CCR sues ‘Guantanamo North’ detention facilities in Aref et al v. Holder

NPR has a story about the “Communications Management Units” in Terre Haute, Ind., and Marion, Ill. The special detention unit in Terre Haute contains 50 cells housing some of the people the U.S. describes as the “country’s biggest security threats”, including John Walker Lindh. The units’ population has included men convicted in well-known post-Sept. 11 [...]

Classification systems of terrorist threat levels in the EU Member States

This Council document of 20 December 2010  compiles an overview of the systems and classifications used by the EU Member States including an explanation on how the threat levels are defined and which structure is responsible for changes in the level of threat.

European countries charge suspects with preparing for terrorist acts

NY Times: A week after coordinated raids in three cities, the British police said Monday that they had charged nine of the 12 men they arrested, in a case that seemed to be a sign that Europe’s concerns over potential terrorist attacks were spreading. Three of the 12 men were released without charges, the West [...]

Stockholm Hit by Blasts After E-Mail Warning

One man was killed and two other people were injured when two explosions hit the heart of Stockholm’s city-center shopping district on Saturday evening, the police in the Swedish capital said. The country’s foreign minister called the blasts a terrorist attack, and an e-mail to news organizations minutes before the blasts seemed to link them [...]

EU adopts action plan air cargo security

European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas set out a 3 recommentations on the EU’s response to the 30 October security alert, when viable explosive devices were found in cargo shipments originating from Yemen and transferring to US-bound flights at airports in Germany and the UK. The action plan can be summed up in three recommendations. 1. [...]

Belgium rounds up 26 in anti-terror raids

Police busted Tuesday a Chechnya-linked Islamist network plotting to attack Belgium and rounded up another extremist group suspected of recruiting jihad fighters, amid heightened terrorism fears in Europe. Authorities detained 11 people in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany as part of an investigation into a plot against an unspecified target in Belgium. Hours later, Belgian [...]

Bomb Plot Said to Contain ‘Hallmarks of Al Qaeda’

The New York Times reports that a day after two packages containing explosives, shipped from Yemen and addressed to synagogues in Chicago, were intercepted in Britain and Dubai, setting off off a broad terrorism scare, Janet Napolitano, secretary of the Homeland Security, said that the plot “has the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.” Ms. Napolitano and [...]

Al-Qaeda-linked ‘terror plot’ targeting Europe foiled

There has been lots of news about this threat, but what do we know exactly? Targets: Britain, France, Germany, the United StatesIt is claimed that intelligence agencies have disrupted an Al-Qaeda-linked plot to launch terrorist attacks in Britain, France and Germany “similar to the commando-style 2008 Mumbai attacks“, reports said.Militants based in Pakistan had been [...]

Round-up of academic articles

Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman have recently published a report entitled “Assessing the Terrorist Threat: A Report of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group”. Here is the executive summary of the report:     Al-Qaeda and allied groups continue to pose a threat to the United States. Although it is less severe than the [...]

al-Qaeda fighters take limited role in Afghan insurgency

Although U.S. officials have often said that al-Qaeda is a marginal player on the Afghan battlefield, an analysis of 76,000 classified U.S. military reports by the Washington Post underscores the extent to which Osama bin Laden and his network have become an afterthought in the war. The reports, which cover the escalation of the insurgency [...]