Former SD imam has "gone operational"

Lots of heat on Awlaki now, probably coming out the House Intelligence Committee:

The radical Yemeni-based cleric connected to two violent plots in the U.S. has “gone operational,” a senior U.S. official told Fox News.

The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the same Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times. 

“It appears that just like with Major Hasan, Awlaki played a role in this,” said Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich, ranking minority member of the House Intelligence Committee tells ABC News.

Mitch Wade lawyer nominated for US Atty

President Obama has nominated Ronald C. Machen Jr. to be U.S. Attorney in Washington DC.

Machen, 40, was part of the team at WilmerHale that defended defense contractor Mitchell Wade, briber of Randy “Duke” Cunningham.

Thanks to WilmerHale’s efforts, Wade is serving a 30-month sentence. That’s not bad, considering that Cunningham is serving more than eight years and Wade’s former boss and Cunningham briber, Brent Wilkes, is appealing his 12 year sentence.

Machen also represented another corrupt former congressman, Democrat William Jefferson and Christopher Ward, former National Republican Campaign Committee treasurer accused of stealing funds.

The U.S. Attorney is DC’s top law enforcement official, overseeing  the largest federal prosecutors office in the country.

Machen served as an Assistant US Attorney in the Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, US Department of Justice, from 1997 to 2001.

A "technical error"

“And the mujahideen brothers in the Manufacturing Sector possessed a highly advanced device, with Allah’s grace, and it was tested and proved to be successful and practical, and it passed the inspection machines. Brother Omar has reached his target, with Allah’s grace, but, fate from Allah, a technical error happened and led to an incomplete detonation, and we will continue the path, Allah-permitting, until we reach what we want, and make faith all due to Allah.”

Poor tradecraft is, fortunately, a persistent problem for the jihadis as Michael Kenney notes in Organizational Learning and Islamic Militancy (May 2009), a study written for the U.S. Department of Justice. (.pdf)

“Indeed, mistakes and poor tradecraft are common in terrorist operations.  One of the most significant findings to emerge from this research regards Islamic terrorists’ propensity towards the poor tradecraft and operational errors.  In the cases examined in this study operatives committed a range of basic mistakes.  Militants forgot code words and aliases, resulting in miscommunication with their colleagues.  They foolishly tried to  run away from law enforcement officers or became visibly upset when questioned.  They received speeding tickets and other traffic citations when operating undercover in “enemy territory.  They provided incriminating hints of their looming attacks to people outside their conspiracies.  They took advanced aviation classes and expressed their desire to only learn how to steer, not land, large commercial aircraft.  They traveled together, not separately, when assembling for attacks.  They dressed and acted in ways that made them stand out more, not less.  They used matches instead of lighters to ignite bomb fuses.  They didn’t change their cell phones and SIM cards, even when under immense counter-terrorism pressure.  The list goes on.”

According to Kenney, what explains this is:

  1. Experience in guerrilla warfare does not translate particularly well to urban terrorism
  2. It is difficult to gain experience when the attack gets you killed.
  3. The war on terror hampers training and planning.
  4. Ideological or religious “certitude” that they don’t need to be careful because their fate is already determined by Allah

Super Yacht Attessa in San Diego

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This is Dennis Washington’s super yacht, the 225-foot Attessa III.

Found it docked today behind the San Diego Convention Center and got curious about the owner.

Forbes estimates Washington’s fortune at $4.2 billion, most of it held in Montana Rail Link railroad, Montana Resources copper and molybdenum mine—and cash.

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His boat, the Attessa, comes with a crew of 15 and accomodates 10, according to Yachtspecs. It’s flying the flag of the Cayman Islands, said to be the world’s leading “super yacht” registry.

What is PETN?

The suspect in the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 used a highly explosive substance called PETN, a law enforcement official told CBS News Saturday.

PETN (Pentaerythritol tetranitrate) is a high-grade explosive used for commercial and military purposes.

PETN, which usually is a white powder, can be ignited with a hammer blow and is often used by itself as a detonator.

Virtually odorless, it is very difficult to detect, making it the terrorist weapon of choice.

ABC News reports that the device involved more than 80 grams of PETN (about 3 ounces).

For reference, investigators suspect that 11 ounces of Semtex (mostly PETN) was used to bring down Pan Am103 in 1988.

Richard Reid, the “shoe bomber” who tried to bring down American Airlines Flight 63 on Dec. 22, 2001 had 8 or 10 ounces of easily-made triacetone triperoxide (TATP) and PETN (detonating cord).

Reid’s shoe was supposed to be detonated by a fuse, which failed to light, but an FBI-DHS report cited by Time magazine  notes that “TATP or HMTD may be placed in a tube or syringe body in contact with a bare bulb filament, such as that obtained from inside a Christmas tree light bulb, to produce an explosion. … Terrorists have used peroxide-based explosive both as a main charge (weighing in excess of 20 pounds) and improvised detonators.”

In the Flight 253 attack, PETN appears to have been used as a secondary explosive with the syringe apparently serving as primary.

Witnesses described the syringe as “smoking.” The Nigerian suspect accused in the attack was trying to ignite the PETN with some sort of hot liquid in the syringe.

Since PETN’s autoignition temperature is 190 degrees (far less than a match) and the suspect suffered burns exactly why the device didn’t explode is a bit of a mystery.