A man walked up to two police officers guarding the Pentagon, US military headquarters in Washington, DC, and “without emotion”, according to the head of the Pentagon police, started shooting them. The officers, who have non-life-threatening graze injuries, returned fire and critically shot the man, John Patrick Bedell, who later died at a nearby hospital. Several shots were fired at 18:40 local time, at the busy subway entrance that leads to the large Pentagon complex. Bedell, 36, grew up in the area and had been a graduate student in physics at San Jose University in California, according to the Washington Post.
The newspaper notes that “The assault at the very threshold of the Pentagon – the U.S. capital’s ground zero on Sept. 11, 2001 – came four months after a deadly attack on the Army’s Fort Hood, Texas, base allegedly by a US Army psychiatrist with radical Islamic leanings. In the immediate aftermath Thursday, investigators did not think terrorism was involved but were not ruling that out and did not discuss possible motives.
Links to other sites: CNN, Washington Post
US President Barack Obama says he takes the blame personally for recent lapses in the US security system, in the fight against terrorism. The White House issued a report on the 25 December bomb attempt of a Northwest Airlines plane near Detroit. It calls for quicker and better exchanges of information about possible threats. People who have known the man who attempted to blow up the plane, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, are recalling the very religious and quiet man they knew.
Links to other sites: The Globe & Mail, Canada, National Public Radio, US, Times, UK and White House summary of report
Five Sydney men have been found guilty of preparing terrorist acts in one of Australia’s longest criminal trials, which began in November 2008 and involved 180 “sitting days” in a specially-built courtroom. The jury was out for 23 days deliberating. The men, charged with possessing chemicals and bomb-making instructions, cannot be named for legal reasons. They are expected to be sentenced in December. BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The man suspected of aiding terrorism who was arrested by French police 8 October was charged in Paris Monday 12 October and it appears likely he will remain in detention. Internet surveillance of terrorist groups led investigators to e-mail exchanges the 32-year-old man had with terrorist groups. Swiss television TSR quotes a source close to the man’s file who says that he had not moved to the stage of being involved in planning attacks but that he had shown his interest and desire to do so.
Update 12:50 Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – EPFL, Lausanne’s Polytechnic institute, said Monday morning 12 October that it has blocked all computer access to an area where a possible terrorist suspect has been working, but it cannot yet confirm that the person under suspicion is indeed the person arrested 8 October in France. If so, he has been giving courses once a week at the university although he has recently been off work on sick leave. Britain’s Telegraph reported late Sunday night 11 October that the unnamed man arrested last Thursday south of Lyons, France on terrorism charges was working on projects at both Cern and EPFL. EPFL has not been given a name by French police. The university and Swiss Federal Police say they are ready to help French police, but no official requests have been made.
Cern LHC tunnel that runs under Geneva and neighbouring France
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Cern (European Centre for Nuclear Research) confirmed over the weekend that a man arrested with his brother in the south of France Thursday 8 October has worked at Cern since 2003 as a contract employee for an outside company, not as a Cern employee. “His work did not bring him into contact with anything that could be used for terrorism,” the organization says in a press release, noting that “Cern is a particle physics research laboratory whose research addresses fundamental questions about the universe. None of our research has potential for military application.”
French authorities say the two men, whose identity has not been released, were taken into custody in Vienne, south of Lyons.
Pakistan and India, meeting in Egypt, have agreed to work closely together to combat terrorism, in a move that puts very strained relations in 2008 in the past. Pakistan has admitted that the 2008 Mumbai bombing that killed at least 160 people was planned at least in part in Pakistan. BBC
The US government has been talking to the island nation of Palau, reports CNN, about taking 17 prisoners from Guantanamo, part of President Obama’s plan to shut down the Cuban prison. Palau is a former US trust territory that became independent in 1994. The prisoners under consideration are a Chinese minority group of Muslims, Uighurs. Senior US officials confirmed the information a day after the first Guantanamo prisoner to be tried in the US arrived there, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
Ghailani is Tanzanian, detained in Guantanamo since 2006, accused of participating in the simultaneous bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanazania in 1998. He pleaded not guilty in federal court in Manhattan Tuesday 9 June. Reuters, BBC
Cuba and the US have agreed to talks about improving migration from the island to the US to make it safer and more orderly. They will also discuss direct mail service between the two countries. Senior State department officials in Washington confirmed Saturday that Cuban officials have left open the possibility that future talks might include other topics, such as disaster-preparedness, counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism. US President Barack Obama earlier lifted restrictions on family visits and remittances to Cuba.
This comes as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton heads to Honduras for a meeting of the Organization of American States (OAS), where calls for Cuba’s readmission to the group will be debated. CNN, USA Today
Four men have been arrested in New York, USA, after they agreed to buy missiles in an undercover operation. The men are being charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States. The FBI (US Federal Bureau of Investigation) says the men were plotting to leave a bomb at the Riverdale Synagogue in the Bronx, then travel 85 km north of New York City to aim missiles at military planes. One of the men is the son of immigrants from Afghanistan. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement that their arrest shows that “homeland security threats against New York City [are] sadly all too real”. Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, New York Times, Xinhua
In related FBI news a Canadian citizen, originally from Somalia and resident in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the US, pleaded guilty to charges of providing material support to Al Qaeda.
India’s security agents may have been lax before the attacks in Mumbai the last week of November that killed nearly 200 people, US authorities told several news agencies Tuesday. No details were provided, and the information was made available on condition of anonymity, but the US officials said that India had been warned of possible attacks.
Reuters writes that pressure is mounting from around the world on India and Pakistan to avoid letting the killings in Mumbai at the end of November lead to a confrontation or “Mumbai fallout.” The BBC reports that India is clearly turning the heat up on Pakistan.
An Indian doctor in Australia who loaned his cell phone to a cousin, who has been charged with terrorism in Britain, was released in Brisbane, with authorities saying his arrest three weeks ago was a mistake. CNN
Media in Indonesia are criticizing the handling of last week’s executions of three people found guilty of the Bali bomb attack, saying interviews with the condemned man by television and the government’s indecision caused more pain for victims and fanned the flames of terrorism. The country is on “high alert” for terrorist attacks and mobs, reports The Age, Australia. Jakarta Post; Reuters
Pakistan’s new President Asif Ali Zardari, widow of the country’s former leader, the slain Benazir Bhutto, was sworn into office Tuesday and immediately met with and held a press conference with Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai. The two often at-odds neighbours vowed to fight terrorism together. AFP
