text messages to the interoperable communications system. In addition, the service can be programmed to use prearranged phone numbers and radio frequencies to automatically alert public safety organizations when there is a crisis. Additional numbers can also be added easily during times of crisis.
Verizon Business’ Private IP service is the ideal foundation for this solution as it supports the required features — quality of service (QoS) and IP multicasting. QoS enables customers to prioritize traffic, and IP multicasting is a network-based service that helps conserve bandwidth by replicating data and sending it to pre-determined users. In addition, the Verizon Communication Interoperability Solution can be deployed over any IP network as long as minimum technical requirements are met.
Before the interoperability platform is deployed, Verizon Business professional services experts work with the customer and conduct an IP network readiness assessment to determine the ability of existing infrastructure to support the new service. The offering is cost effective because it leverages existing infrastructure.
Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution, the latest addition to Verizon Business’ emergency communications portfolio, is a customer premises equipment-based service that employs Cisco’s IP Interoperability and Communications System portfolio of devices and applications. Verizon Business is the first North American service provider to offer this Cisco-based platform.
In 2009, Verizon Business plans to introduce managed and hosted versions of this solution, which will offer public safety agencies greater choice and flexibility.
“Utilizing the transformative power of IP, Cisco and Verizon Business are changing the way first responders communicate and share information during times of crisis,” said Bill Stuntz, vice president and general manager of Cisco’s physical security business unit. “Using IP as the foundation to deliver truly interoperable communications, Verizon Communications Interoperability Solution combines the strength of Verizon Business’ IP network and professional services capabilities with the flexibility and scalability of Cisco IP Interoperability and Communication System.”
Serving the unique requirements of federal, state and local government public safety agencies, Verizon Business offers a comprehensive portfolio of specialized networking, call center, and data storage and processing capabilities to help homeland security, fire, police and medical response teams effectively respond to emergencies.
by Lionel Bascom — August 4th, 2008 — 1 comment
During the seven years since 9/11 there hasn’t been a successful terrorist attack within the United States, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
And Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization responsible for the downing of the World Trade Center, has been pushed back in Iraq where it continues to lose support,” The newspaper reports
“But the core of Al Qaeda continues to thrive, according to security analysts, who note it has increased the number of attacks worldwide since 9/11 as well as its geographic reach.
Those facts have led to two starkly different assessments of where the United States stands in its fight against terror – as well as sharp disagreement on the strategy needed as the country goes forward.
Last week the RAND Corp. sparked renewed debate about the nation’s strategy when it released a report done for the Defense Department that concluded that the so-called “war on terror” has so far failed to significantly undermine Al Qaeda’s capabilities. It suggested it was time for “fundamentally rethinking post-Sept. 11 US counterterrorism strategy.”
A top recommendation is to replace the phrase “war on terror” with the more low-key term counterterrorism.
“Terrorists should be p erceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism,” says Seth Jones, the study’s lead author. “With the growing number of attacks and an expansive reach, one could argue [Al Qaeda] is even growing stronger.”
That assessment prompted derision among some conservative security analysts who contend the “war on terror” is being waged successfully and should continue as is.”
by Lionel Bascom — July 18th, 2008 — 1 comment
The owner of the World Trade Center will move a staircase that was used by survivor in a desperate attempt to escape with their lives that morning in 2001. The staircase, now considered a landmark, will be moved to a new location in the center of the foundation.
The New York Times says the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will move the the Vesey Street staircase used by hundreds of attack survivors who fled to safety that morning in 2001. The staircase has been on public view opposite the 7 World Trade Center plaza.
Over the weekend, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey plans to lower the 58-ton, 21-foot-high staircase to a temporary holding area deep down in the trade center foundations, the Times said.
“It will stay there until the time comes to be installed as part of a larger flight of steps in the underground memorial museum, which is currently expected to open in 2012. This means that the public is not likely to be able to get so close to the “survivor’s stairway” again for at least four years.
The steps once led down to Vesey Street from the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the original World Trade Center. The staircase made a good escape route on Sept. 11, 2001, because they could be reached by walking alongside 6 World Trade Center, the U.S. Customs House, which had deep overhanging eaves that protected people fleeing the north tower from falling debris and bodies. “They were the path to freedom,” recalled Kayla Bergeron, one of the survivors.
by Lionel Bascom — July 11th, 2008 — 1 comment
A doctor missing since the day before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was added to the city’s official death toll, months after an appeals court declared there was no other plausible reason for her disappearance, according to New York press reports.
The city medical examiner’s office said that Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, 31, was the 2,751st victim killed at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
It cited the Jan. 31 court ruling in a brief release, saying the state Supreme Court’s appellate division “determined that Sneha Anne Philip died at the World Trade Center. Therefore, we have added her name to the list of World Trade Center victims.”
Philip’s family went to court to restore her name to the victims’ list. She was cut from the list in 2004 by officials who said they couldn’t definitively link her to the site because she didn’t work there and went missing a day earlier.
Her family believed she likely attended a party held by the city’s South Asian community in a hotel in the trade center complex on Sept. 10, and died while helping wounded people in front of the towers before they collapsed.
by Lionel Bascom — June 24th, 2008 — No comments
The New York Times says it has added a new biographical sketch of a Sept. 11 victim to the online archive of “Portraits of Grief,” the paper’s effort to chronicle the lives of all those lost in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.
Until this week, the last new sketch had been added in 2003. In all, after the attacks, 140 of the paper’s reporters spent more than a year writing about more than 2,400 of that day’s roughly 2,800 victims.
The sketches — which often focused on one aspect of a victim’s life, and were not called obituaries both because of their approach and brevity — first appeared three days after the attacks. They filled one or more pages of The Times every day for four months in the fall of 2001, then weekly for most of the following year. The last two pages appeared several months apart. The profiles were collected in two books, a hardcover and a paperback, both of which are now out of print.
Victims were not included for a number of reasons: sometimes their families did not want to be involved; at other times survivors simply could not be found.
by Lionel Bascom — June 24th, 2008 — No comments
The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center appeared to have left one in eight Lower Manhattan residents with signs of post-traumatic disorder (PTSD), according to a study published online this week in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. The study was published widely, including this report in Efluxmedia.com.
PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event such as combat or military exposure, child sexual or physical abuse, terrorist attacks, sexual or physical assault, serious incidents (car crashes), natural disasters such as fire, tornado, hurricane, flood or earthquake.
These events cause people fear for their lives, living them feeling helpless. Strong emotions caused by the event create changes in the brain that may result in PTSD.
Not everyone going through a terrible event is at risk of PTSD. How likely people are to get PTSD depends on many things such as how close they were to the event, how strong their reactions were, how intense the trauma was or how long it lasted, how much they felt in control of events, how much help and support they got after the event or if they lost someone they were close to or were hurt.
People with PTSD experience irritability or anger, sleep difficulties, trouble concentrating, extreme vigilance, flashbacks and nightmares.
The New York City health department analyzed 11,000 residents through the World Trade Center Health Registry and found 12.6 percent of all respondents showed signs of PTSD as many as three years after the attacks.
The study was the first one to measure the attack’s long-term effect on the mental health of the community.
Factors such as sex, race, study level and income appeared to have influenced the respondents’ chances to develop PTSD include
More exactly, women were more likely to be affected, with 15 percent reporting symptoms compared with 10 percent of men.
Hispanics (24.7 percent) and blacks (20.6 percent) were more affected than whites (10.7 percent) and Asians (8.9 percent).
Only 11.1 percent of respondents with more than college diploma were affected compared with 18.3 percent of respondents with less than a high diploma.
Only 11.3 percent of hose earning more than $50,000 to $74,000 compared to 19.8 percent of those earning less than $25,000 a year.
About 38 percent of those injured in the attacks were most likely to be still suffering PTSD. About 17 percent of those who witnessed violent deaths and 17 percent of those caught in the dust cloud after the towers collapsed were showing signs of PTSD.
All these people “require more in-depth mental health monitoring, independent of the larger metropolitan area” the study authors concluded.
These figures add to hundreds of military troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who develop PTSD symptoms yearly, and also to hundreds of other people affected by the Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
by Lionel Bascom — June 16th, 2008 — 1 comment
Writing for Timesunion.com, Michael Burke of the Bronx says Jim Schaller in a May 25 letter, could not be more wrong in his recommendation that a license plate “honoring” the “victims of the tragic event” — the terrorist attacks upon America by Islamic fundamentalists that murdered nearly 3,000 people — be one that would not “adversely refer to it in any way.”
The last thing we need is the state commemorating 9/11 as a “tragic event,” thereby denying how and why they died. That honors no one. We do not honor those victims by deeming any reference to the attacks as somehow “adverse.” Adverse to whom, how?
Though ironically, such a “vanity plate” would be the perfect fundraiser for the WTC 9/11 memorial. That $500 million vanity project, dedicated entirely to “what we need and deserve” will discard all evidence of 9/11 — “in order,” as per the handful who dictated its concept, “to preserve the integrity of the memorial.”
Note: On 9/11, my brother, New York Fire Department Capt. William F. Burke Jr. of Engine Co. 21 gave his life.
MICHAEL BURKE
Bronx
by Lionel Bascom — June 6th, 2008 — No comments
Fresh Look at Terrorism Risk
In the past terrorism has been viewed as an event that could not have been anticipated, according to a website called Continuity Central. This is no longer the case. While terror attacks, in some cases, remain unpredictable due to the man-made nature of the event, there now exists enough available historical data related to actual terrorist attacks to meet a legal requirement for determining a standard of foreseeability. According to Dr. Daniel Kennedy, CPP, a criminal forensic expert, “As criminologists know, the best predictor of future events is past events. The best predictor of terrorist attacks would therefore be past terrorist attacks. As suggested in the landmark legal case of Timberwalk v. Cain, the foreseeability of terrorist attacks is based on five factors: frequency, similarity … proximity and publicity of past attacks. The probability of attack would increase exponentially based on these factors.” For example, as much as the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center surprised everyone, it was foreseeable that the Twin Towers were a major terrorist target based on the previous truck bomb attack in 1993.
According to Dr. Michael J. Witkowski, CPP, another criminal forensic expert, “An environment prone to terrorism may be determined by either of two types of legal notice: Actual, by real events on property or territory; or constructive, where factors such as proximity of events and general deterioration of environment are reviewed.” The availability of notice creates possible legal exposure for companies that have not properly assessed and mitigated their terrorism risk using readily available analysis tools or programs.
Properly analyzed data can be built into a robust environment which visualizes attack location, target type, and victims. This type of analytical tool allows decision makers to begin to evaluate whether safety and security measures are capable of meeting the threat in the surrounding environment or of making decisions that avoid the threat altogether. Additional features such as attack clustering, where multiple or similar type attacks have occurred, can be visualized.
Decision making tools: environmental risk assessments
As corporations seek to lower their operating expense, off-shoring or ‘best shoring’ has become common practice. Exporting operations such as call centers, data centers, business process outsourcing, manufacturing and suppliers to countries such as India or Pakistan have now become commonplace. These remain potential targets for adverse activity when other primary targets are ‘hardened’ and less approachable.
In a three year review of terror based attacks in India, there were approximately 3,300 incidents where an attack location could be identified from publically available media reports. In the most current three-month collection of attack data, there were approximately 206 attacks and only 12 occurred in ‘new’ locations, where an attack had not occurred in the previous 3 years. Or, in other words, 94 percent of attacks occurred in areas where there had been known terror events previously.