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Small Bomb Explodes Outside Spain Hotel
A small bomb exploded Sunday outside a vacant resort hotel in southeastern Spain, the Interior Ministry said. No injuries were reported.
The Basque separatist group ETA was suspected in the explosion, officials said.
The bomb went off at about 3 p.m. in the garden of a resort complex in the Mediterranean town of Villajoyosa, 20 miles northeast of Alicante, a local official said.
A telephone warning had been phoned to the Basque newspaper Gara, a method typical of ETA, the official said.
The hotel,
normally used as a vacation residence by employees of the bank
BBVA, was not in use at the time. The area was evacuated and cordoned
off before the explosion, the official said.
ETA is blamed for more than 800 deaths since the 1960s in its
campaign for an independent homeland in territory straddling northern
Spain and southwestern France.
Forty-three people were wounded in Madrid in a Feb. 9 car bombing blamed on ETA, and two suspected ETA members were arrested in the seaside town of Valencia on Feb. 17 on suspicion of planning an attack.
ETA also carried out a string of small bombings on northern resort towns last summer.
Alliance company says bomb threats resulted in $40,000 loss
Two teenage
employees of Alliance Castings were charged Friday with making
false alarms after police found them allegedly responsible for
two bomb threat phone calls to the factory in January.
Demetrius A. Cannon, 18, 825 S. Wade Ave., and Stephen L. Hancox,
19, 929 Reed St., have both been charged with the fourth-degree
felony following interviews that were conducted on Thursday by
detectives Scott A. Blake and William Mucklo.
The plant reportedly received the two calls at about 11 p.m. Jan. 20. City firefighters were placed on standby and two police officers along with the shift commander went to the factory while it was being evacuated.
No bomb was found, and employees were later given the option of returning to work or going home if they felt uncomfortable about the situation in the plant.
The company
reported Wednesday that the bomb threats cost the company $40,339
in the loss of steel, man hours and production. The financial
loss of the company is what elevated the charges from a first-degree
misdemeanor to a fourth-degree felony, police said.
27 Feb 2005, AP
Animal Rights Extremists Target Airport Employees
Animal rights extremists have opened a violent campaign against BAA, the company that runs most of Britain’s big airports, for its role in importing live animals for laboratory research.
Attackers have caused damage worth tens of thousands of pounds to the homes and vehicles of senior managers at BAA and other firms they claim are involved in importing animals.
Each year, thousands of mice, birds, monkeys and other animals are imported through airports for use in medical experiments.
An anti-import campaign was launched in December by a protest group called Gateway to Hell with co-ordinated demonstrations at Heathrow and Manchester airports. The campaign is targeting BAA, Air France, Air Mauritius and the Dover Port Authority. Air Mauritius denies it imports animals.
The group is linked to Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (Shac), which has co-ordinated years of protests against Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS), a medical testing company based near Cambridge.
Four days after the new campaign began, unknown assailants attacked the homes and vehicles of five air transport executives including Margaret Ewing, 49, group finance director of BAA.
In all five attacks, homes were spray-painted and a total of 14 cars vandalised with paint-stripper or by having their tyres slashed.
Three cars in Ewing’s drive were badly damaged. Graffiti was daubed on the walls of her home saying: “You are now a target for us, you will not win.”
Ewing, who is married with children, said last week: “They did some criminal damage, which was very upsetting, and my family are simply trying to get over what happened.”
BAA held a meeting with police last week to discuss security for its staff. The company has altered records kept at Companies House to remove the home addresses of its directors on security grounds. This is not infallible — last week it was possible to obtain online archives with home addresses.
Others attacked on the same night as Ewing included John Hextall, 48, a director of UTi, a freight-forwarding company. UTi believes its directors were targeted because it had delivered four shipments of vaccine from Heathrow to HLS, which uses animals to test products on behalf of drug companies.
Other UTi directors have received threatening letters from the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) at their home addresses warning of “more visible signs of action” if the firm did not halt trade with HLS. As a result, UTi has said it will no longer do business with HLS.
Other attacks have been launched against directors of Benair and the Charles Kendall Group, both of which are freight companies. UPS, which has also worked with HLS, has seen demonstrations at its depots, including those in Crawley, Peterborough and Coventry. Benair issued a statement after the attack denying it had ever had any connection with importing live animals.
Last night Brian Cass, managing director of HLS, said the new attacks were not just directed against his company, but were aimed at stopping all animals coming into the country for medical research.
“This is aimed at companies, universities and the entire medical research community,” said Cass. “The government needs urgently to put serious resources into combating these people.”
A spokeswoman for the Research Defence Society, which represents users of animals in experiments, said: “A lot of animals are bred within the UK and quite often within the facilities where they are used. Certain animals, such as specialist transgenic strains of mice, have to be imported. Certain species of primate cannot be bred in the UK because conditions are not right.”
She added that 85% of the animals used in 2.8m experiments each year are mice and rats.
A spokesman for the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit, a police body that monitors the animal rights movement, said the Gateway to Hell campaign was closely connected to Shac. “It is linked to Shac by people who run the website,” he said.
The Gateway to Hell website is registered in Thailand in the name of a group based at the same address as Shac in Evesham, Worcestershire. Shac last week denied any knowledge of the connection.
Keith Mann, a spokesman for Gatewaytohell.net, said: “Once we have stopped the airports, which we will do before too long, it is going to be difficult for them to find other ways of bringing animals in.”
Mann, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison in 1994 for criminal damage and attempted arson, said the protest campaign was intending to expand to take on ports such as Dover.
Asked whether
or not he condoned the attacks, Mann said: “It is an obvious
extension to the campaign. The more the authorities clamp down
on legitimate protest, as is happening through injunctions, it
seems logical that people are going to resort to other kinds of
tactics. They are effective, the proof is there.”
27 Feb 2005, Sunday Times
Radical Christian Group in UK Targets Abortion Clinics
A militant evangelical Christian group plans to target pregnant women and medical staff at abortion clinics as it steps up its campaign against what it calls a tidal wave of filth, The Times has learned.
An MP will make a written statement to the House of Commons next week calling on the Home Secretary to investigate the activities of Christian Voice, which shot to prominence with its campaign against Jerry Springer — The Opera. Adopting the tactics of American fundamentalist Christians, the group pickets buildings and posts the home addresses and phone numbers of its targets on the internet.
Last week, a cancer charity turned down a £3,000 donation from the show after Christian Voice threatened to picket its clinics if it accepted “tainted” money from the show.
Abortions in Britain have reached a record level. In 2003, the total number of abortions was 181,600, compared with 175,900 in 2002, a rise of 3.2 per cent. The number of girls aged 14 and under having abortions is above 1,000 a year.
The group, led by Stephen Green, gained notoriety when it circulated the home addresses and telephone numbers of senior BBC figures when the musical was screened on BBC Two last month. Some people on the list received calls threatening them with bloodshed.
Mr Green, 53, told The Times last night that his next target is abortion clinics. “The taking of innocent blood brings judgment on our land and cries to Heaven for vengeance,” he said. “The presence of abortion centres in our towns is iniquitous. They should be shut down. It would not take much: just a few prayer vigils outside clinics.”
John Cryer, the Labour MP for Hornchurch, is composing a written statement to the House calling for Charles Clarke to investigate Christian Voice. “They will be targeting women who are already in a vulnerable state, nervous and afraid with all sorts of problems, and making their lives even worse,” he said.
During questions on Commons business last week, Mr Cryer described members of Christian Voice as fundamentalist thugs for “strong-arming” the small cancer charity Maggie’s Centres into refusing a donation from Jerry Springer.
Abortion clinics said last night that they feared a rise in US-style anti-abortion tactics and are being especially vigilant. Marie Stopes said that small groups of protesters already picket some of its clinics, blocking pregnant women as they attempt to enter and thrusting leaflets into their hands. “They stand outside with posters and rosary beads,” a spokesman said. “Members of staff sometimes have to escort the women into the clinics.”
In America clinics have been firebombed and since 1991 three doctors and four members of clinic staff have been murdered. Neal Horsley, the American anti-abortionist, who posted photographs of murdered abortion doctors on the web with a red line through their faces, told The Times that he has links with groups in Britain, but refused to name them.
Mr Horsley, a convicted marijuana dealer, former member of the US Air force and Presbyterian minister, believes that the Ten Commandments justify murder to prevent the death of unborn children. “I wouldn’t do it myself, but if I was on a jury in a trial of someone who had killed one of these doctors I would acquit him,” he said.
Photographs of women visiting abortion clinics have been posted on American websites, which label them as homicidal mothers who must be held up for the world to see.
Mainstream Christian groups distanced themselves from Christian Voice, which also lobbies against homosexuality and is preparing to launch a campaign against sex education in schools. Mr Green, the author of a virulently anti-gay book called The Sexual Dead End, said: “Homosexuality is a pathology, an emotional or psychological disorder. It is a very sad thing but it is something you can get over.
“It was a bad day when they let homosexuals in the Armed Forces. People there do not want to be objects of sexual attention from blokes they are sharing a trench or tent with.”
He added: “It was an even worse day when they let women on the front line. They should be in the home. The man should be the leader in the family and the woman should be the daughter or wife under the authority of her father and then her husband.”
Mr Green is married, has four grown-up children and lives on a smallholding in Carmarthen, South Wales. He claims that Hindus are wicked and Said: “We would like to reach out to Muslims and tell them they cannot find salvation in a dead Prophet.”
He converted
to Christianity when he married his wife, Caroline, in 1981, and
set up Christian Voice in 1994, but became a full-time activist
15 months ago. Mr Green told The Times that he is not sure why
he feels so strongly: “Perhaps the Lord thinks I have got
a certain gift. With all the hate mail I have been getting, I
am obviously rattling Satan’s cage.”
26 Feb 2005,
Fake Bomb Placed at Australian Shopping
Mall
Arson
squad detectives have launched a three-pronged investigation to
track down whoever left a fake bomb in the Knox City Shopping
Centre.
A shopkeeper found the device -- complete with flashing lights, wires and two pipes -- at a fruit store in the complex in Melbourne's outer east at 10.20am on Wednesday.
It caused chaos and panic, and is estimated to have cost traders tens of thousands of dollars with the centre closed for the day.
Special operations group bomb squad experts found it was an elaborate fake bomb.
And arson squad detectives yesterday tracked three avenues of inquiry.
While some collated and studied security video, forensic experts examined the components of the device.
Other detectives gathered witness statements.
Several traders criticised centre management for not sounding the evacuation alarm immediately after the suspicious device was found.
Manager of Unique Pasta and Deli, Brigitte Begovic, said it took 25 minutes before the alarms were activated, leaving traders and shoppers in a state of panic.
"We found out (to evacuate) only after a trader came over and yelled, 'get out, get out, there's a bomb', and then it was up to us to get the customers out" she said.
"We had to scream to the nearby traders to get out, because they didn't know what was going on either. The alarms came on only 25 minutes after we had evacuated."
Martin Visser from Baker's Delight said it was chaos for customers.
"When we realised something was going on we followed our own evacuation plan but for the customers it was just chaos because there was no alarms or anything."
Manager of Select Flowers Sarah Beddome said it wasn't the first time the evacuation procedure had fallen down.
"We had a small fire here just before Christmas and no alarms went off at all," she said. "The only sirens I heard this time were coming from the police cars and fire trucks outside."
Centre manager Blazenka Jurin said the emergency plan was in line with the centre's procedure. She would not comment further.
Business owners estimated sales losses and additional costs resulting from the hoax would run into the thousands.
Fruit Market owner Joe Zhou said traders would meet to discuss ways to recoup losses.
"All the retailers are a bit worried about the money situation at the moment," he said.
"We still have to pay our staff for the day and rent to the centre.
"And some shops had to throw food out, so it will all add up.
"I'm not sure that insurance will cover it because nothing actually happened -- it was just a hoax," Mr Zhou said.
25 Feb 2005, Herald Sun
Feds Trace Path of Arizona Letter Bomb to City Office
Federal authorities have confirmed the package found at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library last February was the same cardboard box that blew up in the hands of the city’s diversity and dialogue director a few days later.
The bomb inside a shoebox-sized package addressed to Don Logan had been initially placed on a desk in a public part of the library on or around Feb. 21, 2004, said Tom Mangan, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
It made its way through U.S. mail, city mail and finally to Logan on Feb. 26.
The blast was triggered by the opening of the box, Mangan said.
This was one of the few pieces of information authorities have released to the public in months. Saturday is the one-year anniversary of the package bomb explosion at the city’s Human Resources building, 7575 E. Main St.
"We have some investigative leads but we can’t comment on them," Mangan said.
A letter and questionnaires were mailed to 136 people who attended the library’s Feb. 20, 2004, "Authors and Appetizers Among Friends" event. The inquiries did not provide any investigative leads, Mangan said.
Packages and books sent to the library are now screened along with other mail, said Pat Dodds, a city spokesman. Library security monitors have also received special training on how to handle and recognize unattended belongings, he said.
Logan, who appears to be mostly recovered, has no immediate plans to leave his job.
Renita Linyard, Logan’s secretary at the time, and Jacque Bell, a human resources representative, also suffered injuries and have since returned to work.
"What that tells me is that other people besides people in my office were put at risk," said Logan, who said he is thankful the explosion was not on a bigger scale and no one else was hurt.
Security is still being provided to Logan but Scottsdale police detective Sam Bailey would not comment further.
The U.S. Postal
Service is offering a $100,000 reward in addition to the $6,000
award from Silent Witness.
East Valley Tribune 25 Feb 2005
FBI Forecasts New Threats to the United States
The FBI forecasts that sub-national and non-governmental entities will play an increasing role in world affairs for years to come, presenting new “asymmetric” threats to the United States. In a report to the National Association of Chiefs of Police, FBI officials claim that although the United States will continue to occupy a position of economic and political leadership — and although other governments will also continue to be important actors on the world stage — terrorist groups, criminal enterprises, and other non-state actors will assume an increasing role in international affairs. Nation states and their governments will exercise decreasing control over the flow of information, resources, technology, services, and people.
Globalization and the trend of an increasingly networked world economy will become more pronounced within the next five years. The global economy will stabilize some regions, but widening economic divides are likely to make areas, groups, and nations that are left behind breeding grounds for unrest, violence, and terrorism. As corporate, financial, and nationality definitions and structures become more complex and global, the distinction between foreign and domestic entities will increasingly blur. This will lead to further globalization and networking of criminal elements, directly threatening the security of the United States.
Most experts believe that technological innovation will have the most profound impact on the collective ability of the federal, state, and local governments to protect the United States. Advances in information technology, as well as other scientific and technical areas, have created the most significant global transformation since the Industrial Revolution. These advances allow terrorists, disaffected states, weapons proliferators, criminal enterprises, drug traffickers, and other threat enterprises easier and cheaper access to weapons technology. Technological advances will also provide terrorists and others with the potential to stay ahead of law enforcement countermeasures. For example, it will be easier and cheaper for small groups or individuals to acquire designer chemical or biological warfare agents, and correspondingly more difficult for forensic experts to trace an agent to a specific country, company, or group.
In the 21st Century, with the ready availability of international travel and telecommunications, neither crime nor terrorism confines itself territorially. Nor do criminals or terrorists restrict themselves, in conformance with the structure of our laws, wholly to one bad act or the other. Instead, they enter into alliances of opportunity as they arise; terrorists commit crimes and, for the right price or reason, criminals assist terrorists. Today’s threats cross geographic and political boundaries with impunity; and do not fall solely into a single category of our law. To meet these threats, we need an even more tightly integrated intelligence cycle. We must have extraordinary receptors for changes in threats and the ability to make immediate corrections in our priorities and focus to address those changes. And, we must recognize that alliances with others in law enforcement, at home and abroad, are absolutely essential.
Counterterrorism Forecast
Terrorism is the most significant threat to our national security. In the international terrorism arena, over the next five years, we believe the number of state-sponsored terrorist organizations will continue to decline, but privately-sponsored terrorist groups will increase in number. However, the terrorist groups will increasingly cooperate with one another to achieve desired ends against common enemies. These alliances will be of limited duration, but such “ loose associations” will challenge our ability to identify specific threats. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates will remain the most significant threat over the next five years.
The global Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) threat to the United States and its interests is expected to increase significantly in the near term. We expect terrorists to exploit criminal organizations to develop and procure WMD capabilities. Globalization will make it easier to transfer both WMD materiel and expertise throughout the world. The basic science and technologies necessary to produce WMD will be increasingly well understood. Similarly, raw materials will be more available and easier to obtain.
Violence by domestic terrorists will continue to present a threat to the United States over the next five years. The number of traditional left-wing terrorist groups, typically advocating the overthrow of the U.S. Government because of the perceived growth of capitalism and imperialism, have diminished in recent years. However, new groups have emerged that may pose an increasing threat. Right-wing extremists, espousing anti-government or racist sentiment, will pose a threat because of their continuing collection of weapons and explosives coupled with their propensity for violence. The most significant domestic terrorism threat over the next five years will be the lone actor, or “lone wolf” terrorist. They typically draw ideological inspiration from formal terrorist organizations, but operate on the fringes of those movements. Despite their ad hoc nature and generally limited resources, they can mount high-profile, extremely destructive attacks, and their operational planning is often difficult to detect.
Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice
24 Feb 2005
Mens News Daily
Suspicious
Package Postal Truck Causes Scare in Texas
Harlingen, TX--Haz-Mat crews and the FBI had a sticky situation on their hands at the Texas State Bank Tower in North McAllen.
This after a McAllen postal employee finds a suspicious piece of mail in his truck.
"The mail carrier saw sort of like a gluey substance in the letter or package. Following protocol he identified it as a suspicious package and called the fire department," said police Lt. Rene Alaniz.
Chemical response teams secured a perimeter and suited up to retrieve the mysterious mail. Fearing the worse they worked to diffuse a potential danger.
But just over two hours into their investigation the DBI and the Postal Service would reveal that the package didn't pose a threat at all.
Someone admitted to the FBI and Postal Workers that they were just playing a joke.
"They have not provided information about whether it was a he or she but it has been identified that it was a hoax. The person that talked to the Postal Service and the FBI identified the product that was used but they are not releasing it until they complete their investigation," said Texas State Bank CEO and Vice President Tony Gorman.
Texas State Bank says while the situation was tense no evacuation order was ever issued. And they are pleased with how workers responded to the potential danger.
We have our normal disaster and recovery processes and procedures that are in place when we encounter something unusual and this was one of those situation where we were prepared to do what was necessary in our backup but fortunately we didn't have to do much," Gorman said.
It is unclear where the mail originated, but Texas State Bank says the package didn't come from them nor was it addressed to them.
24 Feb 2005,
KGBT News
Boy Charged After Following Internet Bomb-Making
Instructions
The Pinelands Junior High School student caught with what police described as a makeshift bomb crafted from a model rocket engine is facing weapons charges.
The 13-year-old student, identified by the district only as a seventh- or eighth-grader, was arrested Feb. 10 after school officials discovered the device in his locker, according to police.
Detective Arthur Chadwick said Tuesday the boy told police he offered to blow up a teacher's mailbox for a female student. At that point, the girl told school officials about the bomb, Chadwick said.
The student faces juvenile charges of unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon on school grounds, according to police.
Chadwick said the boy crafted the bomb, which was roughly the size of a golf ball, out of rocket model fuel, aluminum foil and a wick. The boy learned how to make the bomb from the Internet, he said.
But Superintendent of Schools Detlef Kern refused to call the device a bomb last week, and said that the school district handled the situation "by the book." He said, at the time, officials seized the device and immediately contacted police. Kern also said there was never a need to evacuate the school and that the device posed no imminent danger to students or staff.
Still, Christine Melnick, whose daughter is in seventh grade at the junior high, expressed frustration in an e-mail Tuesday about the incident. She said parents were not notified after the incident and that rumors were allowed to spread through the community.
Kern said last week that officials felt no need to send out a general notification to parents about the incident.
Bruce Greenfield,
Ocean County superintendent of schools, agreed with Kern last
week. He said, in this situation, district officials were not
required to send any public notification because the device no
longer posed any threat.
23 Feb 2005, Asbury Park Press
Kentucky Man Arrested for Bomb Threat Letters
Flemining County, KY--There's now an arrest in the bomb threats that closed down the Fleming County schools earlier this month.
47-year-old Gary King of Owingsville in Bath County is being held under a $1 million bond.
King faces seven counts of terroristic threatening for saying he would bomb the Hillsboro Elementary School and other schools on February 10th.
The sheriff's office says King made the threats in letters he wrote and placed in mail boxes around Fleming County.
The threats forced the county schools to close while all schools were checked out for bombs.
22
Feb 2005, WKYT News
Package
with Suspicious Powder Causes Evacuation at IBM
Fire officials say it was a false alarm and employees are now back to work after a scare at a Lexington business.
The scare at IBM on Aristides Boulevard, off Newton Pike, started Tuesday morning when someone opened a box of computers.
When firefighters and police arrived on scene, they had no idea what they were dealing with in the IBM building.
An employee opened a package and noticed an unknown white residue inside the package, which led to the evacuation.
While the employees were outside the building, officials contacted the shipper and they determined there was nothing hazardous.
Lexington fire battalion chief Joe Kinney. "It was shipping glue. It looked like a powder. We just came out to verify what happened."
Employees
were outside of the building for about 45 minutes to an hour as
authorities worked on determining the origin of the powder.
22 February 2005, WKYT News
Belfast Politician Receives Letter Bomb at Home
A campaign of republican intimidation against the new policing arrangements will not succeed in derailing the reform process, the latest postal bomb target said today.
Former Newry and Mourne District Policing Partnership chairman Michael Carr said his work on the partnership would continue despite having a "viable" explosive device sent to his home by dissident republicans.
Bomb disposal experts spent four hours dealing with the device at the father-of-four's Warrenpoint home yesterday afternoon.
This is the second time Mr Carr has been targeted, having earlier received bullets through the post.
The incident, which is being blamed on the Real IRA, followed two security alerts in the Newry city centre linked to dissidents, and Mr Carr said he was "shocked and annoyed" by the escalated threat.
"I was suspicious anyway as I had heard about the alerts, so I took it outside and called the police," he said.
"It was a viable device all right and they said it would have exploded and it would have done a fair amount of damage.
"This is particularly nasty - my young son could have opened it and it was just lucky that I was at home. There is also a threat to the postal workers who have to handle these packages and there was a great deal of inconvenience for neighbours as well."
Suspicious packages were sent to a recruitment agency in Newry's Upper Water Street yesterday and to the City Hall tourist office causing chaos in the city and forcing police to evacuate commercial premises.
DPP members from across the province, including Cookstown, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Strabane, have received threats and devices through the post.
Mr Carr said the intimidation, while effective, would not dissuade him from playing his part in the DPP.
"The arrangements are working - that's what is getting to these guys. Even if Michael Carr is not there the Patten reforms will continue. It's too big and there are too many benefits for it not to happen," he said.
"I've got their message but they haven't got ours, that the Patten changes will be implemented."
Newry and Mourne District Council's mayor, Henry Reilly, said he was disturbed by the news and paid tribute to his colleague.
"Although I don't share the politics of Michael Carr he is an honourable man who is universally respected for the quality of his work and his commitment to the community and I just wonder what these people think they are going to achieve by trying to injure or kill a good man," he said.
"I think this is making people more determined to try to achieve the service which they deserve."
18 Feb 2005, Belfast Telegraph
Scottish Football Referee Sent Razorblades and Other Postal Threats
Old Firm referee Mike McCurry claims he has been terrorised by Scottish football fans throughout his career.
The 41-year-old, who will take charge of Sunday’s Old Firm clash at Parkhead, has revealed he has been sent death threats, dead rats and razor blades in the post.
McCurry said: “Aberdeen fans send me dead rats in the post and that kind of stuff.
“Every now and again you get that kind of thing, especially from the Aberdeen fans.
“After one game against Rangers or Celtic, Dons fans sent me chicken giblets – and from time to time you get a wee package from them.
“I think it goes back to a Hearts-Aberdeen game I did once. Right at the very end of the match Aberdeen, who were 1-0 down, had the ball in the net – but the linesman called offside.
“The TV pictures proved it was 100% correct. But at the time the Aberdeen fans weren’t too happy, and I suppose they’ve never forgiven me.
“So you get the usual death threats and that sort of stuff. Once I even got a letter with a razor blade taped to the inside. The idea was I’d slice a couple of fingers off when I was opening it.”
Hugh Dallas has also been the subject of abuse, and McCurry revealed yobs also hurled concrete through his window on one occasion.
He told the Daily Record: “I’ve had a coping stone put through the patio window when I was in the house, and it landed about two feet from me.
“It was after the game when Henrik Larsson broke his jaw in a collision with Livingston’s Gus Bahoken.
“The Tuesday after that I came back from training and was sitting down to watch TV with a plate of scrambled eggs on toast.
“But I didn’t know a crowd of about 15 guys had gathered outside my house. I heard a couple of thuds and just thought it was kids playing out the front.
“So I picked up the remote to put the telly on mute, and just then the patio window came crashing in.
“I went outside thinking it would just be a group of young kids and I wanted to grab one of them and call the police.
“But when I went out I was confronted by about 15 guys aged between about 27 to 40 shouting the usual Glasgow stuff, ‘Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’.
“At
that point, I hasten to add, I went back inside and finished my
scrambled eggs.”
18 Feb 2005, Scotsman
Postal Bomb Scare at Carlisle Barracks
A suspicious looking item inside a state-owned vehicle on the grounds of Carlisle Barracks, the site of the U.S. Army War College, caused police to close off a portion of a roadway and limit vehicle access to the area for a few hours Thursday afternoon.
Army Lt. Col. Bob Suskie said the item consisted of a cell phone and some electronics attached to a box, and the person who brought it onto the post said it was a fake bomb he used for training at a state government agency.
But the man could not produce proper credentials and it took some time to verify that he was a state worker, so a bomb squad used high-pressure water to destroy the item, Suskie said.
The incident occurred about 12:15 p.m. in an area of the post where vehicles that lack Defense Department sticker identification must submit to inspection.
The man's name and the state agency for which he works were not disclosed. Suskie said no charges were expected.
18 Feb 2005
EMT
Instructor Advised to Send Replica Bombs by Mail
A local paramedic instructor was on his way to teach a terrorism response class Sunday when his training materials were confiscated by security screeners at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.
Christopher Suprun, an emergency medical technician, said he notified a screening supervisor beforehand that he was carrying the training aids – a videotape case and a briefcase, both rigged to look like bombs.
He said he uses the fake bombs to show his students how everyday items could be made into improvised explosives.
The materials tested negative for explosive residue, but the U.S. Transportation Security Administration closed the checkpoint in Terminal C about 8 a.m. Sunday as supervisors debated how to handle the situation.
Replicas of explosives are prohibited on airplanes, said Andrea McCauley, a TSA spokeswoman.
"The best thing to do is to mail it beforehand," she said.
Mr. Suprun, who responded to the Pentagon after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said he was flying to Baltimore to teach a refresher course for emergency medical technicians at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He said he has never had any problems traveling with the training aids.
But he said he is frustrated by the unclear response from the TSA at the checkpoint.
Mr. Suprun said it took more than an hour for the agency to tell him the items were prohibited. He said that he even called the local TSA office before leaving and that he was told to notify a supervisor at the checkpoint, which he did.
"I'm sort of amazed by the breakdown in the process," he said. "If I call McDonald's and I ask if they have any Big Macs, they know they have Big Macs. So if I call TSA, I expect them to tell me what I should do for airport security."
On Sunday, a police officer and canine team determined that there was nothing harmful with the training aids.
"We told him we had no problem with it," said David Magaña, a D/FW Airport spokesman. "There was nothing in there that was explosive or anything that could be used to make an explosive."
Ms. McCauley said that TSA employees made the right decision but should have told the passenger immediately. The agency usually recommends that law enforcement trainers ship their materials, she said.
"We've never had an incident like that at D/FW with a trainer that I can recall," Ms. McCauley said.
She recommended
that anyone unsure about an item visit www.tsa.gov or call the
local TSA office and ask to speak with a customer service manager.
14 Feb 2005, EXTA News
Incendiary Device Found at Courthouse in California
The FBI and Auburn police are investigating the discovery of an incendiary device that was left at the entrance of the Placer County Courthouse over the weekend.
The discovery raised questions about whether the device was connected to a series of arsons and attempted arsons in Northern California by someone claiming to be with the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmental group.
A passerby on a morning walk discovered a purple backpack near the building's east entrance and called police at about 8:15 a.m. Sunday.
The Placer County Explosives Ordinance Disposal team used a remote controlled robot to examine the contents of the bag. Investigators would not say whether the device was similar to those used in a string of arsons and attempted firebombings in Placer and Amador counties in recent months.
A 21-year-old Newcastle man was arrested last Tuesday and charged in connection with the crimes. Ryan Lewis is scheduled to appear at a bail hearing in federal court Thursday afternoon.
Lewis is suspected of setting five incendiary devices at the Park Hill Professional Center which were discovered on January 12. The devices did not detonate.
One week later, the Auburn Journal and several other newspapers received letters claiming to be from the loosely-organized domestic terror group called the Earth Liberation Front and taking responsibility for the Auburn incident.
The writer of the letter also claimed responsibility for a December 27 incident in which incendiary devices were planted at several new homes under construction in Lincoln. The letter stated the ELF wanted to do economic damage to JTS Development, the home builder.
Last Monday, seven incendiary devices were set off at a nearly-completed apartment complex in Sutter Creek in Amador County. The devices damaged two units at the complex. Investigators found the words "We Will Win-ELF" spraypainted on a construction trailer at the site.
The FBI said Lewis is being held only in connection with the Auburn case. While investigators believe the arsons and attempted arsons are tied to the Earth Liberation Front, they would not comment on whether Lewis was part of the group.
The Auburn Police Department said Sunday's incident was troubling because it diverged from the pattern established in the other attacks. Instead of targeting a site under construction, whoever planted the most recent device did so at a historic landmark.
"The difference in this one is the venue is not a construction project which has been their professed targets in the past, so it's a little different game when it's a courthouse," said Sgt. Chris Reams of the Auburn Police Department.
Police said
they would increase patrols at construction sites, government
buildings and other, undisclosed locations.
14 Feb 2005, KXTV News
Bomb
Alert at Belfast Tourist Office
Newry City Hall was today evacuated after a suspicious package was found at the building's tourist office.
It was later declared a hoax and the building was reopened. Staff had been evacuated from Newry's City Hall and Sean Hollywood Arts Centre after police found the suspicious package.
An earlier security operation in the city was also declared a hoax.
And in a separate incident in Lurgan, a bomb investigation ended shortly after 10am and was also declared a hoax.
Traffic was disrupted in both Lurgan and Newry during the morning rush hour and caused major roads to be sealed off.
Commenting on the Newry City Hall operation a PSNI spokeswoman said: "A suspicious package was found at a tourist office. The building was evacuated."
A spokeswoman for Newry and Mourne District Council said: "A suspicious parcel was discovered by staff in Newry City Hall this morning when opening the post.
"The matter has now been passed for investigation to the appropriate authorities."
The first suspicious object was discovered near the Abbey Road and Water Street areas of Newry at around 8.45am.
Following a controlled explosion it was found to be a hoax.
SDLP councillor John McArdle said the incident was reminiscent to the dark days of the Troubles.
"I think it's an absolute disgrace. They want us to return to the 30 years during which we suffered in this area," he said.
"Whoever is carrying this out should be ashamed of themselves."
Traffic diversions have been set up at Kildare Street and Sugar Island in the city. News of the alert came at around 8am and Army bomb disposal experts were called to the scene at the junction of Lake Street and Antrim Road.
Traffic on
roads surrounding the Old Soye's Mill part of the town was affected.
There has been no indication of any paramilitary involvement.
Construction workers at the Forest Glade Developments site were
unable to go to work as traffic was diverted around the police
cordon.
16 Feb 2005, Belfast Telegraph
Envelope Containing White Powder Sent to
British Council in Athens
A member of staff at the British Council in Kolonaki, Athens on Wednesday found an envelope containing an unidentified white powder, semi-official Athens NewsAgency reported.
The British Council alerted the fire department, which sent a team of 10 specially-trained firemen equipped with special suits to pick up the envelope and take it to the Centre for Special Diseases,the report said.
The envelope's contents will be tested to see if they are toxicor whether the incident was a hoax, it added. Enditem
16 Feb 2005,
Xinhuanet
Police in Kansas Stop Car and Find Explosive
Devices
Lee's Summit police deactivated two possible explosive devices Tuesday after they stopped a motorist on a counterfeiting warrant.
The incident started about 7:30 p.m. near Southeast 5th Street and Nathan's Pass. During the stop, an officer noticed two suspicious packages. Both items were deactivated without incident. Police evacuated several homes for a few hours.
Authorities are continuing the investigation.
16 Feb 2005 Kansas City Star
Suspicious Delivery Creates Sticky Situation for Bomb Squad in Tennessee
A sticky situation developed for Howard Nitzberg, who called the Knoxville bomb squad after receiving a 17-pound package at his Digi-Tek Computer store.
Nitzberg received a box from packaging company Stephen Gould.
Nitzberg and Stephen Gould salesman James Fair have been wrapped up in a billing dispute since November 2003.
Nitzberg said his DigiTek company received -- but didn't deposit -- a check for services that he said was less than what Fair owed.
Then he got the box.
Nitzberg was suspicious and called the police last week.
They dispatched the bomb squad and a portable X-ray machine.
Police found 90 dollars worth of coins mixed in with peanuts, scraps of coin wrappers and a sticky substance Nitzberg said was syrup.
Nitzberg said it wasn't cute or funny to him.
Fair refused to affirm or deny he sent a package.
11 Feb 2004,
AP
Pipe Bomb Left at California Fire Station
A middle-aged man found a live pipe bomb while walking Monday afternoon and took it to the nearest Escondido fire station, authorities said.
That set off a flurry of emergency activity and official warnings against touching any explosive device.
"Just leave it alone. Call 911," said Sgt. Conrad Grayson of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad.
The man discovered the bomb while walking on Stanley Street near North Broadway, said Escondido fire Capt. Steve DiGiovanna. He said the explosive looked as if it had been discarded or didn't activate.
At 12:40 p.m., the man arrived at Fire Station 3 at 2165 N. Village Road, where DiGiovanna was working.
"He found one of the firefighters and said, 'Hey, I have something you probably want,'" the captain said.
The firefighter told the man to put the bomb in front of the station. Firefighters roped off the device and called the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad.
"We had to treat it as an emergency call," DiGiovanna said. "We now had an explosive device at the fire station."
He said a bomb squad detective disarmed the pipe bomb and took it away for disposal.
7 Feb 2005 North County Times
Bomb Squad in Ireland Renders Suspicious Device Safe
The Army Bomb Disposal Unit have made safe a suspicious device found near Thurles, Co Tipperary.
It was left beside a phone box in the village of Ballycahill earlier today.
The device consisted of black powder and an improvised detonator. However there was no power source for the detonator.
An army spokesperson said that while the device was suspicious it is not yet clear if it was an elaborate hoax.
6 Feb 2005, RTE News
Kansas Teen with Explosive Devices Targets School Employees
A 17-year-old Nickerson High School student was arrested after several homemade explosive devices detonated in south-central Kansas, destroying mailboxes and shattering a car windshield.
It appears some of the intended targets were school employees, officials said.
The student, Marcus Curran, 17, was arrested Friday as he ate lunch at the high school, said Reno County Sheriff Randy Henderson. He was later booked into juvenile facilities on five counts of arson and two counts of attempted arson.
A hearing was planned for this week to determine whether to try him as an adult or a juvenile.
Charges also may be filed in Rice County, where two of the devices were found.
Henderson said investigators think the 17-year-old is the one who made the devices.
Henderson said his officers went to the 300-student high school to question another student, but that student wasn't in class Friday. He wouldn't say whether other arrests were planned.
The first reported explosion occurred Jan. 16 in Hutchinson, and subsequent explosions were reported in Nickerson, Sterling and rural Reno County. The last explosion was reported Friday after news of the student's arrest was made public. The device had detonated earlier in the week, Henderson said.
Teachers and other school district employees were relieved after learning of the arrest, said Jerry Burch, Nickerson schools superintendent.
"It is a scary thought to think that you might have been targeted," he said.
Two of the devices were found outside the homes of Nickerson teachers, Henderson said, and another outside the home of a school secretary. One of the devices was found on the football field at Nickerson High.
Henderson said three of the 10 were duds. The five devices that exploded were powerful enough to destroy mailboxes, he said, and one shattered the windshield of a car owned by one of the teachers. The sheriff's department reported that officers have found explosion debris as far away as 50 feet. Luckily, Henderson said, no one was hurt.
Two other devices were found unexploded, one by a postman and another by a person who went to his mailbox to retrieve his mail. Neither of the unexploded devices were found at the homes of school employees.
"After interviewing the student," Henderson said, "we think all the devices have been found."
Henderson said there were two or three different versions of the explosive devices. They were made of either glass, metal or plastic with a fuse or wire attached.
The investigation was conducted by investigators from the sheriff's department, the U.S. Postal Service and the state fire marshal's office.
6 Feb 2005, AP
Oregon Youths Arrested with Homemade Bomb
Two Keizer boys have been charged with making explosive devices.
Police were called Wednesday night to the house of a 13-year-old boy after his mother discovered a suspicious object in the child's bedroom.
The officers determined that the object was an explosive device, and the Salem Bomb Squad was called to disable it.
The bomb squad confirmed that the object was made from legal fireworks. But the fireworks had been converted into a "lethal, improvised explosive device."
Police were then led to the house of a 14-year-old boy. There, they found instructions for making bombs and several of the required ingredients.
Both boys have been lodged at the Mid Valley Juvenile Detention Center, where they are being held without bail. They are charged with the unlawful manufacture and possession of a destructive device.
4 Feb 2005,
KOIN news
Suspicious
Packages Investigated at Orlando Police Headquarters
Two suspicious packages left at Orlando police headquarters Friday were investigated.
No threat was received, but a bomb squad was sent to the scene to investigate, WESH NewsChannel 2 reported.
Hughey and Central were blocked while a member of the bomb squad checked the backpack and duffel bag. They discovered that the items contained only clothing.
Police headquarters
was not evacuated, but people were cleared from the front of the
building.
4 Feb 2005, WESH news
Animal
Rights Group Aims at Enemy's Allies
Greg Avery was a small-time activist on the fringes of the animal rights movement here when, one day in 1999, he trailed a truck full of cats from a breeding farm to its destination: the gates of Huntingdon Life Sciences, Britain's largest animal research laboratory.
Suddenly, he recalls, it came to him: Why focus on one little cat farm when you could declare war on a major publicly traded company that experiments on thousands of animals each year?
Over the next five years, the Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty campaign, known as SHAC, brought Huntingdon to the edge of bankruptcy and forced the company to cease trading on the London Stock Exchange and move its corporate headquarters to New Jersey. Activists with clubs assaulted two of its senior executives, while dozens of other employees reported harassment ranging from damage to their property to threatening phone calls and false allegations of pedophilia.
The campaign spread to the United States, where a federal grand jury in Newark last May indicted SHAC USA and seven individuals on charges that included violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act. The trial is scheduled for June.
The campaign against Huntingdon -- a company with 1,400 employees and $120 million in annual sales -- is the longest, most aggressive and most ambitious that the militant wing of the animal rights movement has ever conducted.
It marks an escalation in tactics and a new internationalization of the movement, which to a large extent was born and bred in Britain and still follows the lead of British activists.
Proponents of animal testing argue that without it, most of the drugs and modern therapies developed to combat cancer and a host of other diseases would not exist. But animal rights advocates contend that testing is inhumane and largely unreliable. For activists such as Avery, testing is nothing less than mass murder.
The key to strangling Huntingdon, says Avery, has been to focus on harassing its suppliers and customers -- ranging from the bank that lent it money to the caterer who supplied its cafeteria food. "We decided to hit companies who don't need Huntingdon but Huntingdon needs them," he said. "These are banks with tens of millions of pounds -- why risk their reputation for some crappy little company? If they wouldn't make a moral decision, we would force them to make a financial one."
Brian Cass, Huntingdon's managing director, said his company has survived the onslaught and is back on its feet. But Avery, who insists that he and his supporters operate within the law, contends the campaign is well on its way toward driving Huntingdon out of business within the next two years.
Avery, 36, has waged his campaign with just a handful of paid organizers, a few dozen dedicated volunteers and a support system of several thousand sympathizers utilizing a network of cell phones and Web sites. "It's very much a David and Goliath thing," he declared.
But in this war of attrition, it's hard sometimes to tell David from Goliath.
An Obvious Target
On a crisp but sunny autumn Wednesday, Gavin Medd-Hall, 40, an unemployed computer technician, led a band of five protesters on a journey south of London. Over the course of the day, they visited three companies that supply services to Huntingdon or carry out animal research for it on contract.
At each stop they unfurled a 10-foot-long vinyl banner with a color photo of a terrified cat strapped down for experimentation.
Outside the local offices of Fujisawa Healthcare Inc., a Japanese drug manufacturer, the protesters pulled out loudspeakers from a backpack and began their harangue. "Five hundred animals are dying every single day in a painful medieval torture chamber," intoned one of them. "You have blood dripping from your hands, Fujisawa, because of your disgusting lust for money and profit."
Huntingdon, which conducts experiments on up to 75,000 rats, mice, guinea pigs, cats, dogs and monkeys every year, is an obvious target. Two hidden-camera investigations in the 1990s uncovered deliberate abuse of animals by staff members in England and the United States. Company officials say that the incidents were isolated and that strong safeguards are in now in place to ensure they don't recur.
Huntingdon operates two labs in England and another in New Jersey that test new drugs, shampoos, food products and industrial chemicals on animals.The company produces toxicology, metabolic and other studies for pharmaceutical companies around the world that by law must conduct such studies before receiving product approval.
The company acknowledges that it kills thousands of animals during its testing, but insists that conditions under which the tests proceed are as humane as possible. An hour-long guided tour of portions of two buildings t the main site here revealed nothing to contradict those claims. Forty beagle puppies in one room were kept in kennel-style conditions. The floors were clean, food and water plentiful and the people in charge expressed affection and concern for the dogs.
Avery said he and each of SHAC's half-dozen full-time employees are paid less than $100 a week. He buys his clothes at a charity shop in London, and he and his family live in a house lent to the movement by a wealthy benefactor. Hundreds of other people donate money or time to the cause, and therein lies its real strength, according to Avery. "They call us extremists," he said. "But 7 million people in this country have cats, and 6 million have dogs. They all identify with animals in the labs."
In the early days of the campaign, Avery was arrested and jailed for threatening the life of a Huntingdon official. SHAC's Web site published the names and home addresses of company employees and urged supporters to harass them. A half-dozen cars of company workers were firebombed. Many of the attacks were carried out in the name of the Animal Liberation Front, an underground movement that has operated sporadically in Britain since the mid-1970s.
Three men in ski masks confronted Cass, the managing director, when he pulled into his driveway one evening in February 2001. They battered him in the head and ribs with pickax handles until a neighbor chased them off.
An activist named David Blenkinsop, 38, is serving a three-year sentence for the assault on Cass as well as five years for his part in a firebombing campaign.