Just Because the Truck Says "Worldwide Services" Doesn't Mean You Have to Accept Packages From Yemen

Although all early news media accounts must be taken with a grain of salt, it appears that yesterday's UPS package bomb plot consisted of shipping computer printer cartridges rigged with explosive devices from a sender in Yemen to addressees at two synagogues in Chicago.

H/T to Passport for this sensible reminder of the good news about this failed attack:

Even by the standards of the underpants-bomber era, sending bombs by UPS and FedEx from Yemen to a synagogue in Chicago does not strike me as the most sophisticated of plots. Whatever security systems UPS and FedEx have in the sorting facilities seemed to work pretty well in this case and even if they hadn't, I would hope that a strange UPS package from Yemen might arouse some suspicion at most American shuls.

Excellent point. The key thing about security measures is that they must be multi-layered. UPS screens its incoming packages, airports screen UPS's cargo, and addressees - one would hope - screen their incoming mail.

You can imagine the mail room guy at a Chicago synagogue looking at one of those UPS packages and asking himself "who ordered printer supplies from Yemen instead of from the Kinkos around the corner?" What are the odds that he would not call the bomb squad?

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Update: Photos of one of the explosive devices are available from the UK Daily Mail (here). The device consists of an entire printer, with an explosive-packed toner cartridge and an electrical circuit connected to a mobile SIM card, packed in a cardboard box along with some everyday items.

Of Foiled Plots and Homegrown Radicals

I was reading more today about the latest foiled aspirational terrorist plot [from the Dictionary of Security Jargon, aspirational plot: term of art for what results when a clueless jihobbyest agrees to meet an FBI agent posing as a real terrorist; opposite of an operational plot] when two very timely publications arrived in my in-box.

First, a report from the Institute for Homeland Security Solutions examining successes and failures in detecting U.S. terrorist plots, 1999 - 2009. Its key findings include the following:

More than 80% of foiled terrorist plots were discovered via observations from law enforcement or the general public

Less than half of all U.S. terror plots had links to Al Qaeda or allied movements; plots by single actors reached execution twice as often as plots by groups

Almost one in five plots were foiled 'accidentally' during the course of investigations into seemingly unrelated crimes

Approximately 40% of plots were foiled via tips from the public or informants

Breakdowns in communications across official agencies led to lost opportunities to thwart the worst plots, including 9/11

Judging by the affidavit filed in his case, Mr. Farooque Ahmed, the foiled jihadi of the moment, appears to check three or maybe four of those five boxes.

Second up, we have a study from the Homeland Security Analysis Institute about radicalized residents of Western nations who seek terrorist training and/or travel to jihad conflict zones, and the bridge figures who motive them and legitimize their actions.

Again, Ahmed followed a well-established pattern of radicalization and attempts - feckless ones, in his case - to connect with Al Qaeda. The guy was so eager to please his purported AQ handlers that he trotted all over the Washington Metro transit system to gather targeting information for a would-be bomb attack on commuters (information that pales in comparison to the professional Metrorail station access and capacity studies that Metro makes available to the public on its own website, but that's another matter). Ahmed seems to have been a regular stereotype of the late-blooming radicalized Muslim immigrant.

Well, he'll likely have a good long stretch of prison time to reflect on the errors of his ways.

FSN of the Year Award

It's award season at the Department, and I think this one is particularly well-deserved.

The Department of State is pleased to announce the selection of Ms. Dominique Gerdes, Visa Specialist from Embassy Port-au-Prince, Haiti for the 2010 Department of State Foreign Service National of the Year (FSN of the Year) award.

The 2010 Department FSN of the Year winner is a dedicated and long-serving Embassy employee recognized for her leadership and vast institutional knowledge. This was keenly demonstrated in the aftermath of the highly destructive earthquake of 12 January, 2010. Dominique actively encouraged and motivated her staff to return to work immediately after the quake to provide the tremendous logistical support needed to conduct the largest American citizen evacuation under the most extreme circumstances since WW2. Under her hands-on supervision, and with few readily-available resources, her team simultaneously oriented 75 TDYers, managed translator teams for humanitarian parole processing, prepared hundreds of emergency immigrant visas for orphans, and arranged for feeding babies in the overcrowded consular waiting areas as well as stocking food and water for 16,000 evacuees waiting at the airport. As a result of her leadership, immigrant visa processing resumed less than six weeks after the earthquake. In 2009, her superb visa management reduced the embassy immigrant visa backlog by nearly 20,000 cases, achieving the shortest visa processing time possible in the past 20 years.

Swedish Embassy Voted Washington's Favorite

H/T to John Brown's Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, which informs us that readers of the WaPo have voted for their favorite foreign embassy in Washington DC, and the winner is Sweden.

The Swedish embassy in Washington, DC has been named the city's best embassy by the readers of the Washington Post newspaper, by virtue of its design and programme of events.

-- snip --

The newspaper's 300,000 readers motivated their choice with respect to the Swedish embassy's "fantastic, different design", but also due to the active and diverse programme of events that are open to the general public.

Kudos to the Swedes. Personally, I think their embassy's architecture is only so-so, but I'm a big fan of their bookcases.

UN Full of Bloodsucking Parasites

A UN bed bug, shown next to a great American for contrast









We have long known about the parasites, but now we know the UN has bed bugs as well.

Turtle Bay blog has the story:

There is a new addition to the United Nations family: the dreaded bed bugs that have infested New York City have spread to the U.N.'s landmark headquarters building.

Over the weekend, a team of trained hounds sniffed out a group of the pests -- known properly as Cimex Lectularius -- that had slipped past security at the U.N. and embedded themselves in a set of vintage mid-century wood and naugahyde conference room chairs beneath the U.N. library.

And not only bed bugs, but mice, too.

For years, the U.N. headquarters has struggled to contain the building's mouse population. The small rodents could be seen scurrying across the building's storied corridors, depositing droppings on office desks or poking their noses out from behind the plants in the U.N. cafeteria. But the bed bugs have turned up as hundreds of constructions workers moved into the building and thousands of U.N. workers moved off campus to neighborhood buildings.

Nice work environment! Bugs, mice, and every now and then a Bull Goose Loony running around.

Let's Play 'Can You Spot the Secret Service Agent?'

Extra points for spotting the second one.

Secure, Safe, Functional and Award-Winning

That attractive office building - or that hideous fortress, depending upon your aesthetic sensibility - is the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, which opened last June. Somebody must like it, because it just won the top award from a construction industry trade group.

Here's the press release:

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO), the construction firm of B.L. Harbert, International, of Birmingham, Alabama, and the architectural firm of Page Southerland Page of Arlington, Virginia accepted the Design-Build Institute of America Best Overall Project Award of 2010 for the New Embassy Compound (NEC) in Khartoum, Sudan.

The New Embassy in Khartoum also won the Design-Build Institute of America National Design-Build Award in the Public Sector Over $50 Million Category. These two awards are a tribute to the dedication and hard work of all those who worked on the Khartoum NEC Project.

The Khartoum NEC was completed in March 2010, after facing numerous challenges. The new facility provides a more secure, safer, and more functional facility for approximately 210 embassy employees.

The cost of the entire project was $172 million. The NEC was completed with over 500 workers involved in the construction. The NEC in Khartoum reflects the importance of the bilateral relationship between the United States and Sudan, and emphasizes the commitment of the United States to remain engaged with the Sudanese people as they strive to build a peaceful and prosperous society.

The NEC consists a chancery, office annex, Marine Security Guard Quarters, recreation facility, support annex with maintenance shops, utility building, and three compound access control structures.

The site’s landscaping creates a unified environment for the compound demonstrating the U.S. Government’s commitment to sustainable design. The compound’s design incorporates many energy saving and sustainable features and is registered with the U.S. Green Building Council.

I'll take the construction industry's word for the new embassy's architectural merit. That the new office complex is "more secure, safer, and more functional" than the dump it replaced (see below) is all the reason I, personally, need in order to applaud.