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An escalating turf fight between warring drug cartels in Mexico is spreading into the United States with federal officials warning that deadly shootouts and ambushes along the southwestern border pose a serious threat to both U.S. law enforcement and American citizens, according to a confidential multi-agency government report.

The Aug. 29 report predicts a rise in the use of “deadly force” against U.S. police officials, first responders and residents along the border, and further spillage of drug-gang violence deeper into the United States.

Written by the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (AcTIC) and the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Investigative Support Center, the report also said the drug cartels are expected to hire members of deadly street gangs now in this country, including Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), to “carry out acts of violence against cartel members in the U.S.”

“U.S. law enforcement and first responders need to maintain a heightened awareness at all times,” the report said.

According to the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times, cartel members and police officials in Mexico, in a bid to spare their families from the violence that has overwhelmed many Mexican border towns, could begin relocating them to the United States, resulting in more homicides and home invasions along the southwestern border, increased availability of high-powered weapons to Mexican drug smugglers already in the U.S., and the potential for the family members to continue drug operations in the U.S.

Source - Washington Times

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School Bus Missing 4 ½-Hours - Families Shaken

With the start of a new school year, this incident should be a reminder of the potential threat of school bus terrorism , and why parents should be vigilant in knowing who they are entrusting their children with each day.

Madinat Koroma was frantic: It was after 9 p.m., more than five hours after the school day had ended at the Achievement First Brownsville charter school, and she was still waiting at the bus stop for her daughter, Victoria Adewale, 5, a kindergartner.

As the bus rambled through Brooklyn, meanwhile, Victoria’s mind was on her parents.

“I was worried about my mother and father, that they were going to miss me,” Victoria, who was one of three children deposited at the school about 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday, said softly on Wednesday afternoon. “I was the last one on the bus.”

It is any parent’s nightmare: The yellow school bus that so many parents rely on to ferry their children to and from school simply does not show up on time — not an hour late, not two hours late, but about five hours late for some.

School officials told parents, in a letter sent home on Wednesday, that they could not reach the bus driver on his cellphone for more than two hours. After several parents, including Ms. Koroma’s husband, Charles Adewale, called the police, the bus driver was finally reached, and ordered to return to the school, where he deposited Victoria and two of her schoolmates. The bus had started out with at least two dozen kindergartners and first-graders.

According to the police, the driver, whom they identified as Joseph Gray, 53, said he had gotten lost. He was arrested on charges of acting in a manner that is injurious to a child under 17 years of age, the police said. But a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said on Wednesday that it would not prosecute the driver because the statute requires that “the suspect acted in a manner that is knowingly injurious to a child.”

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A man in his 20s was arrested Monday morning after he boarded an Amtrak train with a gun, police said.

Police say a passenger alerted police that a man had carried what was thought to be a gun aboard the train. After the discovery, the train, which had been near the McKinley Bridge, returned to the Amtrak station in St. Louis.

Police seized a gun from the man and found ammunition in his backpack.

The man, whose identity was not available, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon.

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Amtrak Passenger Stabbed While Sleeping - Considering the recent beheading in Canada an a Greyhound bus, an attempted beheading on another bus, and this… I may consider alternatives to public transportation.

A 24-year-old man was stabbed while sleeping on an Amtrak train just south of the Oregon state line.

The suspect, Armando Avalos, jumped from the train and suffered a broken ankle, authorities said. Avalos, 48, of Oxnard, Calif., was arrested Saturday on charges of attempted murder, parole violation and manufacture and possession of a dangerous weapon.

He was being held without bail Tuesday at the jail in Siskiyou County, Calif.

The victim, Rodolfo Marroquin, of Visalia, Calif., was taken to Sky Lakes Medical Center in Klamath Falls, where he was treated for four stab wounds on the left side of his back, said Susan Gravenkamp, a spokeswoman for the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.

Marroquin told investigators he boarded the train in Eugene and sat next to Avalos. The strangers spoke briefly.

Avalos paced the aisle and left the rail car for a time, making Marroquin uncomfortable. Marroquin said he switched to another seat and fell asleep. He awoke to a sharp pain in his back and the sight of Avalos running away. Officials said Avalos jumped after the emergency brake was pulled.

Deputies and a search dog looking for Avalos spotted him along a rural road, sitting beside a fire. Avalos notified deputies that his ankle was broken. He was arrested and taken to Fairchild Medical Center in Yreka, where he underwent surgery, Gravenkamp said.

A backpack Avalos left on the train contained a loaded handgun, ammunition, a digital scale and marijuana, the sheriff’s office said.

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Three contract employees for the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport were taken off an arriving flight at Oakland International Airport on Tuesday morning and were detained by the Transportation Security Administration after they did not go through proper security screening before they left Seattle.

The employees, all men, had badges allowing them access to sterile and secure areas in the airport, which allowed them to bypass security screening and board Alaska Airlines Flight 340, bound for Oakland. Their badges have since been revoked.

TSA officials said the men will be detained pending an investigation into the incident.

The men — whose names, ages and employment type were not released — were taken off the plane and detained by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office when the flight arrived at 9:28 a.m. Tuesday, and were held through the afternoon.

Officials with Seattle airport police declined to comment on the incident or how the men got through security.

Due to the security breach, the aircraft was diverted upon landing to ground Gate 18, which is not frequently used. Sheriff’s deputies unloaded the remainder of the passengers after the three men were arrested.

“I knew something was weird when the airline said they had no gate for us,” said Marie Bushman, who was on the flight. “I got a little concerned when I saw a sheriff’s car.”

Bushman said there were a lot of people in dark-blue
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and tan uniforms when she left the plane.

The bomb-sniffing dogs for the sheriff’s department screened the plane after everyone departed.

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Hurricane Ike was upgraded to an ‘extremely dangerous’ Category 4 storm by the National Hurricane Center late Wednesday as the system roared west across the central Atlantic.

The latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center, issued at 11 p.m. ET, increased Ike’s maximum sustained winds to 135 mph, with higher gusts. Hurricane-force winds extended 35 miles from the storm’s center of circulation.

The hurricane center’s official forecast puts Ike on a path toward the south Florida coast sometime early next week, though the storm’s path and strength can change without warning.

Other storms in the Atlantic, have become less of a threat. Hanna, once a hurricane, weaked into a tropical storm near the Bahamas, and is foercast to strike the southeastern U.S. as a Category 1 hurricane by the end of the week.

Beyond Ike in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Josephine had winds of 50 mph at 11 p.m., but appeared headed northwest into open seas, where it would weaken in the coming days.

Ike is the fifth hurricane in the Atlantic this season.

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A 23-year-old Michigan man allegedly plotted to set off a homemade bomb in the tunnels near the Xcel Energy Center, hoping it would cause a power outage and lead officials to call off the Republican National Convention, according to charges filed in federal court in Minneapolis.

Matthew B. DePalma of Flint, Mich., has been charged with illegally possessing Molotov cocktails. He was arrested Saturday at an apartment in south Minneapolis and made his first court appearance Tuesday, according to a statement released Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s office. His next hearing is scheduled for Friday.

According to the news release, DePalma spent about 90 minutes at the Hennepin County Library on Aug. 18 researching recipes for homemade bombs. He bought the supplies for Molotov cocktails on Aug. 21 and 22.

The news release said that according to an FBI affidavit, DePalma said that if he could bomb the Xcel Center on Sept. 1, “they might call off the convention.”

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Plans by an unknown group to attack staff of Israel’s national carrier El Al in Canada have been thwarted, Israel’s private Channel Two television reported on Wednesday.

Without giving the nationalities of the alleged attackers, it said they had monitored the comings and goings of El Al aircrew at a Toronto hotel.

Security procedures for crews overnighting at the hotel between flights have now been changed, it added.

On Tuesday, Israeli newspapers reported that at least five attempts by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia to abduct Israeli businessmen in Africa, Asia, and South America had been foiled.

Each time, Hezbollah — which fought a bloody war against Israel in the summer of 2006 — tried to use “sleeper cells” embedded in far-flung Shiite Muslim communities, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot reported.

It and other newspapers cited unnamed Israeli security officials and said further details about the plots remain under official censorship.

Source

From The Jerusalem Post

The alert level has been raised for Israelis in Canada after it was discovered that a terror cell was following and carrying out surveillance on El Al crews staying in a hotel in Toronto, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.

The cell was arrested and El Al changed the guidelines issued to its employees.

The security establishment said that the cell appeared to be planning an attack on the Israelis and that the terrorists apparently belonged to Hizbullah.

On Tuesday, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that in recent weeks, several kidnapping plots against Israelis abroad had been thwarted.

Two weeks ago, the Counter-Terrorism Bureau in the Prime Minister’s Office put out a rare “general” travel warning for Israelis traveling anywhere overseas following Hizbullah’s threat to expect retaliation for February’s assassination in Damascus of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh, which the Islamist group blames on Israel.

On Friday, Hizbullah repeated its warning, with the group’s deputy secretary-general Sheikh Na’im Kassem saying that revenge for the death of the terror chief was a legitimate right of the guerrilla group and would come as a “surprise to the Israelis” when it happens.

The Counter-Terrorism Bureau advisory attempted to inform all Israelis abroad of Hizbullah’s intention to abduct or attack Israeli citizens traveling or working around the world in revenge for Mughniyeh death.

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