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Jun 14, 2010

CQ Behind the Lines

Behind the Lines for Monday, June 14, 2010 — 3 P.M.

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Cradle of terrorism: "While New York has long been militant Islamist terror's No. 1 target, it has also increasingly become the main U.S. source of the challenge" . . . The road to hell: U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza Palestinians "could be one of the most serious breaches of U.S. terror law that we've seen since 9/11" . . . This week's alert: A booming market in counterfeit botox "could put a deadly biological weapons agent in the wrong hands." These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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“While New York has long been militant Islamist terror’s No. 1 target, it has also increasingly become the main U.S. source of the challenge,’” Judith Miller judges in a FOX News take on a Big Apple seemingly ridden with homegrown terrorists — and see her City Journal essay on “New Yorkistan.” A Swedish woman says one of two would-be New Jersey jihadists was on his way to Egypt to marry her and study Arabic, not kill Americans, The Bergen County Record’s Nick Clunn recounts. “Feel like a loser? Never cool at school? Not much luck with women? Become a jihadist!” New York Daily News columnist Michael Daly leads in re: the evolution of these two latest would-be terrorists. The FBI launched a “secret, tightly run operation of military precision” targeting the pair back in October 2006, a Newark Star-Ledger team backgrounds.

Feds: President Obama’s proposed $400 million in humanitarian aid for Gaza Palestinians “could be one of the most serious breaches of U.S. terror law that we’ve seen since 9/11,” FOXBusiness’ David Asman denounces. Confirmation hearings for nominated director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. “are likely to focus as much on the powers of the office as on its next occupant,” The Washington Post’s Walter Pincus analyzes. A House-proposed WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act would require DHS and other agencies to develop enhanced security rules for researching deadly bio-agents, Global Security Newswire’s Martin Matishak mentions — as The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan decries federal unreadiness “to ensure public safety and security in the event of a WMD incident.”

Homies: DHS’s Coast Guard on Friday “issued a request from vendors, scientists, government laboratories and nonprofits for ideas on how to stop, contain and clean up” the disastrous Gulf oil spill, Government Executive’s Robert Brodsky reports — as the Los Angeles Times’ Richard Simon sees the Coasties also ordering BP to plug the damned leak already. FBI deputy John Pistole impressed Senate Commerce solons in the first of two confirmation hearings in his bid to fill the long-vacant TSA chief’s chair, Homeland Security Today’s Mickey McCarter handicaps. Salon’s Alex Pareene, meanwhile, slags Mark Krikorian’s halfhearted retraction of a mistaken National Review posting saying the allegedly euphemism happy Obama administration would be revamping ICE into the “Homeland Security Investigations” agency.

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State and local: Gov. M. Jodi Rell has tapped the onetime head of Connecticut’s homeland agency to serve as acting Public Safety commissioner for the balance of her term, The Hartford Courant recounts — as The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal sees Texas’ Department of Public Safety tapping an interim chief for its Division of Emergency Management. The Columbus (Ga.) Office of Homeland Security is fielding a new bomb robot, a Mark 3 Caliber, the second such to join the department on DHS’s dollar, WRBL 3 News notes — while The Muncie Free Press reflects the Indiana National Guard’s pride at receiving “additional personnel and equipment to focus on a critical homeland security mission,” responding to WMD attacks.

Know nukes: A federal lab in Nevada “would gather some of the first critical information that could affect the lives of millions in the aftermath of a nuclear terrorist attack in an American city,” The Associated Press recently spotlighted. “House homeland overseers agree with a commission’s prediction that by 2013 terrorists will launch an attack somewhere in the world using a weapon of mass destruction,” Cybercast News Service notes — as Agence France-Presse quotes a Pentagon official’s admission that “the thing that keeps me awake at night is a nexus between terrorism and massive destruction,” and Reuters hears Iran’s nuclear chief promising construction of a new uranium enrichment plant just days after U.N. approval of new sanctions. A squadron responsible for maintaining some 2,000 nuclear weapons at a New Mexico base has been recertified after failing an inspection in January, The Air Force Times relays.

Bugs ‘n bombs: According to Scientific American, a booming market in counterfeit botox for cosmetics treatments “could put a deadly biological weapons agent in the wrong hands,” The New York Times passes along. “Why do we get so exercised when nearly 3,000 Americans die on 9/11, but remain relatively indifferent to the nearly 40,000 Americans who die every year in traffic accidents?” a Foreign Policy posting ponders. “Seventy years ago, Japan’s bio-attacks killed hundreds of thousands. The effects linger today,” City Journal, once more, spotlights. Across the pond, two Liverpool streets were cordoned off for four hours after a passerby found a shoebox-sized package with “anthrax” written on the side, the Echo informs — while AFP has Canadian authorities late last week ruling out terrorism in a mysterious massive purchase of explosive ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

Close air support: Officials tell the Journal-Constitution that more lenient screening procedures for airline employees at Atlanta’s airport enabled a Delta attendant to carry a gun aboard the first leg of a round-trip flight to Indianapolis. “TSA has 80 body scanners in use at U.S. airports and hopes to jump to 450 by the end of the year. The peek-a-boo rollout is well under way,” The Wall Street Journal leads — while aviation security experts alert the L.A. Times that the machines may miss items that metal detectors catch. The Christmas day bomber passed through trace screening apparently because he never actually touched his explosives, FOX News learns. Passengers had to endure delays at Melbourne Airport’s Qantas domestic terminal after a security breach forced authorities to evacuate the area, The Herald Sun says — as The Times of India sees New Delhi’s air hub evolving a new system by which security response to any threat will be managed by a single agency.

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Border wars: Arizona’s hard-hitting immigration law is driving Hispanics out of the state weeks before the measure goes into effect, The Christian Science Monitor leads. The state’s governor is responding to calls for more cell phone towers in border stretches where a rancher was recently murdered by an illegal border crosser, Tucson’s KGUN 9 News notes. Border experts complain that current U.S. policy inadequately deters drug trafficking while pushing would-be immigrants into the arms of criminals, The McAllen (Texas) Monitor mentions — as The Yuma (Ariz.) Sun adjures that “proper staffing and security measures at our ports of entry, including those here in our area, are critical.”

Courts and rights: Unannounced checkpoints, random street closings and police choppers will safeguard the trial opening today of four men accused of plotting to bomb Bronx synagogues, The Poughkeepsie Journal curtain-raises. A federal judge has delayed trial for seven North Carolina terror suspects by nearly a year to give lawyers more time to review more than 750 hours of recordings and 30,000 pages of documents, The Raleigh News & Observer notes. Access given to Indian investigators to question a Chicago man accused in the 2008 Mumbai massacre is “historic in the nature of security cooperation,” The Washington Times quotes the U.S. ambassador to India.

Over there: An ex-senior Afghan Talibanite says Pakistani security forces are harboring its leader, Mullah Omar, in Karachi, Iran’s Press TV relays — while the L.A. Times learns that Pakistani intel not only funds and trains Taliban insurgents, but also maintains representation on their leadership council, and Newsweek questions the strategic wisdom of the CIA’s gunning for Omar as a bin-Laden-esque “high-value target.” In a bid to spur possible reconciliation, meanwhile, the U.N. is hastening efforts to remove certain Taliban leaders from an international terrorist blacklist, The New York Times tells. Russia’s announcement last week of the arrest of militant chief Ali Taziyev could be a devastating blow to the insurgency in the North Caucasus, Foreign Policy, again, posits. At least nine civilians and officers were killed after a suicide bomber drove a truck into the barracks of an elite Algerian police unit, Al Jazeera relates.

Qaeda Qorner: The Russian secret service “has no information confirming” that Osama bin Laden is dead, The Moscow News notes — while The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times sees cops arresting a transient claiming to be “bin Laden’s right hand man,” and Britain’s Daily Mail profiles the surrogate mom supposedly gestating the terror icon’s grandchild.Young Brit Muslims, meantime, are being groomed by al Qaeda for a Mumbai-style attack on U.K. targets, NDTV quotes the MI5 agency. “Combating the increasing threat of al-Qaeda-in-the-Arabian-Peninsula, the 42 women in Yemen’s elite counterterrorism unit do all the jobs that the men do,” The Christian Science Monitor spotlights — while The Yemen Post hears the government in Sana’a accusing al Qaeda of blowing up an oil pipeline Saturday. An Aussie woman detained last month in an investigation into al Qaeda activity in Yemen flew home with her two children on Saturday, The Australian informs.

Taking a new look: “In an attempt to convince an anxious populace that his legislative agenda is working and that everything is going to be all right, President Obama embarked on a 50-state, 30,000-town tour Monday during which he plans to gaze assuredly into the eyes of each American citizen, one at a time,” The Onion reports. “ ‘I know a lot of people out there are nervous. They’re worried about unemployment, the oil spill in the Gulf, and whether or not I am making the right choices in Washington,’ Obama said during a rally at Rockland District High School. ‘To those Americans, I offer you this inspiring, confident gaze.’ Obama then stepped down from his podium, walked into the 2,000-person audience, and peered comfortingly into each person’s eyes. After taking 45 minutes to methodically work his way from the front row all the way to the balcony, and punctuating each look with a gentle pat on the shoulder, Obama returned to the stage, collected himself, and addressed the silent group before him. ‘There,’ he said. ‘All better.’”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Apr 16, 2010

CQ - Behind the Lines for Friday, April 16, 2010

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By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Don't believe the hype: Transnational cybercrime, actually a far more serious concern than "cyberwar" attacks against the electrical grid, e.g., cyberczar says . . . Duck and recover: California shelter firm offers guaranteed survival of bioterror, nuclear terrorism, chemical attack, etc. at only $50,000 per head . . . Taxpayers beware: It would take trillions of Uncle Sam's dollars to decontaminate the site of a major biological attack. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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A top White House cybersecuricrat terms transnational cybercrime a far more serious concern than “cyberwar” attacks against such infrastructure targets as the electricity grid, Technology Review’s David Talbot relates. “As U.S. officials struggle to put together plans to defend government networks, they are faced with questions about the rippling effects of retaliation,” The Associated Press’ Lolita C. Baldor adds, which questions have stalled establishment of the Pentagon’s Cyber Command — while Threat Level’s Ryan Singel notes the command’s control center contract going to the employer of ex-DNI Mike McConnell, who furiously fans fears of cyber-attack.

Feds: “It is painfully easy to fool the protective force that guards Uncle Sam’s real estate,” The Washington Post’s Joe Davidson paraphrases a GAO report. Senate homeland overseers accuse the Obama administration of stonewalling their investigation into Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Hasan’s Fort Hood massacre, Newsweek’s Mark Hosenball reveals. Having previously IDed two distinct domestic terror threats — eco-terrorists and lone offenders — a new FBI report assesses a third: the “sovereign citizen” movement, The Kingsport (Tenn.) Times News notes. Four GOP congressmen moved this week to ban Interior from using environmental regulations to hinder CBP agents along the Mexico border, FOX News’ Joshua Rhett Miller reports.

Order in the court: “There is little debate that Justice John Paul Stevens’ terrorism-related opinions and influence have checked a broad and bold assertion of executive power,” Marcia Coyle comments in The National Law Journal. If DHS’s Janet Napolitano gets tapped to replace Stevens, “it would bring a fresh perspective to a body made up exclusively of former appeals court judges who have never held elected office,” legal eagles tell The Arizona Republic’s Erin Kelly — and check her speech today at Harvard. FOX News, again, tenders “a list of disputes” involving A.G. Eric H. Holder, most of the beefs terror-related — while the Post’s Dana Milbank proclaims him “a Guantanamo Bay prisoner.”

Chasing the dime: Until recently, few Mexican criminals dared touch the border’s teeming multinational factories, but amidst a raging cartel war those are no longer untouchable, The McAllen (Texas) Monitor relates. For $50,000 per person, a California company offers clients a berth in an underground shelter guaranteed to survive nuclear attacks, bioterrorism and chemical warfare, NPR spotlights. The Chertoff Group, helmed, of course, by the ex-DHS chief, has hired Richard Falkenrath, who is retiring as NYPD counterterrorist at month’s end, SecurityInfoWatch relays. Raytheon Co. says it’s received an $88 million TSA contract to install passenger screening equipment, BusinessWeek relays.

State and local: A GOP candidate for Oklahoma governor who endorsed a state citizen militia is retreating from his earlier position that it be used to oppose the federal government, The Oklahoman relays — as The Bay City Times notes the second installment in a two-part NPR report on the cop-threatening Hutarees profiling a “kinder, gentler” side to Michigan militias. Members of The Dallas Morning News editorial board, meantime, debate the merits of installing metal detectors and X-rays at the Texas Capital. A House homeland hearing in Plant City, Fla., on Monday will examine security of pipelines, including hundreds of miles of gas and oil pipe in the Tampa area, the Tribune relates.

Bugs ‘n bombs: Whether McAlester, Okla., would be ready for an “incident involving chemical exposure and mass casualties” was answered in the affirmative by last weekend’s terror exercise, the News-Capital leads. “For years, specially trained dogs have run their noses over objects to screen for explosives. But vapor wake dogs can detect explosives in the air despite crowds, cross-currents and other odors,” CNN spotlights. It would take trillions of Uncle Sam’s dollars to decontaminate the site of a major biological attack, Global Security Newswire finds a new report alerting. Following al Qaeda threats to the World Cup soccer match, State is “providing extensive training to South African police to deal with potential bioterror or nuclear attacks,” BioPrepWatch reports.

Know nukes: Georgian security forces foiled a criminal plot to peddle weapons-grade uranium on the black market, The Guardian has the country’s president reminding summit-goers this week— and see Before It’s News for “five scary nuclear scenarios.” As to which, a “leading nuclear expert” tells Australia’s ABC News “it is only a matter of time” before terrorists launch a dirty bomb attack — as The Christian Science Monitor ponders possible contradictions between U.S. efforts to secure nuclear materials and its push to help other nations develop nuclear plants, generating more such bomb fuel. Logistical disputes over a proposed “nuclear fuel swap” means “the crisis over Iran’s uranium-enrichment program stumbles on,” Asia Times assesses.

Close air support: Three GOP senators want TSA to adopt at U.S. airports the technology Amsterdam’s air hub uses to screen passengers for explosives, Government Computer News notes. Southwest Florida International’s federal security director assures The Naples Daily News that explosive trace detection will not add extra wait time because passengers are tested while standing on the checkpoint line — while Reuters airs DHS plans to spend $35.5 million in stimulus moneys on another 1,200 detectors. Extra screening measures announced by TSA will see some 50 percent of British airport passengers facing secondary screening, Travel Weekly relates.

Coming and going: “Two detailed reports on risks to surface transportation offer intriguing insights,” Homeland Security Newswire promises. “Beijing’s subway security has reached the highest level in history, with all of its nine subway lines’ entrances, passages, stations and security checkpoints being guarded by armed police, SWAT teams [and] police dogs,” China Daily leads. Arizona lawmakers have approved what foes and supporters agree is the toughest measure in the country against illegal immigrants, the Los Angeles Times relates. Ranchers fed up with border violence in southern Arizona, meantime, are demanding action to close the border and restore order, The Arizona Republic recounts.

Courts and rights: The Afghan-born Queens imam in the Najibullah Zazi terror case was yesterday given a suspended sentence and 90 days to leave the country, The New York Daily News notes. “Why would the FBI deny potential evidence to another law enforcement agency investigating the case?” The Detroit Free Press wonders in re: the Oct. 28 shooting of a radical Michigan imam. A Somali man accused of piracy last year in the hijacking of an American-flagged cargo ship appears to be in negotiations to plead guilty, The New York Times tells. If the military terror tribunal system’s “proponents were hoping this week’s proceedings would showcase the strengths of the military system, they were disappointed, yet again,” The Huffington Post spotlights.

Over there: The Toronto 18 terror cell hoped footage of them firing paintballs at a picture of a Hindu deity would woo jihadi leaders in Afghanistan, The Canadian Press has a court being told — as Der Spiegel reports Berlin prosecutors indicting an ex-RAF terrorist for the 1977 murder of Germany’s then-attorney general. Syria stands accused of transferring long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, The Wall Street Journal relates — while AKI explores Saudi fears of al Qaedaites targeting officials by impersonating journalists and hiding bombs in camera equipment.

Welt Zeitgeist: A TV spot by a Colombian ad agency proclaims “Desinfex household cleaner will do to germs what bombs do to suicidal terrorists. It’s that effective!” Gothamist relays. “Scotland Yard has bowed to Islamic sensitivities and accepted that Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest — which could have the unintended consequence of politicians or the police being hit,” The Times of London tells. “Roars, growls and galloping hooves replaced music Tuesday on some of Mogadishu’s radio stations in a protest of a ban on music imposed by Islamic extremists,” CNN leads. Iraqi authorities have uncovered 9/11-esque plans by al Qaeda to fly hijacked planes into the country’s Shiite mosques, Agence France-Presse reports. The Brit Army stands accused of “gross insensitivity” for erecting seven mosque-like structures on a firing range, The Daily Mail mentions.

Kulture Kanyon: Massive steel remnants of the fallen Twin Towers have returned to a National Iron and Steel Heritage Museum in the Pennsylvania city where they were originally forged, AP spotlights. “Moscow” (Paramount), the tentatively titled next entry in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan franchise, will show him as a stockbroker whose “billionaire employer sets him up to take the fall for a terrorist plot designed to collapse the U.S. economy,” Fused Film previews. The real value of the Batman feature “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.) “regarding the discussion of terrorism . . . is in its depiction of the effects of terror,” a Foreign Policy poster weighs. “This misses the point about ‘The Dark Knight’ in important ways,” Attackerman retorts. A Washington Post columnist, finally, imagines recently cancelled FOX “24” icon Jack Bauer bringing his famously effective counterterror interrogation techniques to bear on bankers for the Senate investigations subcommittee.

Bauer-ing Inferno: “Only days after canceling the television series ‘24,’ FOX Entertainment announced today that it had reversed its decision and decided to pick the show up for a ninth and final season,” Glossy News notes. “The announcement came just as tabloid Web sites were reporting that Kiefer Sutherland, star of the popular action thriller, had begun intimidating and threatening executives at FOX over the show’s early demise. The suits say there is ‘absolutely no truth’ to the rumors and that the renewal was just a change of heart on their part. ‘We realized the show is amazing and that we had acted a bit prematurely in canceling it,’ said head of programming Kevin Reilly. ‘We love “24,”and we love Kiefer. I also love my family. I love them very, very much.’Asked what that non-sequitur had to do with the FOX show, Reilly broke down crying.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security

Apr 8, 2010

CQ - Behind the Lines for Thursday, April 8, 2010

Image by robot_zombie_monkey via Flickr

By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly

Soft on terrorism: NYPD to fight spiking crime rates by reassigning counterterror cops to street patrols in tough neighborhoods . . . What we're not fretting about this week: "When the enemy's best recent shot involves lighting his pants on fire [don't sweat] nightmarish visions of WMDs," maven maintains . . . Dead End Gals: Liverpool airport securers arrest two women trying wheel an already deceased family member on board. These and other stories lead today's homeland security coverage.

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West Texas law enforcers are on guard following a DHS alert warning of possible killings in retaliation for a recent crackdown on the Barrio Azteca gang, FOX News’ Joshua Rhett Miller reports — as Homeland Security Newswire judges: “The steady deterioration of security conditions in Mexico has brought the country to the verge of resembling Colombia in the 1990s.” Hard hit by budget cuts, the NYPD has decided to fight spiking crime rates by reassigning counterterror cops to street patrols in tough neighborhoods, The New York Post’s Larry Celona relates — which development CBS 2 News’ Marcia Kramer terms an “anti-terror shocker.”

Feds: A San Francisco man arrested yesterday for threatening House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was upset over health care legislation, the FBI tells Bloomberg’s Karen Gullo and Justin Blum. “Every year, thousands of people find themselves caught up in the government’s terrorist screening process [and] their numbers are likely to rise,” The New York Times’ Mike McIntire spotlights. As to its counterterrorist judicial framework, the Obama administration’s stylistic differences from its predecessor’s tack “mask a sameness in substance that should worry civil libertarians,” Reason’s Eli Lake assesses. Facing questions about the legality of its drone attacks in Pakistan’s Afghan-borderlands, team Obama “is pushing back with a legal defense of a program it only tacitly acknowledges,” The Wall Street Journal’s Keith Johnson surveys.

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Homies: The good news in the unsettling succession of failed TSA administrator would-be’s “is that someone in the U.S. Senate staff is doing their homework and checking the records of Obama’s nominees,” James Corum comments in The Daily Telegraph. Updates to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan have shifted DHS toward more regional collaboration among infrastructure owners and operators, Homeland Security Today’s Mickey McCarter has a GAO report finding. The Washington Post’s latest “Fed Face” profile, meantime, focuses on Marcy Forman, a senior special agent with ICE.

State and local: Tight security measures will affect car, foot and Metro bus and rail travel in D.C. during next week’s nuclear security summit, the Post’s Martin Weil alerts — as Greater Greater Washington queries: “Do Washington’s unique security fears limit the Bill of Rights for its citizens?” Legislation requiring text books used in Oklahoma public school to include info about the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing has been signed into law. The Tulsa World tells. “If the United States government collapses, Michael Craft and his Unorganized Militia of Champaign County are ready,” The Dayton (Ohio) Daily News profiles. In a dramatic turnaround from 16 years ago, Californians now overwhelmingly favor giving illegal immigrants a “path to legalization,” The San Jose Mercury News finds a new poll showing — while The Arizona Daily Sun has Gov. Jan Brewer asking for more federal resources along the Mexico border.

Ivory (Watch) Towers: A Drexel University project is leading to a camera that could detect gases emitted during the manufacture of biological and chemical terror agents, The Philadelphia Inquirer informs. Beijing has given the task of creating an escape plan for tourists at Tiananmen Square in the event of a bioterror event to the No. 2 prof at Peking University’s department of atmospheric sciences, The South China Morning Post reports. A device devised by Duke University researchers to help first responders tackle the pandemonium following a dirty bomb attack quickly IDs who needs to be treated for radiation poisoning, The Raleigh News & Observer notes.

Bugs ‘n bombs: “For the first time, preventing . . . nuclear terrorism is now at the top of America’s nuclear agenda,” The Associated Press quotes President Obama announcing his plans for the U.S. nuke arsenal. “When the enemy’s best recent shot involves lighting his pants on fire, we shouldn’t torture ourselves with nightmarish visions of weapons of mass destruction,” a Washington Examiner columnist cracks — as Mother Jones questions if Obama’s stance is pushing Iran toward nuclear armaments. “There is no doubt that suicide attacks can be deadly — and terrifying. But are they effective in furthering the larger goals of the attackers?” a Los Angeles Times op-ed ponders. “No country in the world is more dependent on its computers than the United States . . . That means the United States is uniquely vulnerable to sophisticated computer hackers,” NPR notes.

Close air support: The FBI and F-16s responded to Denver International after a passenger was acting oddly on a United Airlines flight from Washington, 9News notes — and see AP as to whether a Qatari diplomat really tried to set fire to his shoes.Techies who swooped on Apple’s new iPad are thrilled to discover that TSA apparently won’t make them pull the devices out of their bags at checkpoints, Forbes finds out. Muslim and Sikh groups praised TSA for rolling back screening rules on passengers arriving from 14 primarily Islamic countries, even as some worry that profiling will continue, The Religious News Service notes. Liverpool airport security arrested two German women trying to wheel an already deceased family member onto an easyJet flight to Berlin, which Jaunted deems “a first.”

Coming and going: “In a world beset by the possibilities of terrorism, for flights that are anything less than trans-Atlantic many travelers will do anything they can to avoid airports,” a San Gabriel Valley (Calif.) Tribune editorial on high-speed rail observes. Travel insurance “doesn’t cover you if you are concerned about terrorist bombings on the plane, train, or bus” and, if it does “it may be limited to the exact city of your itinerary and to a specific time frame,” Gather tutors. Since 1995 there have been 250 attacks on passenger rail systems worldwide, resulting in 900 deaths and more than 6,000 injuries, Government Executive spotlights — and check LiveScience.com’s “What Were the Worst Subway Attacks in History.” Cutting Edge News, finally, complains that DHS’s February quadrennial review “mentioned subways only once in more than 100 pages.”

Crime and punishment: The second woman in the “Jihad Jane” case yesterday shook her head to indicate a not guilty plea, rather than speak at a brief Philadelphia court hearing, The Inquirer informs. A Texas man who tried to firebomb a Pasadena condominium development was sentenced this week to five years in a federal slammer, the Los Angeles Times relays. Some prisoners held in the Bureau of Prison’s harsh “Communications Management Units” protest being designated as “terrorists” by Justice, despite never having been convicted of any terror-related crime, Inter Press Service says — while Politico sees the administration releasing new rules for maximum-security detention of terror convicts identical to those its predecessor proposed in 2006 and then abandoned.

Over there: Somali “teachers say recruit-hungry insurgent units have decimated their classrooms as they entice youth to join their “jihad” holy war, The Media Line spotlights — while The Washington Post reports that Somalia’s U.S.-backed government and its Kenyan allies have recruited hundreds of Somali refugees, including children, to fight in a war against al-Shabaab. Monday’s multi-prong suicide attack on the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar “was a reminder that no place is safe and no one is beyond the terrorists’ deadly reach,” Lahore’s Daily Times editorializes. The bodies of nine of the 10 Pakistani gunmen from the 2008 attack on Mumbai were buried in a secret location in January, Reuters is told.

Over here: Six years after State barred Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States, the Muslim scholar will speak in Chicago on Saturday, as “his opponents warn of danger ahead,” The Chicago Tribune curtain-raises — while The Orange County Weekly hears “self-described liberty lovers” warning local Muslims “to be on guard” when Ramadan speaks near Disneyland in May. Following the metro blasts in Moscow, women from the Caucasus “worry about the return of the arbitrary arrests, xenophobic attacks and open hostility that many experienced after similar terrorist attacks in the past,” The New York Times spotlights. “While the challenge of terrorism cries for long-term, consistent strategy, Russia’s system of heavy-handed and unaccountable governance precludes strategic thinking,” Masha Lipman maintains in the Post.

Holy Wars: Muslims aren’t alone in seeing a double standard in how terrorism is linked to Islam but not often to Christianity or other religions, RNS, again, explores — as Al Jazeera finds CAIR asking the FBI for intel on militia groups’ threat to American Muslims. When leading Islamic scholars convened in Turkey last weekend to debate the 14th-century text undergirding today’s jihadism, top religious leaders were notably absent, while “many locals viewed the conference with suspicion before it even began,” Hurriyet reports. Forty pages of captured Web chat offer a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Southeast Asia’s Jemaah Islamiyah al Qaeda affiliate, suggesting more international links than previously assumed, AP reports. “Inspired by 18^th century American revolutionists, today’s Tea Partiers have gotten the nation’s attention. Can they foment their own revolution?” AP explores, answering: “Not yet.”

Blood libel: “Boston’s Liberty Tree, the towering elm that stands on the very spot where the original provided shade and a meeting place for patriots in the lead-up to the American Revolution, has been in very poor health of late,” Ridiculopathy laboriously parodies. “The symptoms are plain to see: withered roots, drooping limbs, and even an embarrassing case of bark rot. According to a spokesperson from the National Parks Service, the tree has been poisoned with what appears to be medical waste. Someone, it seems, has been feeding it blood on a regular basis. Earlier this week an anonymous tipster phoned officials to say that . . . he or she had been strongly encouraged to do it after listening to a recent local talk radio show. Here’s the weird part: This was not a call-in gardening program meant to answer people’s questions about this sort of thing. It was a political show dedicated to anti-government rants of one sort and another. What the host was doing offering any tree-related advice, especially advice this far off base, is anyone’s guess.”

Source: CQ Homeland Security