Giuliani: Ignorance of Terror Isn't Bliss
Business Week Via Yahoo

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (news - web sites) was entering his final days in office when the city was attacked by terrorists on September 11. The experience changed him forever, and made him a national symbol of someone who helped the city and the country stand up and respond to what had happened.

Although he has been mentioned as a possible national political candidate, he remains in the private sector for now, helping client companies best prepare a defense against future attacks. His company, Giuliani Partners, advises on everything from crisis management and data security to promoting technologies that help detect and contain the effects of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive devices.

He recently spoke with BusinessWeek Associate Editor Diane Brady about the latest talk of terrorist threats. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation:

Q: When the news came out on Aug. 1, revealing five sites in Washington, New York, and Newark as possible terrorist targets, how did you react?

A: I reacted as I have very often over the past two or three years, with a sense that we're much safer now, because we're realistically dealing with the world. We're finding out about things and publicizing them. Although it's disconcerting to hear that al-Qaeda may have plans to attack us, it's much better than where we used to be -- where we weren't finding out about those plans and we weren't alerting everyone to be more prepared. It may seem counterintuitive, but when I hear things like this, it feels like our government is moving in the right direction.

Q: So you believe it's comforting that we're onto their plans?

A: The most dangerous situation is where you're facing peril but you're not aware of it. You're safer in knowing about the peril and dealing with it, even if it makes people much more nervous.

No End Date Set in Code Orange Marathon
AP Via Yahoo

WASHINGTON - More barriers go up that may never come down. Six-day work weeks with 12-hour days are the new norm for those guarding Congress. People in metropolitan New York and the capital are asked to be alert, today, tomorrow, indefinitely into the future.

So begins a Code Orange marathon, a three-month or longer stretch of expensive, inconvenient, anxiety-inducing vigilance with no finish line drawn. The government has decided this must be the price of safety from terrorism.

In increments that no rainbow of warning colors can measure, Washington and New York are becoming fortresses. Police with machine guns now are visible in the subway, not just airports, and institutions that most symbolize freedom and power are hunkered-down islands surrounded by closed streets, extra barricades, teams of armed authorities or a combination.

In New York, the dog days of August are dogged with layer upon layer of threat and precaution, now spilled over into northern New Jersey.

The new financial-sector warnings come on top of the elaborate security net for the coming Republican National Convention. Both are piled on the enduring trauma of Sept. 11, 2001, and the sense New York City is the high-rise bulls-eye.

No one knows when it will end or whether the government is overreacting. Without a stand-down in sight, officials are encouraging Americans not to give in to alert-fatigue and to understand the need for security extras costing millions of dollars a day.

Al Qaeda 'threat to blow up ships'
CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Intelligence shows al Qaeda has plans to blow up shipping in a bid to disrupt world trade, Britain's top Naval officer has said in an interview.

The Royal Navy's First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Alan West, said that Western governments had intelligence that terrorists view shipping as an attractive target and have plans to destroy ships.

"We have got an underlying level of intelligence which shows there is a threat," West told Lloyd's List maritime newspaper.

West warned that terrorism could potentially cripple global trade and have grave knock-on effects on developed economies.

"What we've noticed is that al Qaeda and other organizations have an awareness about maritime trade," he said.

"They've realized how important it is for world trade in general and they understand that significance."

U.S. : Two men arrested in missile sting operation
CNN

WASHINGTON, D.C. (CNN) -- The imam and the founder of an Albany, New York, mosque are being held after an FBI sting operation in which the suspects believed they were helping a terrorist launder money, federal law enforcement sources said Thursday.

The suspects are Yasin Aref, a 34-year-old Iraqi with asylum status who is the imam at the Masjid As-Salam mosque, and founder Mohammed Hossain, 49, a native of Bangladesh and a U.S. citizen.

They were apprehended when they allegedly agreed to launder the money from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile, the criminal complaint says.

The men are charged with money laundering and conspiring to conceal support and resources "knowing and intending that they are to be used in preparation for, and in carrying out a violation of" a U.S. law banning unlawful use of weapons of mass destruction.

Al Qaeda leader held in Britain
CNN

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The suspected al Qaeda operative now in the custody of police in London is a "senior" figure in the terror network known as Esa al-Hindi, U.S. government officials told CNN in Washington Thursday.

They described him as "major player who moved operational information between key components of al Qaeda."

Officials said the information flow was among three points -- Pakistan, Britain and the United States.

Officials said the group of a dozen men arrested in London could be described as a cell.

They said the United States has been particularly interested in al-Hindi for "some time" but would not elaborate as to why.

They also said Heathrow Airport was one of "several potential" targets in London that were uncovered as a result of the Pakistan investigation. That evidence included a sheaf of photos of potential targets.

Heathrow Attack Fears
Sky News

Recent anti-terror arrests in Britain and Pakistan have prompted speculation a senior al Qaeda agent was planning an attack on Heathrow Airport.

The man was reportedly among 12 men detained in raids across England on Tuesday.

According to reports, he was uncovered through intelligence gathered by police in Pakistan.

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan's links to the UK are now being exposed under interrogation.

The outlines of a Heathrow attack were found on a computer belonging to a man arrested by Pakistani authorities last month.

Planning was said to be at an advanced stage - although it is not known whether a suicide truck bomb or a surface to air missile was to be the favoured method of attack.

Terror Surveillance Author Nabbed
CBS4 Denver

LONDON (CBS) The al Qaeda operative who U.S. intelligence officials suspect wrote the surveillance reports on key financial institutions along the East Coast has been captured, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin.

Abu Eisa al Hindi was one of 12 terror suspects arrested by British police earlier this week. An English speaker, al Hindi is described by U.S. officials as the chief of operations for al Qaeda in Great Britain and perhaps the U.S. as well.

But officials say capturing al Hindi does not mean the threat of an al Qaeda attack here in the U.S. has been eliminated, although there is no question a major part of Osama bin Laden's network is unraveling, reports Martin.

The first break came on July 13 with the arrest in Pakistan of Abu Talha, who served as a communications hub relaying messages from al Qaeda leaders in hiding to operatives in the field. It took two weeks to crack the codes Talha had used to protect the files in his computer but once they were deciphered they provided a treasure trove of intelligence, including the surveillance reports which triggered the alert in U.S. financial districts.

In the past weeks, Pakistani officials say they have arrested 20 suspected members of al Qaeda — one of them a man wanted for the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in East Africa. Leads from Talha's computer led to the arrest of the 12 suspects in England, most importantly al Hindi who is believed not only to have conducted the original surveillance of financial institutions in America but also to have reviewed the reports within the last year.

There's still no evidence al Qaeda had assembled the explosives needed for an attack but U.S. intelligence has other reasons to believe an attack is coming. For one thing, captured al Qaeda members say it is.

For another, there has recently been an ominous drop off in the volume of al Qaeda communications — the same kind of drop off that occurred in the weeks before Sept. 11.

Intelligence indicates activity at al Qaeda camps
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Intelligence indicates some al Qaeda training camps have been reactivated along Pakistan's border with southeastern Afghanistan, defense and intelligence sources told CNN.

Overhead surveillance imagery gathered in the past month seems to show vehicles and people recently moving into areas known to be training sites for al Qaeda, they said.

One official said the camps "are of interest to the U.S. and Pakistan" but nothing indicated the recent activity at the camps was tied to the raising of the terrorist alert level in financial districts in New York City, Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.

The official said the United States prefers that Pakistani military forces move against the camps, situated west and southwest of Quetta.

Activity ebbs and flows at known al Qaeda training sites in the region, and the U.S. official said local Pakistani forces would be best able to stage a military operation, with the help of timely U.S. intelligence.

Pakistan has stepped up military activity along the rugged border, where the government in Islamabad has exerted little authority since independence from Britain in 1947.