Terrorism

Miami’s ABC News affiliate reports: Rather than going to trial, 23-year-old Nikolas Cruz will plead guilty to all 17 counts of premeditated murder and all 17 counts of attempted murder in the Valentine’s Day shooting that killed 17 people and wounded more than a dozen others. Cruz’s defense team said their client would plead guilty to life in prison without …

The BBC reports: Four women and a man were killed and two others wounded when a man used a bow and arrow to attack them in Norway. Police first received word of an attack in the town of Kongsberg, south-west of the capital Oslo, at 18:12 local time (16:12 GMT). A Danish man aged 37 has been arrested and questioned …

Via press release from the Justice Department: Emily Claire Hari, 50, f/k/a Michael Hari, was sentenced to life in prison for the Aug. 5, 2017, bombing of the Dar al-Farooq (DAF) Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota. On Dec. 9, 2020, following a five-week trial, Hari was convicted by a federal jury on all five counts of the indictment, including intentionally …

The Associated Press reports: The FBI late Saturday released a newly declassified document related to logistical support given to two of the Saudi hijackers in the run-up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The document details contacts the hijackers had with Saudi associates in the U.S. but does not provide proof that senior Saudi government officials were complicit in …

Some longtime readers may recall that this story was posted annually on this day for the first few years of JMG.   That Day Manhattan, September 11th, 2001 That day, I got to my office on 42nd Street at about 8:55am, a bit later than usual because that morning I’d voted for the first time as a New Yorker, pulling the …

From the Broward County Sheriff’s Office: A Chicago woman was arrested after making a false bomb threat at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (FLL). According to Broward Sheriff’s Office Threat Management Unit detectives at around 8:45 p.m., Monday, Sept. 6, BSO deputies responded to a bomb threat in Terminal 3 at FLL located at 200 Terminal Drive in Fort Lauderdale. On …

The New York Times reports: Making good on a campaign promise, President Biden directed the Justice Department and other federal agencies on Friday to oversee the review and declassification of documents related to the F.B.I.’s investigation into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In an executive order, Mr. Biden instructed Attorney General Merrick B. Garland to publicly release the declassified documents …

The New York Times reports: Six people were injured in a knife attack at a supermarket in New Zealand on Friday, an outburst of violence that the prime minister labeled a “terrorist attack” that had been carried out by a “violent extremist” inspired by the Islamic State. The suspect, a Sri Lankan national, was shot and killed by the police, …

The Verge reports: Amazon is planning to expand its in-house moderation team for Amazon Web Services, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing two sources within the company, the report says Amazon is planning to develop a proactive threat monitoring capability within AWS, which will seek out prohibited content on AWS servers and remove it before it’s reported by …

CNN reports: Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio was sentenced Monday to six months in jail for burning a church’s Black Lives Matter banner in December and bringing high-capacity rifle magazines to Washington, DC, days before the US Capitol insurrection. The decision was handed down Monday by Judge Harold L. Cushenberry Jr. of DC Superior Court. Even though Tarrio was not …

The Washington Post reports: A man who prompted an evacuation of the U.S. Capitol and surrounding buildings on Thursday by claiming to have a bomb inside his truck faces charges of threatening to use explosives and a weapon of mass destruction. Floyd Ray Roseberry of North Carolina surrendered to authorities Thursday about five hours after he drove a truck onto …

Buzzfeed News reports: Although police have not yet publicly confirmed the suspect’s identity, he appears to be a man named Ray Roseberry, according to multiple livestreams on his Facebook page that appear to have been recorded from within the black truck on Capitol Hill. In the livestreams, the man demanded that President Joe Biden and other prominent Democrat politicians step …

The Associated Press reports: A 22-year-old former nursing student pleaded guilty Tuesday to murder and other charges in connection with a deadly shooting at a Southern California synagogue on the last day of Passover. John T. Earnest avoided the death penalty with his plea in San Diego Superior Court. The San Diego County district attorney’s office said he agreed to …

The East Bay Times reports: When police officers arrested a Los Gatos man on suspicion of prowling around a car lot last week, authorities say they discovered far more troubling threats after they searched his truck, turning up a cache of weapons, a handwritten manifesto about committing genocide and bullets that he personally inscribed, one of them with the words …

Axios reports: The Biden administration on Tuesday released the first-ever “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” following a 100-day comprehensive review ordered by President Biden on his first day in office. Why it matters: It’s the first national plan for countering what the White House is calling “the most urgent terrorism threat the United States faces today,” echoing previous assessments …

The Washington Post reports: For weeks this spring, 28-year-old Seth Aaron Pendley had plotted an attack on Amazon data centers in Virginia. He’d already taken a sawed-off rifle to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Now, he hoped to cripple much of the Internet and take down government networks. Last April, he finally arranged a meeting with a man promising …

Politico Europe reports: Anti-terror police in Italy say they have dismantled a far-right extremist group that was allegedly plotting to bomb a NATO base. Carabinieri seized photographs of Hitler, swastikas and a book listing Jewish surnames during coordinated raids on Monday on the homes of 12 alleged members of the Roman Aryan Order, a Nazi-inspired white supremacist group. One of …

Reuters reports: The U.S. Department of Justice is elevating investigations of ransomware attacks to a similar priority as terrorism in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline hack and mounting damage caused by cyber criminals, a senior department official told Reuters. Internal guidance sent on Thursday to U.S. attorney’s offices across the country said information about ransomware investigations in the field …

NBC News reports: The Department of Homeland Security has begun implementing a strategy to gather and analyze intelligence about security threats from public social media posts, DHS officials said. The goal is to build a warning system to detect the sort of posts that appeared to predict an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 but were missed or …

CNN reports: The White House was in need of substantial upgrades to its future security apparatus, updates that would include digging deeply and extensively, from the upper main driveway to the lower, across acres of pristine green grass. Times had changed since the last substantial overhaul of systems, and with the country facing new, known and unknown security threats from …