Alert: Terrorists look to implant bombs in humans (AP)

WASHINGTON – Airlines are being warned by the government that terrorists are considering surgically hiding bombs inside humans to evade airport security. As a result, travelers may find themselves subjected to more scrutiny when flying in the heart of summer vacation season, especially to the U.S. from abroad.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department sent a memo to security officials around the country on Wednesday about "body packing," describing it as a "criminal tactic with possible terrorist application."

The memo, obtained by The Associated Press, cited a 2005 incident in which Colombian men were accused of surgically implanting narcotics into human couriers.

The memo offered possible indicators of surgically implanted contraband, including a distended stomach or other unusual bulging, and visible physical discomfort from a pat-down.

Bombs-in-the-body is not a new idea, but recent intelligence indicates a fresh interest in using this method. People-scanning machines in airports aren't able to detect explosives hidden inside humans. Still, there is no current information that points to a specific plot involving surgically implanted explosives, a U.S. security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss such sensitive matters.

As airport security has increased since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, so has the terrorists' creativity in developing methods to get around it. Aviation continues to be a special target, and evidence from Osama bin Laden's compound showed that the al-Qaida leader retained his fascination with attacking airplanes until his death in May.

Last year, it was reported that British officials uncovered intelligence that al-Qaida was seeking to surgically implant bombs inside people, a move some believed was prompted by the use of full-body imaging machines at major airports around the world.

"This is something we've been concerned about for quite some time," said J. Bennet Waters, a security consultant with the Washington, D.C.-based Chertoff Group and a former Transportation Security Administration official in the Bush administration.

The U.S. government has been working with foreign air carriers and governments to identify ways to discover hidden explosives, including bombs potentially hidden inside of humans. Officials did not want to discuss specific security measures under consideration so as not to tip off terrorists who could seek ways to get around them.

Once a terrorist finds a willing suicide bomber, secures the explosive material and makes the bomb, carrying off this tactic is not that difficult, said Chris Ronay, a former chief of the FBI explosives unit.

"It's rather easy and the damage could be rather severe," Ronay said.

Surgery to implant explosives could be done a couple of days before a planned attack, said James Crippin, an explosives expert in Colorado. In order for it to work, there would need to be a detonation device, and it's conceivable that if the explosive was implanted in a woman's breast, the detonator could be underneath the breast so that all the operative would have to do is press downward, Crippin said.

But Jimmie C. Oxley, a chemistry professor at the University of Rhode Island and explosives expert, said it would be tough to carry out such an effort successfully. She said there are only so many places to hide a bomb in the body, and a suicide bomber would have to recover enough from the surgery to travel and set off the device.

The al-Qaida offshoot in Yemen has emerged as the most inventive terror organization these days and has been behind two plots that nearly brought down planes over the U.S. The group, known as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, was behind the Christmas Day attack in 2009 when a Nigerian hid a bomb in his underpants and nearly brought down an airliner over Detroit.

AQAP operatives also concealed bombs in printer cartridges last October, shipping them to Chicago addresses. That attack was thwarted because of specific intelligence about the plot.

In late December, the U.S. received intelligence that the Yemen group was considering hiding explosives in the insulated lining of beverage containers and carrying them aboard airplanes. There was no information pointing to a specific plot with insulated beverage containers, but, like the recent intelligence about the implanted bomb tactic, the Transportation Security Administration warned domestic and foreign carriers to be on the lookout.

"Due to the significant advances in global aviation security in recent years, terrorist groups have repeatedly and publicly indicated interest in pursuing ways to further conceal explosives," TSA spokesman Nick Kimball said, adding that passengers flying into the U.S. may notice additional security. "Measures may include interaction with passengers, in addition to the use of other screening methods such as pat-downs and the use of enhanced tools and technologies."

Officials would not specify which terrorist organizations are thought to be considering this surgical tactic.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said U.S. counterterrorism efforts must evolve as terror groups publicly indicate their interest in finding ways to conceal explosives.

"The idea that terrorists have been looking for other ways to circumvent security measures to target aircraft is not at all surprising," Carney said.

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Associated Press writer Julie Pace contributed to this report.

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Experts warn S.African corruption helps terrorists (AP)

PRETORIA, South Africa – When an alleged mastermind of al-Qaida attacks on U.S. embassies was killed in East Africa, officials said he was carrying a fake South African passport — refocusing attention on warnings that corruption in South Africa is being exploited by terrorists.

Security experts have been warning for years that corruption in South Africa is allowing terrorists to get documents to hide their identities and make it easier to travel.

The top civil servant responsible for issuing South African passports told reporters Wednesday there have been improvements, but said more needs to be done. The official, Mkuseli Apleni, said the passport found with terror suspect Fazul Abdullah Mohammed is a copy of the easily forged passport South Africa no longer produces, but which many South Africans still carry. Apleni and a security aide who appeared with him at a news conference Wednesday said it was unclear where the fake passport was produced, or whether Mohammed had ever been in South Africa.

Mohammed, a native of the Comoros islands, was killed last week in Somalia. U.S. officials had offered a $5 million reward for his capture, accusing him of planning the Aug. 7, 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

Scott Stewart, a former intelligence agent with the U.S. State Department, said South Africa is a place where "you could show up, give the right guy several hundred dollars, and walk away with ... a passport.

"Terrorists will take advantage of the corruption," Stewart said in a telephone interview.

Stewart, now with the U.S.-based global intelligence company STRATFOR, said terrorists who plotted in 2006 to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners leaving London's Heathrow airport used fake South African passports to enter Britain from Pakistan, even though they were British. The fake passports allowed them to hide visits to Pakistan that could have raised suspicions, Stewart said. In 2009, three Britons were sentenced to at least 30 years in prison in the Heathrow plot.

Also in 2009, Britain started requiring visas from South Africans, saying terrorists and criminals were exploiting the easy availability of stolen or forged South African passports.

Apleni said Britain's visa decision led to changes in South Africa, including a switch to passports implanted with electronic chips and other hard-to-fake features.

"Our new passport has never been faked," Apleni said.

He said as a barrier against corruption, officials who issue passports have not been told all of its new features. He said officials have not seen "our people selling our new passports."

But Apleni said it will be two to three years before all South Africans are issued with new passports. He also said steps to ensure the authenticity of birth certificates and other documents used to apply for the new passport are still in their early stages.

Anneli Botha, a counterterrorism researcher with South Africa's independent Institute for Security Studies, said corruption, not sympathy for terrorists, was behind the problem in South Africa.

"You can have the most sophisticated measures in place, but you're only as strong as your weakest link," she said in an interview. "And corruption is our weakest link."

Botha commended the home affairs minister appointed in early 2009 for making clear corruption would not be tolerated. The minister, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, has suspended dozens of officials accused of issuing fake documents and staged surprise raids on passport offices.

STRATFOR's Stewart recommended conducting background checks on people with the authority to issue passports, and following up on any suspicions.

"What kind of assets do they have? Do they have unexplained wealth?" Stewart said. "It's almost like taking a counterintelligence approach."

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US official says terrorists lack Internet skills (AP)

LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press – Tue Jun 14, 5:16 pm ET

WASHINGTON – A top counterterrorism official says terrorist groups do not yet have the technical skills to launch a major cyber attack against the United States.

State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin says such a threat is looming and one that insurgents are pursuing. But he says so far most big computer-based attacks are launched by other countries or small groups of hackers.

Benjamin says terror groups are mainly using the Internet for propaganda and as a recruiting tool. The No. 1 concern for U.S. officials is developing means to counter the insurgents in cyberspace.

U.S. government networks are probed and scanned millions of times a day by criminals and other countries, and hackers have breached the electrical grid and key defense department contractors.

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British spies to terrorists: make cupcakes not war (AP)

LONDON – Britain's spy agencies have a new message for terrorists: make cupcakes, not war.

Intelligence agents managed to hack into the extremist Inspire magazine, replacing its bombmaking instructions with a recipe for cupcakes.

It's the first time the agents sabotaged the English-language magazine linked to U.S.-born Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an extremist accused in several recent terror plots.

The quarterly online magazine, which is sent to websites and email addresses as a pdf file, had offered an original page titled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" in one of its editions last year. The magazine's pages were corrupted, however, and the instructions replaced with the cupcake recipe.

"We're increasingly using cybertools as part of our work," a British government official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters said Friday, confirming that the Inspire magazine had been successfully attacked.

The hackers were reportedly working for Britain's eavesdropping agency, GCHQ, which has boosted its resources in the past several years.

Despite sharp cuts to defense and intelligence agency budgets, Britain last year authorized an extra 500 million pounds ($815 million) in funding on cyber-related projects. In London talks last month, Prime Minister David Cameron and U.S. President Barack Obama also pledged to work more closely on cyber research.

Agents from GCHQ have also started to embed themselves with military units on the battlefield, allowing troops to intercept communications, track individuals and providing the military — and governments — with real-time intelligence.

Christopher Painter, the U.S. State Department co-ordinator for cyber issues, said at a cybersecurity conference in London that one of the biggest problems was identifying hackers — whether they be from foreign governments trying to steal secrets or lone hackers.

But choosing to hack into al-Qaida-affiliated websites or other systems is also risky business for intelligence agencies. Infiltrating a site can often expose sources and methods, a second British official said, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss cybersecurity matters. He would not specify how Inspire was hacked.

British officials consider al-Qaida in the Arabian Pensinsula to be a significant threat to U.K. interests.

Al-Awlaki, thought to be hiding in Yemen, is believed to have inspired and even plotted or helped coordinate recent attacks on the U.S. Those include the failed December 2009 bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner and the unsuccessful plot to send mail bombs on planes from Yemen to the U.S. Al-Awlaki also is believed to have inspired the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, and had ties to some of the 9/11 hijackers.

Roshonara Choudhry, a student who was jailed after she stabbed a British lawmaker last May, told police she had listened to 100 hours of al-Awlaki's online lectures.

Awlaki is a regular contributor to Inspire, offering advice on everything from spiritual questions to recruiting.

"A recipe for cupcakes is better than a recipe for bombs, but it would been more productive if they had put up counter-arguments to al-Qaida," said James Brandon with the London-based Quilliam Foundation, an anti-extremist organization. "They could have also attacked Awlaki himself. It should be about discrediting these individuals."

Extremists are increasingly turning to cyberspace to spread their message.

Individuals who say they are affiliated with the Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan have started using Twitter. Several other Internet forums also operate in the UK for jihadist groups, such as Islamic Awakening. Many sites have been left alone so message traffic can be monitored.

Governments around the world are now considering how cybercrimes can be prosecuted under existing international laws and whether a cyberattack could someday be considered an act of war.

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MI6 cooks up confusion for terrorists (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – Would-be terrorists searching the Internet for tips on how to build bombs were instead taught how to bake the perfect cupcake after an intervention by MI6, the Telegraph reported Friday.

Intelligence agency MI6 launched the cyber-operation against Jihadi magazine, "Inspire", in an attempt to hamper attempts by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) to attract "lone wolf" terrorists.

Surfers trying to download the English-speaking magazine's "Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom" feature were instead redirected to a site boasting recipes for "The Best Cupcakes in America".

The baking site, which is published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show, promises treats for "today's sweet-toothed hipsters" including the mojito cupcake, made using white rum and vanilla buttercream.

Meanwhile, the 67-page Inspire contains recipes showing how to make rudimentary pipe bombs using sugar, match heads and a miniature lightbulb.

The Jihadi magazine is produced by Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of AQAP, who has lived in Britain and the United States, and his US colleague Samir Khan.

Britain and the US both planned separately to disrupt the magazine on learning of its publication, but the US decided against action as they believed it was cutting off a source of intelligence, the British newspaper reported.

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Headley is a rare breed among admitted terrorists (AP)

By EILEEN SULLIVAN and SOPHIA TAREEN, Associated Press Eileen Sullivan And Sophia Tareen, Associated Press – Thu May 26, 6:11 pm ET

CHICAGO – In 2000, David Coleman Headley called a phone number he saw on a recruiting poster in a mosque in Pakistan, and in doing so launched a nearly decade-long career as a terrorist.

For the soft-spoken Pakistani-American who admits he helped carry out the deadly 2008 terror rampage in Mumbai, it was simple: "I went to a meeting."

Born in Washington, D.C., Headley — who is now the government's star witness in the trial of a businessman accused in the Mumbai attacks — has an American mother and Pakistani father, fair skin and speaks many languages including perfect English. He has a U.S. passport, attended six militant training courses in Pakistan and became adapt at blending in wherever he traveled.

When it comes to terrorists, Headley is a rare breed.

But in the years since Headley's unusual mix of dual citizenship and ability to travel internationally made him an ideal terrorist foot soldier, it's become much easier for militants to compensate for there not being enough people like Headley to recruit.

These days extremists from anywhere in the world can prey on disaffected men and women as they surf the web in the privacy of their own basements. English-speaking Islamic clerics proselytize on YouTube about perceived Western-imposed injustices. They publish flashy Internet magazines written in English with articles about how to build a bomb in your mother's kitchen and advice on how not to get caught.

If someone wants to join a foreign jihadist cause, there are plenty of options to choose from, and the extensive travel and training like Headley had — while still valuable to terror groups — is no longer the key to success.

"There are terrorists, and then there are terrorists," said Juan Zarate, a senior counterterrorism official in the Bush administration. After spending the past decade disrupting known terrorist networks and their hideouts, the United States is now seeing fewer seasoned and honed terrorists likely Headley and more fly-by-the-night Internet radicals, Zarate said.

Take Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army major who is accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. Hasan communicated about the merits of jihad with a radical Islamic cleric who is hiding with al-Qaida's offshoot in Yemen but didn't spend years at a terror training camp.

Then there's Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of trying to blow up a truck last year on a busy New York City street corner. The Pakistan Taliban provided Shahzad with about $15,000 and only five days of explosives training in late 2009 and early 2010, just months after he became a U.S. citizen.

There are also individual agents, like 21-year-old Arid Uka, who radicalized on his own, by looking at terrorist websites before storming a U.S. military bus at a German airport in March, killing two U.S. airmen.

"Those that actually have training overseas, those that actually have connections to sophisticated terrorist organizations are going to be more lethal," said Frank Cilluffo, director of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute.

But, he said, terrorists and recruitment methods come in various shapes, sizes and forms. While terror organizations are still able to blossom in areas with little or no effective government, the Internet has become yet another ungoverned space — and it's easier to get to.

"We can't ignore or discount those that are literally turning to the Internet and being radicalized and recruited," Cilluffo said. "They can cause harm."

Headley pleaded guilty in 2010 to laying the ground work for the Mumbai attacks that killed more than 160 people and is now testifying in a federal terrorism trial against his longtime friend, Chicago businessman Tahawwur Rana, who is accused of giving Headley cover when he made multiple surveillance trips to Mumbai to scout sites. Rana has pleaded not guilty.

During his testimony, Headley detailed his numerous trips to India and Pakistan and his face-to-face and email conversations with both his handler from Lashkar-e-Taiba, the militant group that claimed responsibility for the Mumbai siege, and a Pakistani intelligence officer known only as "Major Iqbal." Headley claims both helped with the plot. On Thursday, Headley described how he started working with another Pakistani militant to plan another attack, this time on a Danish newspaper that in 2005 printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. That attack never occurred.

For more than a decade, Headley managed to stay off the radar as he flew from one continent to another to meet with terror operatives. To blend in wherever he traveled, Headley carried a cross, had red bracelets commonly worn by Hindus, and kept the book, ""How to Pray Like a Jew" in his bag. He even changed his name in 2006 from Daood Gilani to something less likely to raise eyebrows — David Coleman Headley.

His travels eventually caught up with him. In the summer of 2009, U.S. officials were looking for someone named "David" who was a frequent international traveler.

In August 2009, customs officials found Headley and the FBI was soon listening to his conversations with associates and reading his emails. On Sept. 7, 2009, agents listened to Headley tell Rana about "four targets that I liked." Rana told Headley even if he hit those four targets, Headley would still want more.

On May 25, a prosecutor asked Headley: "Is that true?"

Speaking matter-of-factly about his decade in global terror, Headley responded, "Probably."

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US calls Chechen group terrorists, offers reward (AP)

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration has declared a Chechen group as a terrorist organization, and is offering up to $5 million for information leading to its commander.

The State Department announced the action against the Caucasus Emirate Thursday, after President Barack Obama met Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev in France.

The group is blamed for bombing Moscow's airport in January, two subway stations in 2010 and a Russian rail train in 2009. The attacks killed dozens.

The designation aims to block financial support for the militants. They want to expel Russia from the North Caucasus and establish an Islamic emirate.

The U.S. also authorized a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the group's commander, Doku Umarov. It said he also has encouraged violence against the U.S., Britain and Israel.

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US trial to open window on Pakistani terrorists (AFP)

CHICAGO (AFP) – A Chicago trial due to start Monday will open a window onto two Pakistani terrorist organizations and the men who plotted the 2008 Mumbai attacks, amid fears it could further inflame regional tensions.

It comes amid a diplomatic crisis as Pakistan struggles to deflect suspicion of official complicity with terrorism after US commandos killed Osama bin Laden in an urban compound only 55 kilometers (35 miles) from Islamabad on May 2.

Chicago businessman Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 50, is charged with providing material support to terrorists by acting as a messenger and providing a cover for a key figure in the bloody 60-hour Mumbai siege in which 166 people died.

David Coleman Headley -- Rana's old friend from military school in Pakistan -- has been cooperating with prosecutors ever since his October 2009 arrest and will be a star witness at Rana's trial.

Jurors are also expected to hear a series of conversations between the two men secretly recorded by the FBI.

Headley formally admitted to 12 terrorism charges in March 2010 after prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty or to allow him to be extradited to either India, Pakistan or Denmark to face related charges.

The Washington-born son of a former Pakistani diplomat and American woman, Headley admitted to spending months scoping out sites for the Mumbai siege and plotting to kill a Danish cartoonist.

In a plot that reads like a movie thriller, Headley spent two years casing out Mumbai, even taking boat tours around the city's harbor to find landing sites for the attackers and befriending Bollywood stars as part of his cover.

He was so eager to kill a Danish cartoonist, who sparked outrage with cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, that he began working seriously on that plot two months before the Mumbai attack.

Headley also had Bollywood and one of India's most sacred Hindu temples in his sights as he began plotting a second India attack during a March 2009 surveillance trip.

India and Washington blamed the Mumbai rampage on Pakistan's banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The attacks stalled a fragile four-year peace process between the two nuclear-armed south Asian rivals which were only resumed in February.

Rana -- who holds Canadian citizenship -- insisted after his October 2009 arrest that he is a pacifist who was "duped" into letting his old friend use his immigration services company as a cover.

But in pre-trial motions, his lawyers proposed defending Rana's actions by arguing he believed Headley was working on behalf of the Pakistan's ISI spy service, not terrorists.

Headley testified to a grand jury that he had told Rana about "my meetings with Sajid and others in Lashkar" and "how I had been asked to perform espionage work for ISI," court records show.

"I explained to him that the immigration office would provide a cover story for why I was in Mumbai," Headley said, according to court records.

Judge Harry Leinenweber ruled against this proposed defense on legal grounds -- Rana is being prosecuted for his actions in the United States and even if Headley were acting on behalf of the ISI neither he nor Rana would be exempt from US laws.

However, the trial could nonetheless lend credence to suspicions that the ISI was involved in the attack because three of the conspirators named in the indictment are ISI officers, court records showed.

"This is going to be yet another brick in this very large wall of suspicion that we have about Pakistan," said Khalil Marrar, a political science professor at DePaul University who has been following the case.

None of the men are in US custody and a spokesman for the US attorney's office declined to say whether the US government would be seeking their extradition or even knows their whereabouts.

Headley -- who changed his name from Daood Gilani so he could hide his Pakistani heritage -- joined LeT in 2002, attending terrorist training camps five times over the next three years.

He began working with an Al-Qaeda-linked group in Pakistan called Harakat-ul-Jihad-Islami on the Danish plot after LeT became distracted with the final planning for the Mumbai attack, a plea agreement said.

Jury selection in Rana's begins Monday. Opening statements are not expected until May 23.

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