5 terrorism threat levels

WASHINGTON — At least six men suspected or convicted of crimes that threaten national security retained their federal aviation licenses, despite antiterrorism laws written after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that required license revocation. Among them was a Libyan sentenced to 27 years in prison by a Scottish court for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie. In response to questions from The New York Times, the Transportation Security Administration, which is supposed to root out such individuals, announced that the Federal Aviation Administration suspended the licenses on Thursday. The two agencies appeared to be unaware that the men were among the nearly one million people licensed as pilots, mechanics and flight dispatchers. They were identified by a tiny family-owned company in Mineola, N.Y., demonstrating software it developed to scrub lists of bank customers for terrorism links. The list also includes an Iranian-American convicted of trying to send jet fighter … [Read more...] about 6 Considered Threats Kept Licenses for Aviation

To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android . Late one summer evening in 2018, an American citizen named Joseph Mahmoud Dibee was sitting in José Martí International Airport in Havana, Cuba — trying, unsuccessfully, to sleep — when he was approached by three men. Dibee, a civil engineer, was in Havana on a layover. After a long business trip in Ecuador, he was heading home to Russia, where he lived with his wife and stepson. The men demanded his passport, then led him out of the terminal and into a waiting sedan. Dibee asked where they were going, but got no response. Sandwiched between his captors, he was driven miles through the night before finally arriving at what appeared to be a jail. For the next three days, Dibee would claim in a subsequent court filing, he was imprisoned without explanation and, in effect, tortured. His small concrete cell was open to the elements; during the day, the cage baked. As … [Read more...] about The Rise and Fall of America’s Environmentalist Underground

When Robert Eringer first saw Craig Rosebraugh in the news, he knew his professional contacts would be very interested in the young man’s story. A masterful account of Mr. Rosebraugh’s life as a radical environmentalist — not to mention his connections with domestic terrorists — would certainly impress the people who paid Mr. Eringer. He was a pro at getting people to reveal intimate details of their lives in the memoirs he helped them produce. He would reach out to Mr. Rosebraugh and get him to write a book, to tell his story in all of its specifics. That story had begun in the blink of an email one evening in 1998, as Mr. Rosebraugh, a tall, thin environmentalist, was making dinner. Alone in his one-bedroom apartment in Portland, Ore., he spotted an encrypted message in his inbox and decoded it to find a communiqué, addressed to him, from the Earth Liberation Front. Two days earlier, on Oct. 19, 1998, eight fires had torched a mile-long stretch of Vail Mountain in Colorado, … [Read more...] about The Case of the Eco-Terrorists and the Book Deal

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation is offering a $50,000 reward for a Seattle man it says is a domestic terrorist. But that has not kept him from keeping his pilot’s license or from trying to sell his airplane online, apparently because the Transportation Security Administration has not compared the F.B.I.’s wanted list with the Federal Aviation Administration’s list of licensed pilots. The pilot, Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, 31, was indicted with 10 other people in January 2006, in Eugene, Ore., on charges that they committed arson, destroyed an electric tower and other acts of domestic terrorism. Credit for those acts and others were claimed by two groups, the Animal Liberation Front and the Earth Liberation Front. The F.B.I. says Mr. Dibee may have fled to Syria. According to F.A.A. records, Mr. Dibee still owns a single-engine airplane, a 1977 Grumman/American Cheetah. He is also trying to sell the plane on the Internet for $39,000. The New York Times learned … [Read more...] about Fugitive Still Licensed to Fly by the F.A.A.

Nearly two decades after fleeing the United States, a Seattle man with ties to environmental extremist groups pleaded guilty in federal court last week to conspiring to commit arson attacks on commercial and government-owned animal-processing facilities in Oregon and California, federal prosecutors said . The man, Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, now 53, fled the country in 2005 and was first indicted in 2006 by a federal grand jury in Oregon. Prosecutors said Mr. Dibee’s pending criminal case in the Western District of Washington was resolved by his guilty plea on Thursday. Mr. Dibee conspired with at least 15 other members of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front to damage commercial and government-owned animal-processing facilities with improvised explosives concocted with ingredients including fuel-filled milk jugs and model rocket igniters, according to court documents. Members of the groups, referred to as the Family, vowed to keep their identities secret from law … [Read more...] about Man Who Fled U.S. in 2005 Pleads Guilty to Environmental Arson Conspiracies

WASHINGTON — President Obama , under increasing pressure to demonstrate that the United States is joining European nations in the effort to resettle Syrian refugees, has told his administration to take in at least 10,000 displaced Syrians over the next year. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, said in a briefing Thursday that while the administration was continuing to examine responses to a refugee crisis that has overwhelmed Europe in recent days, the president has decided to raise the number of Syrian refugees admitted to at least 10,000 in the fiscal year beginning in October from fewer than 2,000 this year. The announcement brought a variety of reactions that underscored how the refugee crisis has become another polarized political question. Aid groups called the administration’s action a token one given the size of the American economy and population, while a number of Republicans warned that Mr. Obama was allowing in potential terrorists. “Our enemy now is … [Read more...] about Obama Increases Number of Syrian Refugees for U.S. Resettlement to 10,000

Rep. Ilhan Omar 's (D-MN) ouster last Thursday from the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) is richly deserved, but for reasons even more fundamental than those detailed in the resolution removing her from the panel. The congresswoman's hostility towards Jews and the Jewish state of Israel, her related attempts to draw moral equivalence between jihadists and Israeli and American forces, and the broader anti-Western worldview that pervades the rhetoric recounted in the removal resolution make her a uniquely repugnant figure—now officially so, as determined by her House colleagues. But the reality is that Rep. Omar should have never been allowed to serve on the HFAC in the first place. By appointing her to that post, Democrats knowingly and recklessly endangered U.S. national security—a crucial but overlooked point in the Omar saga. This is because, while the committee touches on nearly every sensitive issue vital to U.S. national security and foreign policy, an … [Read more...] about House GOP Adamantly Correct to Kick Rep. Omar off Foreign Affairs Committee

The FBI reportedly discovered an ISIS plot to kill former President George W. Bush, Forbes reported Tuesday. The plot, according to an unsealed FBI search warrant form obtained by Forbes, was developed by an alleged ISIS member operating within the U.S. The alleged would-be perpetrator said his goal was to assassinate Bush, accusing the former president of killing Iraqis and causing the country to fall apart, according to the warrant. The alleged ISIS member was working out of Ohio and even traveled to Dallas to scope out Bush’s home, according to Forbes. The uncovered plot reveals a deep level of planning and extensive efforts to carry out the plan. The FBI was able to figure out the alleged plan by using confidential informants. The bureau also surveilled the accused plotter’s WhatsApp account, according to Forbes. “We haven’t seen a plot of this scale in a number of years. It shows that while domestic terrorism rightly takes a good amount of counterterrorism focus, … [Read more...] about REPORT: Alleged ISIS Member In The US Plotted To Assassinate George W. Bush

It’s a little after 8 p.m. on a frigid hill in the West Bank village of Beita, and Sa’ed Hamayyel is sitting in front of a crackling outdoor fire, his face framed by smoke, telling me how his son was killed. “He was 16 years old,” the Palestinian father says. “He was a student.” On June 11, 2021, Israeli soldiers “shot him from afar … He couldn’t have posed any threat to them.” Hamayyel is intimately familiar with the violence and loss that pervades this part of the world. Decades ago, his father, brother, and sister were all killed in combat with Israeli forces. Along with them, Hamayyel is claimed as a member by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an internationally designated terrorist group responsible for numerous attacks on civilians. But when his son Mohammed was killed, the teenager was not engaged in armed conflict. He was protesting an Israeli outpost called Evyatar, which overlooks Beita. Although few Israelis could pinpoint Evyatar on a map, and … [Read more...] about Unsettling the West Bank

Officials on Sunday cautioned residents of Moore County, North Carolina, to prepare for days without electricity after a targeted attack on substations left 45,000 customers in the dark. Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said a suspect or suspects drove up to two Duke Energy power substations Saturday night — breaching a gate in one case — and opened fire, disabling them and resulting in a blackout for tens of thousands that could last through Thursday. As of Monday at 2:45 p.m., over 35,000 customers remained without power, according to Poweroutage.us. The substations are located in West End and Carthage, North Carolina, and are about 5 miles away from each other, according to Maj. Andy Conway with the Moore County Sheriff's Office. The FBI and state investigators have joined the inquiry to determine who was behind the attack, officials said, as a state of emergency with a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m curfew was declared in the county, schools were declared closed for … [Read more...] about ‘Targeted’ N.C. power outages could leave thousands in the dark for days