Virginia Is Creating Killers! How? Why? Gun Control Needed!

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Explosives Found at Christopher Speight's Home



Bomb technicians discovered a "multitude" of explosives Wednesday at the home of a man suspected in the shooting deaths of eight people, and crews were detonating the devices as more details about the gunman came to light.

Christopher Bryan Speight, a 39-year-old security guard, surrendered to police at daybreak Wednesday after leading authorities on an 18-hour manhunt following the shootings at a house in rural central Virginia where deputies found a mortally wounded man and seven bodies.

As of late Wednesday, bomb squads had found and detonated seven explosives. The blasting was expected to continue into Thursday.

Speight had no weapons when he surrendered shortly after 7 a.m. Wednesday wearing a bulletproof vest over a black fleece jacket, camouflage pants and mud-caked boots.

Neither the sheriff nor a state police spokeswoman would disclose what Speight said when he gave up.

Authorities remained tightlipped on most details surrounding the slayings, including any possible motive. Nor did they immediately identify any of the victims or their relationship to the suspect. Authorities would say only that he knew his victims.

Speight was being held on one charge of first-degree murder Wednesday night, said Lt. J.D. Baker of the Lynchburg Adult Detention Center.

Speight co-owned and lived in the home where some of the bodies were found. Reporters were allowed to see the home Wednesday. The two-story house had a big patio, where there was furniture, a children's bicycle and a plastic basketball hoop. The yard was landscaped and well-manicured.

Gun enthusiast

Neighbor Monte W. Mays said Speight's mother deeded the house to Speight and his sister in 2006, shortly before she died of brain cancer.

Mays, the county's retired commissioner of accounts, said Speight was a good neighbor. They waved as they passed each other on the road and sent their dogs out to play with one another.

"All the dealings I've ever had with him have been cordial and polite," Mays said. "We got along fine."

Speight long had been a gun enthusiast and enjoyed target shooting at a range on his property, Mays said. But the shooting recently became a daily occurrence, with Speight firing what Mays said were high-powered and automatic rifles.

"Then we noticed he was doing it at nighttime," and the gunfire started going deeper into the woods, Mays said.

Mays said the entire community is devastated and wondering what triggered the slayings.

"The only one who's going to know now is Chris," he said.

David Anderson, co-owner of the Sunshine Market grocery store in Lynchburg, where Speight sometimes provided security, said Speight was worried that his sister and brother-in-law wanted to kick him out of the house.

Speight never wanted to talk about it, but he "constantly paced the floor," Anderson said. "I thought he was going to wear a trench in it."

Clarence Reynolds, who also works at the market, said he recently discussed a personal family problem with Speight, and Speight told him "don't let your emotions get the best of you."

Reynolds said Speight was not married and had no children.

Experience with Weapons

Police were alerted to the bloodbath when they found the mortally wounded man on the side of a road. Then sheriff's deputies discovered seven more bodies — three inside the house and four just outside.

When officers converged on the area, the suspected shooter fired a high-powered rifle at a state police helicopter, rupturing its gas tank and forcing it to land.

The shots revealed his location, and more than 100 police swarmed into the woods until Speight gave up the following morning.

Police said Speight appeared to have had weapons training, but there was no information suggesting he had served in the military.

Speight's uncle, Jack Giglio of Tampa, Fla., told The Associated Press that his nephew was a deer hunter, but as far as he knew Speight did not have any specialized weapons training. Giglio said he had not seen Speight since 2006, when both attended the funeral for Speight's mother, who died of brain cancer.

"We're shocked, of course," Giglio said. "I'm not aware of any problems with him. It's kind of out of the blue. We're still trying to pick up facts, too."

Appomattox County court records show a concealed weapons permit was issued to a Christopher Bryan Speight three times between 1999 and last year.





VA Tech Massacre Worst U.S. Shooting, Kills 33 On Va. Campus


Local, state and federal investigators scoured a university campus in Virginia for clues to what set off the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history after a gunman shot two people to death in a dormitory Monday morning before making his way to a classroom building where, silently and coolly, he killed 30 more people before turning his weapon on himself, authorities said.

At least 15 other people were wounded in the shootings, which took place over 2½ hours at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Some of them were injured as they leapt to safety from the windows of their classrooms.

The shootings, which came just four days before the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School bloodbath, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves near Littleton, Colo., created panic and confusion at the university, which was already on edge after two weeks of bomb threats.

After the scope of the carnage was clear, angry students and employees demanded to know why the first e-mail warning from police and administrators did not go out to them for more than two hours, even though the killer of two people was at large. By then, the gunman had struck a second time.

Nearly 50 victims

In all, 33 people died Monday at Virginia Tech, including the gunman. The 15 who were wounded were treated for gunshots or other injuries, authorities said. Their conditions were not reported.

Campus Police Chief Wendell Flinchum would not officially confirm that the two incidents were related, pending the results of the investigation, but he referred to only one gunman and said no other suspect was being sought. Numerous federal and local law enforcement officials told NBC News that the events were the work of a lone gunman.

Federal investigators told NBC News’ Pete Williams that they believed the man was a Virginia Tech student in his early 20s. Their identification was delayed for several hours, they said, because the man’s face was disfigured when he shot himself, he carried no ID and an initial check on his fingerprints came up empty.

The man’s two guns, which were bought in Virginia and whose serial numbers had been obliterated, were to be examined at a laboratory of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Williams reported, citing federal law enforcement officials. That examination was also delayed because authorities had to drive the guns to the lab in the suburbs of Washington after high winds precluded them from using an airplane.

Early reports in the initial confusion said police had a suspect in custody, but Flinchum said later that the person was only being questioned for information because he knew one of the dormitory victims. Officers were interviewing him off-campus when reports of the second round of shooting came in, Flinchum said, and the man was not in custody.

Warnings came too late

Charles Steger, the university’s president, and law enforcement authorities gave this account of the day’s events in public statements and comments to NBC News:

The rampage began about 7:15 a.m. ET at West Ambler Johnston, a co-educational residence hall that houses 895 people. The gunman, armed with a 9-mm pistol and a .22-caliber handgun, killed a man and a woman there.

About 2½ hours later, police responded to a 911 call reporting that shots had been fired at Norris Hall, an engineering classroom building about a half-mile away on the opposite end of the 2,600-acre campus. They discovered that the front doors had been chained from the inside, apparently so victims could not escape and police could not enter.

Officers forced their way in and followed the sound of gunshots to the second floor, where they found the gunman, who had shot himself in the face. As they canvassed the building, they found dozens of gunshot victims. Eventually, they announced that 31, including the gunman, were dead in the classroom building.

“It’s probably one of the worst things I’ve seen in my life,” Flinchum said.

Shaken students said they believed many of the victims might have been spared if campus officials had taken more immediate steps to secure the campus after the first shootings at the dormitory.

The first e-mail warning to students and employees did not go out to students, faculty and staff until 9:26 a.m., more than two hours after the shooting at the dormitory, according to the time stamps on copies obtained by NBC News. By then, the classroom shooting was under way. The message warned students to be cautious but did not warn them not to go to class.

“I really thought they should have canceled classes sooner,” Sam Leake, a junior who lives in West Ambler Johnston, told the campus newspaper, The Collegiate Times. “If they had, maybe some of these deaths could have been prevented.”

Steger said administrators and police initially believed the first shooting was an isolated incident and did not see a need to close the university. He said they believed the gunman had fled the campus.

“We can only make decisions based on the information you had on the time. You don’t have hours to reflect on it,” he said.


Silent gunman strikes without warning

As the first warning was just going out, a bloody scene was unfolding inside the engineering building. Police could not monitor what was going on because the building is not equipped with surveillance cameras, Flinchum said.

Trey Perkins, a sophomore, told MSNBC-TV’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview that the gunman never said a word.

“He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything. He just started shooting,” Perkins said.

The gunman left that classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

Derek O’Dell, a sophomore biology major, told MSNBC-TV’s Alison Stewart that it was “very surreal.”

“At first, I thought it was joke,” said O’Dell, who was shot in an arm. “You don’t really think of a gunman coming on campus and shooting people.”

Until Monday, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history was in Killeen, Texas, in 1991, when George Hennard plowed his pickup truck into a Luby’s Cafeteria and shot 23 people to death, then himself.

The deadliest previous campus shooting in U.S. history took place in 1966 at the University of Texas, where Charles Whitman climbed to the 28th-floor observation deck of a clock tower and opened fire. He killed 16 people before he was gunned down by police.

All entrances to the campus were closed Monday, and Tuesday’s classes were canceled. The university set up a meeting place for families to reunite with their children at the Inn at Virginia Tech. It also made counselors available and planned a convocation for Tuesday at the Cassell Coliseum basketball arena, which White House officials said President Bush was considering attending.

Bush said in a brief televised statement: “Schools should be places of sanctuary and safety and learning. When that sanctuary is violated, the impact is felt in every American classroom and every American community. Today, our nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones at Virginia Tech.”



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Anwar Al Awlaki's Capture May Attract More U.S. Terrorist Attacks

Al-Awlaki's Father Says Son Is Not Osama Bin Laden



His anguish apparent, the father of Anwar al-Awlaki told CNN that his son is not a member of al Qaeda and is not hiding out with terrorists in southern Yemen.

"I am now afraid of what they will do with my son, he's not Osama Bin Laden, they want to make something out of him that he's not," said Dr. Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of American-born Islamic cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.

As recently as Sunday, Yemeni officials including provincial governor Al Hasan al-Ahmadi claimed that al-Awlaki was hiding out in the southern mountains of Yemen with al Qaeda.

"He's dead wrong. What do you expect my son to do? There are missiles raining down on the village. He has to hide. But he is not hiding with al Qaeda; our tribe is protecting him right now," insisted al-Awlaki's father in an exclusive interview with CNN.

"My son is (a) wanted man, he's cornered, that's the problem I am facing," al-Awlaki said.

The al-Awlaki family comes from the large and powerful Awalek tribe of southern Yemen. It has many connections to the government of Yemen, including the country's prime minister, who is a relative of the al-Awlaki family.

Recently, Yemeni officials have also claimed that Anwar al-Awlaki had contact with Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab during his stay in Yemen in late 2009. When asked if his son met with the man charged with trying to blow up a U.S.-bound plane on Christmas day, al-Awlaki's father said it's not likely.

"I have no idea but I don't believe it," he said.

But the United States has independent intelligence verifying that AbdulMutallab met with al-Awlaki somewhere in southern Yemen before the Christmas Day bombing attempt, according to a U.S. security official with knowledge of the intelligence.

Even if al-Awlaki is hiding out with his tribe in the mountains of southern Yemen, the official added, authorities have no doubt that he is a member of al Qaeda and is now one of the top five or six operatives in Yemen for the terrorist organization.

The official said al-Awlaki's transformation from inspirational leader to operational recruiter for al Qaeda was first picked up in the early part of 2009.

This official also noted that the United States believes he is still involved in trying to recruit more bombers to launch attacks.

His father, the elder al-Awlaki, is an accomplished academic and had held several positions within the Yemeni government, including minister of agriculture. He first went to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar in the late '60s, and his son Anwar was born there in 1971.

Al-Awlaki says he is doing what he can to coax his son out of hiding, but does not want to jeopardize his son's life.

"I will do my best to convince my son to do this (surrender), to come back but they are not giving me time, they want to kill my son. How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered," he said.

"If they give me time I can have some contact with my son but the problem is they are not giving me time," he said.

Al-Awlaki acknowledged his son has espoused some controversial views but all of them, he said, would be protected by freedom of speech provisions in the American Constitution. He denied his son has done anything to encourage terrorists to commit violent acts.

"He is a preacher, you cannot tie Anwar to acts of terrorism," said al-Awlaki.

Al-Awlaki's name surfaced in November when U.S. officials revealed he and Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan -- the U.S. Army psychiatrist accused of fatally shooting 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5 -- had exchanged e-mails. The intercepted e-mails between the two, officials said, had not not set off alarm bells.

The cleric recently told Al Jazeera's Arabic-language Web site that he met Hasan nine years ago while serving as an imam at a mosque in the Washington, D.C., area. He said he lauded the Fort Hood attack because it was aimed at troops, whom he accused of fighting an unjust war against Islam.

"It is a military target inside America and there is no dispute over that," Anwar al-Awlaki said. "Also, these military personnel are not ordinary; they were trained and ready to fight and kill oppressed Muslims, and commit crimes in Afghanistan."

When asked why his son would praise Hasan, Nasser al-Awlaki said he did not agree with his son's views.

"I don't think that's right what he said about Major Hasan's actions, but my son has been very upset by the violence against Muslims," said al-Awlaki.

Al-Awlaki does concede his son's views did seem more radical after he spent time in a Yemeni prison from 2006 to 2007 for suspected ties to terrorism. He was released for lack of evidence.

"They put him in jail for 18 months and I detected a change after he got out of prison, he began to get away from the mainstream," al-Awlaki said.

The father also warned that the aggressive hunt for his son and al Qaeda operatives in Yemen using missile strikes will only serve to recruit more members to the organization.

"I don't want those American cowboys to destroy Yemen," said al-Awlaki before conceding that the hunt for al Qaeda in Yemen is now a global concern.

"He has been wrongly accused, it's unbelievable. He lived his life in America, he's an all-American boy. My son would love to go back to America, he used to have a good life in America. Now he's hiding in the mountains, he doesn't even have safe water to drink," al-Awlaki said.



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Offering Plea Bargains To Terrorists Will Jeopardize U.S. Security

You Can't Bargain With Terrorists


Trying the Christmas terror suspect in federal court is a huge mistake. Gerald L. Shargel on why plea bargains are useless when you’re talking to suicide bombers.

Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, I appeared on a Court TV program hosted by Alan Dershowitz. The professor asked whether I would be willing to defend Osama bin Laden, already identified as the prime suspect in the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings. We both assumed that the trial would take place in a federal district court. After all, bin Laden was already indicted in federal court in Manhattan, charged with conspiracies to murder, bomb, and maim United States nationals.

Dershowitz and I agreed that representing bin Laden would be an extreme act of patriotism. We would be aiding a process by which the world would see that no matter how uncivilized the perpetrator, America would stick to its values and afford him due process and a fair trial with a defense lawyer zealously committed to protecting his client's rights.

In the years following 9/11, I continued to believe that crimes committed on American soil should be prosecuted in a civilian, rather than a military, court. While terrorist defendants may be uncommon criminals, federal penal statutes have been working, in cases involving Zacarias Moussaoui (9/11 conspirator), Richard Reid (shoe bomber), Ramzi Yousef (1993 Trade Center bombing) and Mahmud Abouhalima (1993 Trade Center bombing), as well as many others who have been tried, convicted and sentenced to life, or the equivalent of life, without parole (Abouhalima, 50, is scheduled for release in September 2087).

In the days since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's arrest in the Christmas Day plot to blow up Northwest Flight 253, many of my long-held moral and legal assumptions shifted. It's not that I've lost confidence in the ability of the civilian courts to resolve these cases. Rather, prosecuting terrorists who commit crimes against United States nationals, at home or abroad, is a burden that American courts should not have to bear.

These terrorist offenders are, in every sense of the word, soldiers. Soldiers in an openly declared holy war against American "infidels." These soldiers, like our soldiers, are highly trained. They too can strip and clean weapons while blindfolded. They too, are experts in explosives and guerrilla tactics. Their skill set is similar to the most elite of our forces. They are tough. Like our CIA agents, they too are required to endure torture so that they may be taught to resist it.

And knowing all this, as our intelligence community must, we are embracing a strategy not much different than the strategy in the "war on drugs" or the "war against the Mafia." Last Sunday, John O. Brennan, the president's deputy national security adviser for Counter Terrorism and homeland security, told David Gregory, the host of Meet the Press, that "Plea Bargaining" in a civilian court would result in obtaining valuable information about ongoing terrorist activity. According to Brennan, these terrorist defendants may be willing to trade information for lenient sentences.

It is undeniably true that the threat of long prison sentences has produced countless cooperators who have helped the government and themselves—and, in turn, spurred the collapse of drug cartels (a few) and Mafia families (some). But can it be said with a straight face that this same method would lead to valuable information extracted from terrorist soldiers? Eight years of torture coupled with an open offer of a $25 million reward has failed to produce the capture of Osama bin Laden. So, why would hardened soldiers, quite willing to commit a suicide bombing, politely exchange information for leniency?

And, assuming he were to cooperate, which government official will stand before the American public and announce, for example, that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who nearly killed at least 278 innocent Americans, received a light sentence in return for his cooperation?

The absurdity of this strategy is further illustrated by even a superficial analysis of the convict's post-release plan. Non-citizens convicted of serious crimes are automatically deported. Would Abdulmutallab then get deported back to Nigeria—or perhaps Yemen—having served his sentence, only to rejoin his compatriots?

Or, do the prosecutors secure an S-Visa for him? Although, as noted, deportation is mandatory and automatic in the event of conviction of a serious crime, the government may issue an S-Visa allowing the cooperator to live legally in the United States with eventual permanent residency (Green Card) or even citizenship as a reward for cooperation.

Enemy combatants, soldiers trained to kill—in the witness-protection program—living next door? Marrying my sister? This week I'm thinking, keep Guantanamo open.



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Anwar Al-Awlaki Is Alive; Yemen Becomes New Terror Hot Spot

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"I'm Alive" Says Yemen Radical Anwar Awlaki Despite U.S. Attack


A week after U.S. and Yemeni officials said the radical Yemen cleric Anwar Awlaki may have been killed in a U.S.-backed Christmas eve air strike, a Yemeni journalist says Awlaki has surfaced to proclaim, "I'm alive."

"He said the house that was attacked was two or three kilometers away from him and he was not there," the journalist, Abdulelah Hider Shaea, told ABC News. He said he talked to Awlaki on the phone and recognized his voice from previous interviews.

One week ago, officials said the Christmas Eve attack had targeted a suspected meeting of al Qaeda leaders in Rafd, a mountain valley in eastern Shabwa province.

A statement from the Yemeni embassy in Washington said Awlaki was "presumed" to have been at the site of an al Qaeda meeting south of the capital city of Sanaa.

Friends and relatives of Awlaki immediately discounted reports the cleric was killed in the raid but the journalist is the first to claim to have spoken with him since the attack.

Awlaki is considered by U.S. authorities to be an al Qaeda recruiter through his popular website and was in contact with the accused Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Hasan. American authorities also believe he was in contact with the accused Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Awlaki is "emerging as the central focus" of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest flight over Detroit.

Awlaki denies he is part of al Qaeda and told the Yemeni journalist, in an interview published in the Washington Post, that while he considered Major Hasan "a hero" he did not pressure him to take any action.

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The Menace of Yemen



The attack on Flight 253 shows the growing strength of al Qaeda’s Yemen branch. Bruce Riedel on al Qaeda’s latest training ground for terror and the new threat against American airlines.

The attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day underscores the growing ambition of al Qaeda's Yemen franchise, which has grown from a largely Yemeni agenda to become a player in the global Islamic jihad in the last year. Since merging with the al Qaeda franchise in Saudi Arabia last January and renaming itself Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), it has stepped up operations in Yemen itself, struck into Saudi Arabia, and now operates on the global stage. The weak Yemeni government of President Ali Abdallah Salih, which has never fully controlled the country and now faces a host of growing problems, will need significant American support to defeat AQAP.

Al Qaeda has long been active in Yemen, the original homeland of Osama bin Laden's family, and one of its first major terror attacks was conducted in Aden in 2000, when an al Qaeda cell nearly sank the USS Cole. A year ago, the al Qaeda franchises in Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged after the Saudi branch had been effectively repressed by the Saudi authorities under the leadership of Deputy Interior Minister Prince Muhammad bin Nayif. The new AQAP showed its claws last August, when it almost assassinated the prince with a suicide bomber who had passed through at least two airports on the way to his attempt on Nayif.

The same bombmakers who produced that device probably also manufactured the bomb that Omar al Farooq Abdulmutallab used on Flight 253. In claiming credit for the Detroit attack, AQAP highlighted how they had built a bomb that "all the advanced, new machines and technologies and the security boundaries of the world's airports" had failed to detect. They praised their "mujahedin brothers in the manufacturing sector" for building such a "highly advanced device," and promised that more such attacks will follow.

Yemen has sought to repress al Qaeda off and on for the last decade, with little success. The Saleh government has other more immediate problems on its plate, in particular a rebellion among Shia Zaydi tribes known as Houthis in the north that has escalated in the last two months with attacks by the rebels into Saudi territory. The southern part of the country, which only merged with the north in 1990 and fought a bitter civil war in 1994 when it tried to break away, is hostile to the Saleh government and is looking for a chance to split off again. The economy is weak and heavily dependent on dwindling oil reserves, and the majority of the 23 million Yemenis are illiterate and poor.

The Obama administration has offered Saleh additional military assistance, and has encouraged the government to strike hard at al Qaeda hideouts in the last few weeks. The attacks have killed some AQAP leaders, but it is unclear exactly how serious a blow these attacks have inflicted on the group as a whole. AQAP has vowed revenge for the strikes, which it blames on an alliance between America, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Saleh government.

AQAP has also provided refuge for the Yemeni-American cleric Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was in contact with U.S. Army Major Nidal Hassan, who killed 13 soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas on November 5, 2009. In an interview with Al Jazeera released on December 23, Awlaki said he had encouraged Nidal to kill his fellow soldiers because they were preparing to go to Afghanistan and were part of the Zionist-Crusader alliance that al Qaeda says it is fighting. The next day, December 24, Awlaki was reported to be among those killed in a Yemeni-American strike on the AQAP leadership, but that is still unconfirmed. In claiming credit for the Christmas Day airline attack, AQAP also lauded the Fort Hood massacre and urged other American Muslims to emulate Nidal Hassan.

Al Qaeda has always found weak and failing states like Yemen to be its best staging bases and sanctuaries. Along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, Yemen offers an ideal location to operate with little outside interference. The president has been right to focus additional resources on combating AQAP, but the battle has just begun. If the Yemeni state becomes further destabilized, bin Laden’s cadre in the Arabian Peninsula will have more room to operate.

The attack on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight also shows that al Qaeda remains obsessed with striking the American airline industry, a target it has gone after repeatedly since 1999. If AQAP has now been told by the al Qaeda core leadership to take on the job, we can probably assume that other al Qaeda franchises in North Africa, Iraq, Southeast Asia and elsewhere have also been pressed to attack.



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Wake Up America! Al-Qaida Is Back! First Hasan, Now Umar!

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Letting Down Our Guard


The former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says America has gotten complacent and too worried about image, privacy, and the state of the airline industry. Christmas was a wakeup call.

In the days to come, government, congressional, media, and academic observers will study and reach conclusions about the lessons to be learned from the failed bombing effort by Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab aboard a Northwest flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. But the general lessons are likely to be familiar, as they reflect truths that have been taught by other terrorist efforts over the past decade.

First, the most sophisticated—and therefore the most dangerous—radical Islamist plots are global in nature, and usually involve training and advanced radicalization in a safe haven. Currently, the most dangerous safe haven is the frontier area of Pakistan, but Somalia, and now parts of Yemen, have become areas of ungoverned space where deadly plots and devices can be hatched.

It remains true that our first line of defense is to take the battle to the enemy where he lives, plans, and trains recruits. That means that we will not only have to continue our use of force in South Asia, but the Horn of Africa as well.

Second, the idea that we can readily identify and profile international terrorists is dangerously misleading. Abdulmuttalab, a Nigerian, does not fit the image of a Pakistani or Arab extremist. Neither did Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, or some of the seemingly well-adjusted British plotters who intended to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006.

In fact, al Qaeda has deliberately sought to recruit Westerners as operatives to take advantage of any stereotype we have about what a typical terrorist looks like. The fact that a U.S. Army major carried out a successful terrorist attack at Fort Hood ought to confound our expectations about the kind of people who become violent extremists.

Third, complacency remains an insidious flaw in our natural defenses. For eight years we frustrated plots because we spared no effort to examine and address any lead about a potential threat. But as time passed, more people began to suffer from battle fatigue or to fall prey to historical revisionism. Critics expressed concern that American security was showing an unfriendly face to the world, discouraging travel and tourism.

The airline industry balked at any measure that might cost time, money, or effort in the air travel process. Civil libertarians and others stridently campaigned against stricter identification-document requirements, more accurate scanning equipment, and intelligence-driven behavioral-pattern analysis. Spending money on shoring up failing industries crowded out the necessary sustained investment in deploying technology, hiring more air marshals, and building secure infrastructure.

Christmas 2009 was an abrupt—though fortunately not tragic—reminder of what our priorities need to be:

Continue to take forceful military action against terrorist havens throughout the world. Assure that we do not cede Afghanistan to the enemy and worsen the problem. A recent high-level extremist turncoat confirmed that a tough, lethal response to terrorist acts shakes the enemy’s self-confidence and depresses their recruiting.

Connect the dots of our intelligence and be prepared to take action based on that intelligence. Squeamishness about any slight to privacy or worries about whether the evidence meets judicial standards induces the kind of bureaucratic paralysis that allows a terrorist to slip through our existing defenses. And the men and women of our intelligence community need to know that our leaders will back them up.

Reap the benefits of our technological advantage. Scanning and screening hardware and software continue to improve. But we benefit from those improvements only if we deploy them. As Christmas Day reminded us once again, to save innocent lives our security must be right 100 percent of the time; a suicide bomber only needs to be successful once.

Let’s give our screeners and inspectors the tools they need so they can be as close as possible to that 100 percent.



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Fort Hood Soldiers On Edge As Deployment Dates Approach...Pray For Our Troops

Secretary of Defense Dr. Robert Gates expands review of Fort Hood shootings. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reports.

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Authorities knew about Fort Hood suspect. FBI officials admitted they knew months ago that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was e-mailing a radical Muslim cleric overseas. A Morning Meeting panel discusses how authorities missed what appeared to be multiple red flags in the Fort Hood massacre.

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Nerves fray at Fort Hood as Deployment nears


Even before the shootings at this sprawling military post, Pfc. Nicolas Woodworth was wary of shipping out for Afghanistan in early January. As a combat engineer, he is supposed to serve on a route-clearance team, creeping down Afghan roads at 5 mph looking for bombs.

To steel himself for the dangerous and nerve-racking job, Woodworth relied on Pfc. Aaron Nemelka. Nemelka often slept on the couch in the small apartment that Woodworth and his wife had rented just outside Fort Hood. The two soldiers entered bowling tournaments together and spent hours watching Quentin Tarantino movies.

Woodworth didn't want to go to war, he said this week. But he also couldn't bear the thought of letting his best friend go without him.

Nemelka was among the first soldiers killed when Maj. Nidal M. Hasan allegedly opened fire on his fellow soldiers Nov. 5. Now Woodworth is wavering. "I am absolutely not ready to deploy," the 20-year-old said as he nervously gnawed on the edge of his black Army beret. "I don't know if I am mentally ready" to lose someone else.

His struggles pose a dilemma for his platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Ryan Corken. His two dozen soldiers, members of the 20th Engineer Battalion, were tense before the shootings. The 20th Engineers will replace a 700-member battalion that has lost 11 soldiers in Afghanistan. Four were killed in late October when a 1,000-pound bomb struck one of their mine-clearing vehicles.

"Is Woodworth kind of scared to deploy?" Corken, 24, asked rhetorically. "Yes. We are all scared. But you don't want to perpetuate that by making it an easy out. You have to balance those who truly need help with those who are getting cold feet and trying to avoid their responsibilities."

Corken's platoon, which began November with 27 soldiers, lost three in the Fort Hood attack. This week the platoon's troops finished their final tributes to the fallen. Soldiers loaded their belongings into shipping containers, completed their wills, and took inventory of the physical and emotional damage wrought by the shootings.

Waiting for his friend

On the day of the attack, Nemelka and five of his platoon comrades were getting immunizations and filling out pre-deployment paperwork at Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center. Woodworth was in his car in the center's parking lot, waiting for his friend, when the shootings began. Nemelka was one of the first soldiers to die, witnesses said.

Woodworth watched as the gunman left the building, still shooting at fleeing soldiers. A few feet from Woodworth, a volley of bullets struck a soldier, who crumpled onto the hood of a car.

Woodworth removed his T-shirt to use as a bandage, and he handed his belt to a medic, who fashioned it into a tourniquet to save a major who had been struck in the leg.

In Woodworth's combat lifesaver classes, treating the wounded seemed relatively straightforward. "When blood is actually gushing from them, it is much harder," he said.

Since the shooting, he said, he has been unable to sleep more than a few hours a night. When he looks at his kitchen table, he sees Nemelka, a skinny 19-year-old, grinning back at him. To memorialize his friend, Woodworth went to a tattoo parlor and had a black rose with Nemelka's name inked into his rib cage, along with his friend's dates of birth and death.

Woodworth tries to talk to his wife, whom he met and married only a few months after moving to Fort Hood. She is seven months pregnant with their first child. "It feels like stuff is crashing down," he said.

Most of the other soldiers in his platoon aren't grieving in the same manner as Woodworth. Pfc. Nicholas Buchman was inside the readiness center and dived for cover when the gunfire began. Crawling on his belly, he hid in a hallway off the main meeting room. A sergeant handed him the plastic base of an oscillating fan for self-defense. "I guess I was going to hit [the shooter] with it," Buchman said.

There were only two ways out of the building. One exit ran through the hallway where Buchman was hiding. The gunman took the other exit.

Once the shooting stopped, Buchman rushed to help with first aid. He hopped into a pickup truck ferrying wounded soldiers to the hospital and was quickly drenched in their blood.

The experience, Buchman said, has left him more confident in himself and his training.

Last week, the platoon's soldiers gathered on the Fort Hood runway and stood at attention as transfer cases bearing their dead colleagues were loaded on a plane for Dover Air Force Base. Corken addressed his men on the edge of the tarmac. "These soldiers wanted to deploy and wanted to be in the Army," he said. "When we go to Afghanistan, we need to make them proud. We will carry their names with honor and pride."


A Leadership issue

Lt. Col. Peter Andrysiak said Corken told him that the shootings had increased anxiety about deploying among a few of the soldiers in his platoon. All of the affected soldiers, including Woodworth, have seen mental health counselors or psychiatrists.

But Andrysiak told Corken that he couldn't just rely on the counselors to get his troops mentally ready to go. "This is a leadership issue," he recalled telling the young officer. "You have got to be engaged in talking to your soldiers over and over. You have to talk to them every day and help them understand that what they are experiencing is normal. . . . This is not something I can solve for you in morning formation with the battalion."

The contrast between Woodworth and Buchman is particularly puzzling to Corken. "Buchman was more affected by the shooting than Woodworth, and he is ready to deploy," he said.

The lieutenant has spent a lot of time thinking about how he can reach Woodworth and whether it makes sense to force him to go, especially if he continues to say that he can't handle the mental strain. With the deployment drawing closer, Corken has thought about invoking Nemelka's name, telling his struggling soldier that his friend would want him to go.

So far he has resisted the urge. "I don't want Woodworth to feel that I am leveraging the death of one of our soldiers to get him to fight," Corken said. "Nemelka doesn't deserve that."



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Sources: Washington Post, MSNBC, Nature.org, Google Maps

Hasan Was Concerned About HIV Test Results...No Excuse For Massacre

Hasan Was Worried About Results of Recent HIV Test


Major Nidal Hasan seemed worried about the results of an HIV blood test taken a week before the Fort Hood shooting rampage, according to federal investigators piecing together background details on Hasan's life.

The information came from a member of the Fort Hood medical staff who was in the building where Hasan is accused of opening fire on November 5 and killing 13 people.

The investigators said there was no indication that Hasan was HIV positive, although a bottle of medicine used to treat HIV-positive individuals, Combivir, was seen in Hasan's apartment by ABC News last week. Medical experts say many doctors also have Combivir on hand in case of an accidental needle stick. A second drug seen in the apartment, clarithromycin, is an antibiotic designed to treat respiratory infections. However, it can also be used to treat specific opportunistic infections in patients with HIV.

Hasan, who is not married, was a regular at a Killeen, Texas strip club which features nude dancers, according to employees there.



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Fort Hood Internal Investigation Launched By Secretary Robert Gates...More Political Correctness Or A Real Probe?

Gates: Pentagon to review internal policies. Defense Secretary Robert Gates announces a DOD review of procedures and policies in an effort to prevent incidents such as the shootings at Fort Hood from happening again.

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Six Fort Hood victims are laid to rest.

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For soldiers, channeling stress is constant battle. The psychological difficulties many U.S. troops face when returning home from combat is one reason violence has spiked in military communities. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports.

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Hasan Called Himself "Soldier of Allah" on Business Cards


Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan called himself a "soldier of Allah" on business cards found in his apartment after the shooting rampage at Fort Hood in which he is accused of murdering 13 people.

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, reportedly obtained the business cards over the Internet. In addition to listing his profession and contact information, the cards contain a discrete reference to his religion: "SoA(SWT)."

Watchdogs say the first letters are shorthand among militant Muslims to "soldier of Allah." The last letters refer to "Subhanahu Wa Ta'all," which means "glory to God."

The business cards were among numerous discoveries in Hasan's apartment of interest to investigators, who also are looking into whether Hasan wired money to Pakistan before last week's massacre.

Reporters including Fox News camera crews were shown inside Hasan's sparse one-bedroom apartment. Hasan, 39, who was wounded in the Nov. 5 massacre and has been talking to investigators since he regained consciousness in the hospital, was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder.

Among the items reportedly found in his upstairs apartment: bottles of vitamins and medications stuffed in a shoebox for which Hasan had obtained prescriptions or, in some cases, that he had prescribed for himself.

Combivir, a drug used to treat HIV, was in the stash with about a dozen pills left in the bottle, the Dallas Morning News reported. It had been given to Hasan in 2001 at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, the newspaper said.

It wasn't known why Hasan had the HIV medication or whether he was taking it. Combivir also has been prescribed to medical workers to prevent exposure to HIV in needles.

Prescription cough suppressants were among the other bottles reporters said they saw.

A closed closet with a "Do Not Open" sign taped to it was photographed in Hasan's unit at the Casa Del Norte apartments. A manager there taped the closet door shut after inspecting it and letting the media in, according to the Morning News.

Israeli and Jordanian coins, a prayer rug, a psychiatric medicine manual, a green lockbox left in the kitchen sink, an empty paper shredder and a DVD burner also were seen in the apartment.

Officials investigating the murders confiscated other possessions.

Meanwhile, authorities say they're looking at whether Hasan was sending money to Pakistan --and if so, why. The Virginia-born soldier is the son of Palestinian immigrants, was raised in the United States and has some relatives still living in the West Bank.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., told the Morning News that sources "outside of the [intelligence] community" have information about Hasan's possible ties to Pakistan, which is battling a large Islamist insurgency movement.

Hoekstra, the House Intelligence Committee's ranking Republican, declined to identify the sources.

"They are trying to follow up on it because they recognize that if there are communications — phone or money transfers with somebody in Pakistan — it just raises a whole other level of questions," he told the paper.

Hasan's family has said he doesn't have ties to Islamic extremists.

In another development, the military psychiatrists who supervised Hasan at Walter Reed Army Medical Center reportedly tried to re-channel his growing focus on American-fought wars in Muslim countries.

A Walter Reed staff member familiar with his medical training told The Washington Post that Hasan was ordered to attend university lectures on terrorism, Islam and the Middle East in the hopes of redirecting his increasing preoccupation with the conflicts felt by Muslim American soldiers on the front lines.

U.S. military doctors overseeing Hasan's medical training reportedly had been worried he was "psychotic" and possibly capable of killing other American soldiers.

Medical officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center held a series of meetings beginning in the Spring of 2008 to discuss serious concerns about Hasan's work and behavior, National Public Radio reported.

"Put it this way," one official told NPR. "Everybody felt that if you were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, you would not want Nidal Hasan in your foxhole."

An official who participated in the discussions reportedly told others he was worried that if Hasan was deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, he might leak covert military information to Islamic extremists, NPR reported.

Another official "wondered aloud" to colleagues whether Hasan might be capable of killing fellow soldiers in the same way a Muslim sergeant in 2003 had set off grenades at a base in Kuwait, killing two and wounding 14, the radio network reported.

The officials who discussed Hasan's status were unaware — as some top Walter Reed hospital officials were — that intelligence agencies had been tracking Hasan's e-mails to a radical imam since December 2008, NPR said.

Officials considered kicking Hasan out of the program but chose not to partly because firing a doctor is a "cumbersome and lengthy" process that involves hearings and potential legal conflict, sources told NPR.

Officials also believed they lacked solid evidence that Hasan was unstable and were concerned they could be accused of discriminating against him because of his Islamic identity or views.

Hasan is accused of spraying a Fort Hood soldier processing center with more than 100 bullets last Thursday before civilian police shot him. He is recovering, under guard, at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.







Lawmaker: Hasan linked to Pakistan transfers


The Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people in a shooting spree at Fort Hood made or accepted wire transfers with Pakistan, a country wracked by Muslim extremist violence, a Republican congressman said Friday.

Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking GOP member of the House Homeland Security Intelligence Subcommittee, said people outside the intelligence community with direct knowledge of the transfers also told him Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan had communications with Pakistan.

“He may have friends or relatives or whatever and this could be totally (innocent),” McCaul said in a telephone interview. “But if he is wiring money to Pakistan, that could be terrorist financing. If he was receiving money from Pakistan, that is more significant.”

McCaul said he does not know the direction of the transfers and communications, only that they passed between Hasan and Pakistan. He said the lack of additional information is why Congress should launch an investigation.

Hasan, 39, was charged Thursday with 13 counts of premeditated murder in a military court, and Army investigators have said he could face additional charges. His attorney, John Galligan, has said prosecutors have not yet told him whether they plan to seek the death penalty.

Could be paralyzed
A pair of civilian police officers responding to last week’s attack, in which 43 people were also injured, including 34 with gunshot wounds, shot Hasan four times. Recovering in the intensive care unit at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center, Hasan has told his attorney he has no feeling in his legs and extreme pain in his hands.

Galligan said doctors have told Hasan he may be permanently paralyzed from the waist down. He called his client’s medical condition “extremely serious” and said Hasan didn’t flinch when Galligan touched his leg during a meeting Thursday, when one of Hasan’s relatives was able to see him for the first time since he was hospitalized.

Hospital spokesman Dewey Mitchell said he could not confirm whether Hasan was paralyzed, since Hasan has directed hospital officials not to release any information about his condition or injuries.

The question of how Hasan spent his Army salary stems from the apparently frugal lifestyle he lived both in the small city of Killeen, Texas, outside of Fort Hood, and in the Washington, D.C., suburbs when stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. In Texas, he lived in a rundown apartment that cost $350 a month and drove a 2006 Honda.

As an Army major with more than 12 years of service, Hasan earns just over $92,000 a year in basic pay and housing and food allowances, according to pay tables from the Defense Finance and Accounting Service. Hasan’s gross monthly salary is $6,325.50 a month, or $75,906 annually. He also gets $1,128 a month for a housing allowance and $223 a month for meals, which adds up to another $16,212 a year.

Pres. Obama orders review of Hasan files

Military psychiatrists may also receive as much as $20,000 a year in incentive pay, according to the tables. But to get the bonus, they must meet certain requirements, such as agreeing to remain on active duty for at least one year after accepting the award. Hasan’s Army records are sealed due to the ongoing investigation, and it isn’t clear if he was eligible for the bonus or agreed to the conditions.

President Barack Obama has ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies. Several members of Congress, particularly Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, have also called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan’s contacts with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen and others of concern to the U.S.

Hoekstra confirmed this week that government officials knew about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and the radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan’s repeated contact with the cleric, who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn’t linked to terrorism.





Officials: U.S. Army Told of Hasan's Contacts with Al Qaeda


U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with an individual associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.

According to the officials, the Army was informed of Hasan's contact, but it is unclear what, if anything, the Army did in response.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he requested the CIA and other intelligence agencies brief the committee on what was known, if anything, about Hasan by the U.S. intelligence community, only to be refused.

In response, Hoekstra issued a document preservation request to four intelligence agencies. The letter, dated November 7th, was sent to directors Dennis Blair (DNI), Robert Mueller (FBI), Lt. Gen Keith Alexander (NSA) and Leon Panetta (CIA).

Hoekstra said he is "absolutely furious" that the house intel committee has been refused an intelligence briefing by the DNI or CIA on Hasan's attempt to reach out to al Qaeda, as first reported by ABC News.

"This is a law enforcement investigation, in which other agencies—not the CIA—have the lead," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said in a response to ABC News. " Any suggestion that the CIA refused to brief Congress is incorrect."



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Sources: MSNBC, ABC News, Fox News, Google Maps