Potential terror threats

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

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

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