Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld crossed the Kuwaiti desert to an American base near Iraq today and issued a pointed warning to any nation that acquires weapons of mass destruction and plans to strike a bargain with terrorists for their use in an attack. Full Story

When rebels in the southern Philippines kidnapped an American missionary couple more than a year ago, it was not the first time the Abu Sayyaf group had seized Americans. But after Sept. 11 there was a new determination to go after terrorists, and American troops went to the Philippines. Full Story

A re-examination of years of terrorist plots and attacks around the world, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, suggests that American intelligence agencies profoundly underestimated Al Qaeda`s reach and aspirations for more than a decade as it grew from obscurity into a global terrorist threat, lawmakers and investigators said this week. Full Story

A senior Indian official said today that a “promising process” had begun to diminish the military crisis with Pakistan, and a top State Department official stated that “tensions are down measurably.” Full Story

President Bush`s proposed new Department of Homeland Security, bringing together scattered agencies with roles in protecting against terrorism, provides laudable managerial tidiness. Its creation will focus these agencies on their new priority of protecting the country. But the basic problem of overall strategy and coordination remains, and inserting a new agency into the mix will…

Prosecuting terrorism is compromising our traditional court structures. The courts that are currently trying to handle such cases are clearly inappropriate. What we need is a specialized, secure and protected federal court dedicated to matters involving domestic and international security. Full Story

In the week since a ceremony marked the end of the recovery effort at ground zero, Fire Department and construction crews have found the remains of about a dozen victims in nearby buildings damaged in the Sept. 11 attack. Full Story

Congressional leaders began wrestling today with President Bush`s proposal to create a Department of Homeland Security, even as lawmakers and experts on terrorism questioned whether the new agency would significantly improve the government`s ability to sift through mounds of intelligence data to extract clues about future attacks. Full Story

The origins of the F.B.I.`s computer problem go back in part to the long history of paper records at the bureau, and its reliance on secure computer systems of its own creation instead of the standardized systems that make the Internet so easy to search, say former Justice Department officials and others familiar with the…

On one ward of an Israeli hospital here, gilded tonight by votive candles honoring the Jewish Sabbath, Israeli soldiers wounded in a devastating suicide attack lie just a few rooms away from a failed Palestinian suicide bomber, who had hoped to kill as many of their comrades as possible. Full Story

U.S. Transportation authorities warn cargo carried on passenger jets could pose a security threat because of limited screening, The Washington Post reported on Monday. Full Story

Police work can be exciting. Movies, true-crime novels and cop shows from “Starsky & Hutch” to “Law & Order” have glamorized the profession for years — and the U.S. Park Police will gladly go over it again. Full Story

One of the two brands of explosive detection machines being installed at airports often breaks down, but federal officials say the company is fixing the problems. Full Story

A conservative group is suing the Bush administration for access to documents surrounding last fall`s anthrax attacks, asserting that top officials may have known that the bioterrorist attack was coming. Full Story

Former South African President Nelson Mandela said Monday a Libyan spy convicted in the bombing of a Pan Am jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, was a victim of psychological persecution in a Scottish prison and called for his transfer to a prison in a Muslim country. Full Story

A leader from the Islamic Group, a large Egyptian terrorist organization, is seeking release from prison 20 years into a 25-year sentence for killing Anwar Sadat, it was reported Monday. The Washington Times reported that Karam Zohdy wants out of prison, citing good behavior and renunciation of violence. The Times interviewed Zohdy, the leader of…

The Lebanese-based militant group Hezbollah plotted in the late 1990s to blow up American and Israeli ships in Singapore, a news report said Sunday. Hezbollah operatives had plans as late as 1998 to load a small boat with explosives and use it to bomb ships in the harbor or in nearby waters, The Straits Times…

An Islamic militant with reported ties to key U.S. terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui was placed under investigation on Saturday in connection with a plot to blow up a cathedral in eastern France, judicial officials said. Full Story

Shan State Army leader Colonel Yawd Serk yesterday expressed dismay at reports that the Thai government was planning to end its “buffer strategy” along the Burmese border. He said such a move overlooked the turbulent history between Thailand and Burma. Full Story

In this village nestled in the misty Sumapaz highlands, Saturday is payday: Businessmen arrive to make their regular extortion payments to rebels, while families of hostages try to ransom their loved ones. Full Story

Around 400 civilians have been massacred in the northeastern Ituri region of the strife-torn Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the past three days, a rebel movement backed by Rwanda said, demanding an international investigation. Full Story

Ethiopian security guards have killed two men who tried to hijack an Ethiopian passenger plane. The Ethiopian Airlines Fokker-50 aircraft was on a domestic flight from the northern town of Bahir Dar to the capital Addis Ababa when the men tried to take control, Ethiopian news agency ENA said. Full Story

Talks between the authorities in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh and a Maoist rebel organisation, the People`s War Group, (PWG), are deadlocked. Both sides said the stumbling block was the government ban on the PWG. The group insists that the ban should be lifted to create what it calls a suitable atmosphere for…

After a slew of bombings in 2000 and 2001, Jakarta was rocked once again by an explosion early Sunday morning near the Eksotis discotheque in the Mangga Besar area of Central Jakarta. No fatalities were reported. Full Story

Liberian troops recaptured a northern town believed to have been used by insurgents as a transit point for supplies and rebels fighters based in neighboring Guinea, the defense minister said Saturday. Full Story

The talks between two rivals of Madagascar, which were intended to defuse the current crisis in the Indian Ocean island, ended here Sunday without any agreement. Full Story

Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, was meeting Tony Blair today to discuss the latest outbreak of violence which has engulfed East Belfast for more than a week and spread to other areas of the city. Full Story

A prominent political figure in Pakistan has been killed in the western province of Balochistan, bordering Afghanistan, by unidentified attackers. Mir Muhammad Aslam Gichki was a founding member of the Balochistan National Party, and a former member of the provincial assembly. Full Story

Government troops warned Monday that the largely intact Abu Sayyaf leadership could be planning another kidnapping, even though President Gloria Arroyo says they want to flee the Philippines. Full Story

The two hostages killed during a bloody rescue attempt on Friday in southern Philippines apparently died in a hail of gunfire between government troops and the Abu Sayyaf bandits rather than from execution by their captors, according to the sole surviving captive. Full Story

Freed US hostage Gracia Burnham has given American and Filipino military officials fresh leads that could help hunt down the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, Washington`s ambassador said Monday. Full Story

The Sudanese government lost the strategically important southern town of Kapoeta to rebels in heavy weekend fighting, the army confirmed in a statement carried by local media on Monday. Full Story

In an effort to protect critical infrastructure from cyber attacks, the federal government is trying to establish a dialogue with industry and enlist the help of IT professionals to protect against future attacks, says Paul Kurtz, senior director of the Office of Cyberspace Security, a unit of the White House`s National Security Council. Full Story

A new virus could score a surpise goal against users looking for up-to-the-minute championship results during the FIFA World Cup. The virus will then send an e-mail to the first entry in a user`s Microsoft Outlook address book with the same subject line. Full Story

Russia`s cybercrime squad fears the next al-Qaeda attack may be on crucial computer networks. These days the Moscow`s Directorate R`s bread-and-butter work is computer and mobile-phone fraud. But their biggest nightmare – and that of their counterparts in Western Europe and the U.S. – is digital attack. This, unfortunately, is the future face of terrorism.…

Early last month, a young computer programmer was arrested on a charge of credit-card fraud. He had allegedly hacked into many card accounts through the Internet just to pay for entertainment such as movie tickets. Police had taken some time to track down the culprit and finally nabbed him one day as he was getting…

Walling off a computer from hackers and viruses may be impossible with traditional methods, so a Downstate company is developing software that helps PCs protect themselves. Full Story

A Norwegian educational center for cultural preservation lost the password to a historical database cataloging 11,000 original books and manuscripts, but was able to recover it with help from the Web. E-mail messages from more than 100 good Samaritans flooded the Ivar Aasen Center for Language and Culture starting Thursday afternoon after the organization called…

One day last October, an intelligence-community analyst noticed something strange about a radical Islamist Web site she had been monitoring for several months. A previously open, innocuous part of the site was suddenly blocked. She checked her notes, found the old address for the link and typed it into find an otherwise empty page commanding…

Microsoft will more quickly retire old code in its Windows operating system and other software as a result of the company`s four-month-old “trustworthy computing” initiative, the company`s lead bug basher said in an interview. The revelation follows last week`s warning that a serious vulnerability in Microsoft`s Internet Explorer occurred in the software supporting a decade-old…

Millions of personal emails, other internet information and telephone records are to be made accessible to the police and intelligence services in a move that has been denounced by critics as one of the most wide-ranging extensions of state power over private information. Full Story

Despite its virulence, the Klez worm is ignored by the newspapers and dismissed by the digerati. Could the demographics of its victims be a factor? Klez comes ever in the rearward of fashion. Repeatedly dubbed the most common virus ever in recent reports from on-line newsmongers, it has yet to break into print in any…

Headed by Yasser Arafat, Fatah joined the PLO in 1968 and won the leadership role in 1969. Its commanders were expelled from Jordan following violent confrontations with Jordanian forces during the period 1970-71, beginning with Black September in 1970. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 led to the group`s dispersal to several Middle Eastern…

No Heroes – Inside the FBI`s Secret Counter-Terror Force by Danny O. Coulson is an interesting account of the creation of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team which may be of interest to many TRC visitors. While not the best written book, it does provide a down and dirty look at counter-terrorism from a seasoned federal…

06/08/1967Middle East – The Palestinian terrorist group Sa`iqa (Thunderbolt) was founded. 06/08/0000United Kingdom – Queen`s Birthday 06/09/1987Italy – Attacks on the U.S. Embassy 06/09/1965Oman – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman began violent attacks. Full Story and More Dates

U.S. citizens should evaluate the implications for their security and safety before deciding to travel to the Kyrgyz Republic. While the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic has been helpful in ensuring the safety of U.S. citizens, the presence in country of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a group designated by the Secretary of State…

Mohammad Atta, the suspected leader of the World Trade Center hijackers, tried to borrow money from the US Government to buy a plane, a civil servant has revealed. Full Story

As president and founder of the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C., James J. Zogby was among the first to condemn the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and then issue a plea for tolerance and respect for Americans of Arab descent. Full Story

Intelligence officials from myriad departments don`t share information. Federal workers who report to different bosses in different buildings do the same work. State and local officials don`t know which federal agencies to call for information on everything from training police and firefighters to requesting money for equipment. Full Story

Lawmakers hailed President Bush`s plan to create a new Cabinet department for homeland security yesterday, though several cautioned that they expect to help shape its mission and structure in the coming months. Full Story

Fears about the immediate economic impact from Sept. 11 proved to be overblown, when global growth resumed and stock markets rebounded just a month or two later. But the longer-term effects on the world economy from the attacks and the ensuing war on terrorism may be worse than suspected, according to a report from the…

President Bush`s proposal to move the federal agency in charge of airport security into a new Cabinet-level department won backing from the airline industry yesterday but raised concerns on Capitol Hill that the change could delay improvements in screening luggage and passengers. Full Story

Some well-traveled and well-heeled people can go through security checkpoints now at Metro Airport and other major U.S. airports without a ticket or boarding pass. Full Story

A Texas laboratory where a worker contracted anthrax failed to spray its vials with the recommended bleach solution because it made the labels come off, the government said Thursday. Full Story

A terminal at New York`s John F. Kennedy International Airport was briefly evacuated on Friday after a suspicious package was found in a men`s bathroom, the latest in a series of airport incidents after the Sept. 11 hijacked airliner attacks on the United States. Full Story

The Israeli army said it captured a woman suicide bomber as its forces raided two West Bank cities Friday, keeping pressure on the Palestinians a day after tanks stormed Yasser Arafat`s compound in Ramallah. Full Story

A U.S. Treasury official has urged Europe to dig deeper to find and block terrorist financing, while some European authorities say they need more proof to identify terrorist money. Full Story

The Senate approved an anti-terrorism bill early Friday after hoisting its cost beyond $31.5 billion in a challenge to a White House that has threatened to veto the package as too expensive. Full Story

As NATO seeks to maintain relevance as a military alliance, it must take the war on terrorism to the terrorists by pre-emptive attacks on shadowy networks or hostile states armed with biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today. Full Story

Two hostages, one of them an American missionary, have been killed in a rescue attempt by the Philippine army, the country`s military chief says. Full Story