By Jenni Hesterman

On February 26th, a British court convicted 50 year-old Mohammed Hamid of directing terrorist training camps in the country, and providing instruction to several of the men involved in the July 7 and 21, 2005 bombings in London. Although the terrorists that executed these attacks have already been prosecuted, officials diligently pursued those who inspired and trained them. Hamid, who refers to himself as “Osama Bin London”, was viewed as the most prolific recruiter of radical Islamic fundamentalists in the United Kingdom.

Evidence produced in his case included testimony that Hamid told his followers that the 52 deaths in the bombings in London on July 7, 2005 (also known as the 7/7 attacks), were "not even breakfast to me”. Immediately following those bombings, Hamid sent a text message to one of 21/7 bombers he groomed, Hussain Osman, stating: “Assalam bro, we fear no one except Allah. We will not change our ways, we are proud to be Muslim and we will not hide. 8pm Friday at my place be there food an talk AL-QURAN". Hamid conducted regular Quran study sessions at his home, where he used verses from the religious text to support his radical ideology and prepared the men to undertake acts of violence. An MI5 listening device placed at Hamid’s home captured several of these sessions on tape, and was submitted to the jury as evidence for their consideration. Hamid is also on a videotape, widely circulated to the press, exhorting the virtues of suicide bombings and stating that he sees nothing wrong with killing of innocent civilians during these attacks.

While Hamid was conducting training at the Kent Islamic School, an undercover police officer taped a particularly inciting speech, which the jury used to convict him of soliciting to murder. An accomplice at the training facility, Atilla Ahmet, who told the men he was the "number one Al-Qaeda in Europe", pled guilty to soliciting to murder before the trial began. Video tapes from the camp show trainees preparing for hand-to-hand combat.

Hamid’s conviction comes on the heels of a controversial report released by the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a prestigious London defense think tank, on February 15th. The paper, entitled “Risk, Threat and Security: The Case of the United Kingdom” states that the United Kingdom lacks a “coherent and comprehensive mechanism for the analysis of risks and threats” and that multiculturalism has led to a loss of “self confidence”. Perhaps most pejorative, the report states that the United Kingdom is now considered a “soft touch”, not only impacting the strength and security of the country, but increasing its vulnerability as a terrorist target.

Sources:
'Osama bin London' Is Convicted in British Court
Transcript: '7/7 Bombing Not Even Breakfast for Me'
Top Terror Recruiter Found Guilty
CNN Video: UK Terror Camp Verdict
RUSI Journal

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Terror Free Tomorrow's Ken Ballen and CBS news analyst Reza Aslan provide surprising results of a survey conducted across Pakistan. The survery showed Pakistani public support for Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, bin Laden and other radical Islamist groups has plummeted by half – all the way down to the teens and single digits.

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The boy, described as a 'genius' and model student.

By Shelley Smith

Playing trains and derailing a city’s tram system for real is serious business and a 14-year-old Polish student, known as an electronic “genius” and a model student, did just that in the city of Lodz, Poland. The teenager turned the city of Lodz tram system into his own personal train set by using public library and open source information from the Internet and trespassing in tram depots to gather information needed to build a device made by modifying a TV remote control.

To do this he hacked into the train network where he was able to make the tram system into his own personal train set. With the remote control he was able to maneuver the trams and change track points, triggering chaos that derailed four trams, caused emergency stops that resulted in the injury twelve people in the process and luckily no deaths. His reason for modifying the track settings; he did it as a prank.

This was the latest incident of young computer hackers breaking into computer systems challenging security systems. Another example was in 1999, where hackers, using home computers, broke into a British military system and changed secure settings of a British military satellite. Securing the nation’s rail and mass transit system continues to be an enormous undertaking from terrorist attacks, yet there still looms the vulnerabilities from unseen computer hackers and terrorist attacks.

During 2004 and 2005, a U.S. Teamsters Rail Conference conducted a Safe Rails/Secure America Survey and rail workers evaluated safety and security measures. Employed members from 46 states by 34 railroads participated. It was discovered that the nation’s 230,000 miles of track was a likely target of Al-Qaeda and security efforts have largely been left to the discretion of rail corporations. The workers reported security gaps and showed there was a disturbing lack of security along the railroad tracks and in the rail yards across the nation. They found corporations were growing dependent on remote control technology to replace engineers. There was minimal security training for employees and a disinterest in improving security along points of vulnerability, for locomotives, tracks, bridges, tunnels and for those who lived in close proximity of the railroad tracks.

Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the 7/7 London subway bombings, and the Madrid rail bombings, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has taken steps to manage risk and strengthen the US rail and transit systems from terrorism or other criminal activities. To help reinforce rail and mass transit security, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has given out $115 million in grants since the March 11 Madrid, Spain lethal attacks on their rail and mass transit system. Yet, even with assertive efforts against potential terrorist attacks there still looms the threat of cyber terrorism and hackers.

Sources:

Schoolboy Hacks into City's Tram System

Polish Teen Derails Tram After Hacking Train Network

Transportation Security Administration

Workers Warn of Security Gaps on Nation's Railroads

Shelley Smith is an expert in analysis and research on national and international law, foreign affairs, criminal justice systems and the psychology of criminal behavior. Smith is currently working toward a B.A in Intelligence Studies with a focus on analysis and terrorism at American Military University.

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By Shelley Smith

Great Britain’s Security Service MI5 requested its British troops to remove personal details of themselves off popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Friends Reunited due to discovering that they were being monitored by Al-Qaeda operatives. In the January, 2008 Free Republic article, ‘Al-Qaeda eyes MySpace Pages’, Gordon Thomas writes about the concern expressed by the MI5 chief Jonathan Evans in a document titled ‘Personal Security’. Evans asks for security service personnel to be aware of the monitoring and gathering of personal details that can be formed into intelligence used to launch terrorist attacks against their colleagues, or family members.

Though access to many of these social websites may be for members only, all one needs to register is an e-mail address. Al-Qaeda operatives are using hundreds of false accounts to access personal information. And what are they finding?

Thousands of military and security personnel who have posted detailed information about themselves, their careers, personal pictures and family members, date of birth, locations of where they are living, photos of colleagues and weapons.

In the United States Islamic extremists are utilizing technology. Radical Muslims are attempting to bring Islamic religious law into the United States and had murdered a New Jersey man and his family. Others have been victims by operatives systematically tracking individuals through PalTalk.com and other websites. An individual who lives overseas had his computer hacked to obtain his photograph, his real name and the city where he lives, while other individuals are having their personal information being exchanged through extremist websites in order to facilitate harm. With this new wave of activities it is important to maintain OPSEC.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Computer Incident Advisory Capability (CIAC), who conducts Cyber Security programs, has posted the latest Vulnerability Bulletins to share with U.S. interagency personnel.

Source:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1953538/posts

www.JihadWatch.com

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42633

http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/s-151.shtml

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/27493/discuss

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By Shelley Smith

Cyber attackers have been able to infiltrate sophisticated public utility companies and government computer systems. CIA top cyber-security analyst, Tom Donahue, stated at a trade conference in New Orleans that intrusions were made through the Internet and that cyber attackers have hacked into computer systems of foreign utility companies. One case resulted in a power outage affecting multiple cities. The trade conference was attended by 300 U.S. and international security officials from the government and from electric, water, oil and gas companies.

It is still an unknown and under investigation as to who or why these attacks were done. The United States electricity grid continues to be vulnerable to such outages by potential cyber attacks. Cyber extortion is a growing threat that has been coming mainly from outside of the Nation. Each year cyber intrusions have cost an estimated $20 billion worldwide. The speed of malicious cyber attacks have increased dramatically in recent years assaulting the Nation’s information networks and critical infrastructure interdependencies that are composed of both private and public institutions of energy, finance, banking, transportation, telecommunications and human services.

Historically, global critical infrastructures were physically separate systems with little interdependency and operated without a threat. Now the interdependencies and interconnections pose as a threat to society. The attackers are difficult to track due to disguising themselves through multiple computer networks and other means. Presently, they are believed to be launched from computers of foreign government or military.

Now this complex inter-linkage creates a dimension of vulnerability due to the significance of cyber threats and their possible consequences. The National Cyber Response Coordination Group headed by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have been meeting theses challenges by conducting mock disasters and confronting officials through a “Cyber Storm” war game that tested the nation’s hacker defenses. In February 2006, HLS ran the exercises from a broad list of suggested real-world scenarios with the help from the Pentagon, Justice Department, CIA, National Security Agency and others. Imaginary criminals included hackers, bloggers, reporters and other. Duped simulated reporters were misled into spreading believable but misleading information to worsen the scenario for the public and financial markets to point out where the expectations of capabilities of strengths and weaknesses were. Another war game, “Cyber Storm 2” is planned to take place in March.

Though the exercise had no impact on the real Internet terror experts still remain concerned over Al Qaeda’s increasing present and their use of the internet as a means to spread their message and for recruiting.

Sources:

Department of Homeland Security

U.S. Department of Justice

Transportation Security Administration
Trains, Bloggers are Threat in Drill

Infrastructure Interdependencies and Homeland Security

Progress, Challenges in Securing the Nation's Cyberspace

Shelley Smith is an expert in analysis and research on national and international law, foreign affairs, criminal justice systems and the psychology of criminal behavior. Smith is currently working toward a B.A in Intelligence Studies with a focus on analysis and terrorism at American Military University.

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