NYPD Ramps Up Security After 3 Overseas Terror Attacks

By Jonathan Dienst

English: NYPD Traffic Enforcement police car photographed in NYC. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Law enforcement officials in New York City and the U.S. are on high alert following a trio of terror attacks that spread across three continents on Friday. Chief Investigative Reporter Jonathan Dienst reports. (Published Friday, Jun 26, 2015)

Updated at 11:00 PM EDT on Friday, Jun 26, 2015

The NYPD says it is stepping up security measures and soon will be adding hundreds of officers to its counter-terror unit in part due to the three major terror attacks in France, Kuwait and Tunisia.

NYPD officials said there is no specific threat to the city but the U.S.-owned gas company targeted in the French attack, Air Products, has facilities north of New York City as well as in New Jersey, though it’s based in Pennsylvania.

The plant in France was targeted by an Islamic extremist known to authorities dating to 2006, officials said. The suspect allegedly drove a truck into canisters at the plant, causing an explosion, then allegedly beheaded his boss and left the head impaled on a fence next to two ISIS flags, French authorities said.

Fiercely critical of NSA, Germany now answering for its own spy practices

Germany is embroiled in a spying controversy that is causing political upheaval and sparking a national debate about surveillance. 

By Rachel Stern, Contributor May 22, 2015

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  AP

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BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel discovered in 2013 that the National Security Agency had been snooping on her countrymen, and even tapping her own cellphone, through the media leaks by former agency contractor Edward Snowden. Soon after, she famously remarked, “Spying between friends, that’s just not done.”

Now, in something of an ironic twist, Germany is coming to terms with its own spy agency’s surveillance tactics and cooperation with the NSA.

#Iran to #Israel: We’ll Destroy Tel Aviv in 10 Minutes

February 21, 2015  By Ari Yashar

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards fire a Saegheh missile (illustration)

Reuters

A senior figure in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Mujtabi Du Al-Nour, threatened on Saturday that Iran will destroy Tel Aviv in ten minutes if Israel “makes a mistake” and strikes the Islamic regime’s nuclear facilities.

Al-Nour, who is a representative of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a talk with journalists responded to Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman’s (Yisrael Beytenu) comments from Friday, when he said Israel should stop talking and start acting by striking the facilities said to be developing nuclear weapons.

4-star: ISIS recruiting in Afghanistan, Pakistan

By Michelle Tan, Staff Writer 4:10 p.m. EST January 15, 2015

(Photo: AP Photo/Raqqa Media Center of the Islamic State group)

The Islamic State terror group is recruiting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday.

“We are seeing reports of some recruiting,” said Gen. John Campbell, commander of the Resolute Support mission, during an interview with Army Times. “There have been some night letter drops, there have been reports of people trying to recruit both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, quite frankly.”