All posts tagged "Terrorism"

A former CIA officer warned that President Donald Trump has drained the government's counterterrorism ranks just as new terror plots surface abroad.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a 26-year CIA veteran, made the case during an interview with national security reporter Michael Weiss for a Wednesday episode of "Bulwark Takes." The pair were discussing the attempted hijacking of a flight bound for Tel Aviv and a suspected plot targeting a British air base the U.S. has used for military operations.

More than two decades after 9/11, Polymeropoulos said he worries the country has grown complacent about the threat he spent his career fighting....

States are being pressured into rewriting their election rules to receive terrorism grants, according to a New York Times report.

The Trump administration is demanding that states overhaul how they run elections, a few months before the midterms, or forfeit tens of millions in federal counterterrorism funding, The Times reported.

The changes include transitioning to hand-marked paper ballots, verifying the citizenship of voters, and conducting manual audits of 5 percent of ballots, which is "likely to cause significant delays in counting, cost millions of dollars and, in some cases, fall far short of what would be considered an adequate audit for races with narrow margins," The Times noted....

Ron DeSantis may be on legally unsafe ground after signing into law legislation to "combat terrorist groups and ban Sharia Law in Florida", a legal analyst has claimed.

The Governor of Florida signed into law the HB 1471 legislation earlier this month, which DeSantis' office claims will strengthen the "protections against the application of foreign and religious laws that violate constitutional rights and establishing new safeguards against terrorist organizations operating in Florida."

DeSantis added, "To uphold the rule of law, our state must operate under one legal system, the Constitution must remain the law of the land, and we must defend our institutions from those who would harm us—especially terrorist organizations that seek to infiltrate and subvert our education system."...

FBI insiders had sharp critiques of FBI Director Kash Patel's leadership amid rising terrorism threats, according to reports on Monday.

Patel has come under fire after four separate terror-related incidents since the Iran war began four weeks ago, and an overall increase in terrorism, The Daily Beast reported. Experts warned that Patel's missteps could lead to even bigger problems ahead.

A former FBI agent told Miranda Devine, conservative commentator for The New York Post, during her podcast Pod Force One that the FBI should have acted more urgently to review its surveillance methods, including its flagging systems, investigative and screening processes, and its threat monitoring systems....

A terrorism analyst on Monday explained how the United States-Israel war against Iran might have activated sleeper cells and has concerned law enforcement.

Alex Plitsas, counterterrorism program director for the Atlantic Council, told CNN anchor Jake Tapper that recent attacks had suggested increased activity among terrorist sleeper cells. Plitsas cited the attempted attack Saturday by two men charged with using weapons of mass destruction and supporting the Islamic State after throwing a bomb near New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Gracie Mansion, in addition to two other recent terrorism-related incidents — the attack on a nightclub in Austin, Texas, and a bombing outside the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Norway. He also described a new report that revealed an encrypted transmission was intercepted by the U.S., which has prompted concern among security experts and law enforcement.

Tapper asked Plitsas how worried he was about the recent attacks. ...

Two men were charged Monday on suspicion of using weapons of mass destruction and supporting the Islamic State after throwing a bomb near New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Gracie Mansion.

Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi were arrested Saturday night after authorities alleged they tried to detonate two explosive devices, according to The New York Times. One of the explosives reportedly tested positive for TATP, which is a highly volatile material that has been used in terrorist attacks over the last 10 years.

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton said that one of the suspects said they were apparently plotting an attack worse than the Boston Marathon bombing. ...