CIA thwarts underwear bomber.
- Thread starter Cazadores
- Start date
Qutch
Question everything
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National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden:
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National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden:
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"While the President was assured that the device did not pose a threat to the public, he directed the Department of Homeland Security [TSA] and law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take whatever steps necessary to guard against this type of attack. The disruption of this IED plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad."
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It does make one wonder where the justification for increased type and amount of things such as airport security measures come from. It comes from a threat, actual or perceived. Whether there the threat is real, or played-up in order to keep up funding and need for certain existing programs or to justify new ones; isn't fully known.
I'm not yet cynical enough to believe that they'd hype a threat in order to hype the TSA, but I'm getting there. I'm glad I don't have to fly commercial over the next few days because I think the TSA might be instructed to be a little more thorough in the days, if not weeks and months to come.
To tell you the truth, I'm surprised that they didn't sit on this until October though. Maybe they have something else in store....
Qutch
Question everything
Bogus Yahoo News story (supported by almost all other news outlets) played up for it's propaganda value. Nobody knew how to fact check it. Had JC in an uproar for a few days.
http://forums.jetcareers.com/threads/should-this-judge-be-removed-from-his-position.135939/#post-1857555
Was later exposed as a fraud in a new Lavatory thread "JC Punked by Yahoo" on Feb 29th.
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Cazadores
Well-Known Member
I'd like to not be cynical as well, but after Oplan Bojinka, which actually did involve a successful test detonation, killing a passenger on a PAL 747, people continued to happily, safely board jets with full bottles of water, completely unaware of how close the attack was, and how a mere stroke of luck and a quick thinking Manila fire crew averted disaster. Contrast with the Heathrow scare, which featured Chertoff on every news channel telling us all how the traveling public would never know how close and scary it was, and how more measures were the answer. I was just left wondering why anyone outside the community really needed to know, at all. It was a very similar threat as Bojinka, only it happened after the paranoia industry came into full bloom, and therefore we all have to be dehydrated when waiting to board our flight to Des Moines.
People I knew who went into the intelligence and security field after college always said the reward was knowing everyone else could go about their day NOT having to worry, feel threatened. Isn't that the point? I really do not want to believe it is the case, but you bring up a very good point, if the threat was neutralized, why even release it if not to achieve some other ends?
inigo88
Composite-lover
This certainly is some convenient circumstances. Unnamed government officials confirm that unnamed CIA operatives obtained a bomb, which originated in Yemen, from an unnamed bomber in an unknown circumstance to be set off at an unknown time. Not unlike two years ago, when an unnamed Saudi intelligence official called the CIA with the precise names, addresses and tracking numbers of two packages containing printer toner cartridges filled with a rare and exotic type of explosive (PETN - hardly your average run of the mill terrorist stuff) that has such a low vapor pressure that it is virtually undetectable by bomb-sniffing dogs and TSA chemical tests, yet it was quietly located and removed from two separate cargo flights in Europe prior to entering the US. PETN was also the chemical high explosive found in Abdulmutallab's underwear in 2009, Richard Reid's shoes in 2001, and I'd put good money on its use in this latest plot as well. Did I mention PETN was also used as the chief ingredient in the exploding-bridgewire detonators of nuclear weapons? How do these guys keep getting their hands on this stuff?
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
That and people complaining about the ridiculousness that they have to contend with and endure at airports, writing about their experiences, going to the media with their issues and posting the videos on YouTube and blogs, is embarrassing the crap out of the TSA on an almost weekly basis.
Not to mention the scandals amongst the TSA rank and file with photos, investigations and articles about them sleeping while on duty, stealing from pax, doing illegal drugs, not all of them having background checks, behaving and conducting themselves in a non professional manner, tossing coffee on a pilot, running prostitution rings, being caught off hours with child porn, trashing hotel rooms, some of them actually having a criminal past, selling drugs and allowing drugs through the scanners and searches because they are being paid off, etc. The stories are numerous.
Seems like a possible/plausible pr campaign to me, to justify the TSA, perhaps. Not saying that this is the case, as I don't know. Certainly it is somewhat unusual for most intelligence agencies to announce what they are doing or what they have discovered or foiled, in order not to send the message to those who intend to do harm, to find another route to go that has yet to be detected, let alone the risk of putting of their own undercover operatives in danger.
JOEFRIDAY2
Well-Known Member
I kind of like those drones.
Joe
Joe
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
Even TSA's own IG will begrudgingly admit that they have not stopped a single real threat against civil aviation, and that only the heroic actions of flight and cabin crew along with passengers stopped the real, serious threats that have occurred since TSA's inception.
Wait, I thought they probed passengers gonads so that I didn't have to be a hero at work...*confused*
My foam earplugs apparently look like C4 to the backscatter gear, and leaving them in my pocket results in additional screening. Until they start hiring screeners who look like Kate Upton, I'll put the plugs through in the dog dish.
A Life Aloft
Well-Known Member
You well may be. What are your sources? You made the above statements/claims and never followed up or backed them up with anything. What are your specific "fact checks" to this story? Why do you think that it's a "bogus" story? What proof do you have? If the story did not happen as now being reported, as you stated, exactly how did it happen and what proof and sources do you have of how it did occur? Inquiring minds want to know and awaiting your responses to all of these questions with bated breath.
And since you seem to enjoy using these: Qutch
CIA derails plot with al-Qaida underwear bomb
By ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. bomb experts are picking apart a sophisticated new al-Qaida improvised explosive device, a top Obama administration counterterrorism official said Tuesday, to determine if it could have slipped past airport security and taken down a commercial airplane.
Officials told The Associated Press a day earlier that discovery of the unexploded bomb represented an intelligence prize resulting from a covert CIA operation in Yemen, saying that the intercept thwarted a suicide mission around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden.
The device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it. The device is an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. Officials said this new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system.
John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said Tuesday the discovery shows al-Qaida remains a threat to U.S. security a year after bin Laden's assassination. And he attributed the breakthrough to "very close cooperation with our international partners."
"We're continuing to investigate who might have been associated with the construction of it as well as plans to carry out an attack," Brennan said. "And so we're confident that this device and any individual that might have been designed to use it are no longer a threat to the American people."
On the question of whether the device could have been gone undetected through airport security, Brennan said, "It was a threat from a standpoint of the design." He also said there was no intelligence indicating it was going to be used in an attack to coincide with the May 2 anniversary of bin Laden's death.
Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said Tuesday that "a number of countries" provided information and cooperation that helped foil the plot. He said he had no information on the would-be bomber, but that White House officials had told him "He is no longer of concern," meaning no longer any threat to the U.S.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters Monday night that she had been briefed Monday about an "undetectable" device that was "going to be on a U.S.-bound airliner."
There were no immediate plans to change security procedures at U.S. airports.
U.S. officials declined to say where the CIA seized the bomb. The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or purchased plane tickets when the CIA seized the bomb, officials said. It was not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber.
President Barack Obama had been monitoring the operation since last month, the White House said Monday evening. White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said the president was assured the device posed no threat to the public.
"The president thanks all intelligence and counterterrorism professionals involved for their outstanding work and for serving with the extraordinary skill and commitment that their enormous responsibilities demand," Hayden said.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said: "The device did not appear to pose a threat to the public air service, but the plot itself indicates that these terrorist keep trying to devise more and more perverse and terrible ways to kill innocent people. And it a reminder of how we have to keep vigilant." Clinton spoke during a news conference Tuesday in New Delhi with Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna.
The operation unfolded even as the White House and Homeland Security Department assured the public that they knew of no al-Qaida plots against the U.S. around the anniversary of bin Laden's death.
On May 1, the Homeland Security Department said, "We have no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the U.S. tied to the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death."
The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish a story immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.
The FBI and Homeland Security acknowledged the existence of the bomb late Monday. Other officials, who were briefed on the operation, insisted on anonymity to discuss details of the plot, many of which the U.S. has not officially acknowledged.
It's not clear who built the bomb, but because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Christmas Day bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010.
Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.
The new underwear bomb operation is a reminder of al-Qaida's ambitions, despite the death of bin Laden and other senior leaders. Because of instability in the Yemeni government, the terrorist group's branch there has gained territory and strength. It has set up terrorist camps and, in some areas, even operates as a de facto government.
On Monday, al-Qaida militants staged a surprise attack on a Yemeni army base in the south, killing 22 soldiers and capturing at least 25. The militants managed to reach the base both from the sea and by land, gunning down troops and making away with weapons and other military hardware after the blitz, Yemeni military officials said.
But the group has also suffered significant setbacks as the CIA and the U.S. military focus more on Yemen. On Sunday, Fahd al-Quso, a senior al-Qaida leader, was hit by a missile as he stepped out of his vehicle along with another operative in the southern Shabwa province of Yemen.
Al-Quso, 37, was on the FBI's most wanted list, with a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. He was indicted in the U.S. for his role in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, in which 17 American sailors were killed and 39 injured.
Al-Quso was believed to have replaced Anwar al-Awlaki as the group's head of external operations. Al-Awlaki was killed in a U.S. airstrike last year.
The new Yemeni president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, has promised improved cooperation with the U.S. to combat the militants. On Saturday, he said the fight against al-Qaida was in its early stages. Hadi took over in February from longtime authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Brennan appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," the "CBS This Morning" show and NBC's "Today" show. King was interviewed on CNN.
skyking_den
Well-Known Member
I'm really disgusted by the whole TSA and DHS thing. Not just by TSA. But the fact that we're such a bunch of wimps and we are willingly letting them do this to us. All communications monitored and everything searched. They're slowly turning this country into a police state.
inigo, MikeD, qutch, Cazadores, TallFlyer? Some of your posts hint that you guys know some secret about this CIA exposed bomb plot that the rest of us are not privy to.
What is it you guys are hinting at? Did I miss a previous thread on this or something? qutch and inigo always seem to come up with something semi-classified secret. MikeD often talks like he's only telling us 1/10 of what he really knows. You 3 always seem to have access to information that is over our heads. Is there another level of JC where we can pick up the Code you guys are talking?
