Telephoned bomb threats send university campuses scrambling in Texas, N. Dakota, Ohio

September 14, 2012

Thousands of people streamed off three college campuses Friday after bomb threats prompted officials to issue evacuation orders for schools in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio.

The campuses of the University of Texas at Austin and North Dakota State University in Fargo had been deemed safe by early afternoon, and authorities were working to determine whether the threats were related. A third evacuation order for much-smaller Hiram College in northeast Ohio was issued hours later and remained in effect Friday evening.

Hiram officials posted a statement on the college’s website saying the school had received a bomb threat that it was “taking seriously.” Police confirmed the evacuation and the statement said crews with bomb-sniffing dogs were checking all buildings on the campus about 35 miles southeast of Cleveland where about 1,300 students are enrolled.

The threats on the much-larger campuses in Texas and North Dakota ended as false alarms after tens of thousands of people followed urgently worded evacuation orders, one of which some worried didn’t come fast enough.

Both of those campuses emptied at quick but orderly paces Friday morning, though students acknowledged an air of confusion about what was going on. The threats coming as violent protests outside U.S. embassies in the Middle East also stirred nervous tension among some students, and Texas officials acknowledged global events were taken into account.

The first threat came around 8:35 a.m. to the University of Texas from a man claiming to belong to al-Qaida, officials said. The caller claimed bombs placed throughout campus would go off in 90 minutes, but administrators waited more than an hour before blaring sirens on the campus of 50,000 students and telling them to immediately “get as far away as possible” in emergency text messages.

Authorities said they started searching buildings for explosives before the alert was issued. UT President Bill Powers defended the decision not to evacuate sooner.

“It’s easy to make a phone call … the first thing we needed to do was evaluate,” Powers said. “If the threat had been for something to go off in five minutes, then you don’t have the time to evaluate, you just have to pull the switch.”

Not everyone agreed. “What took so long?” student Ricardo Nunez said. “It should have been more immediate.”

North Dakota State University President Dean Bresciani said about 20,000 people left the Fargo school’s campuses as part of an evacuation “that largely took place in a matter of minutes.” FBI spokesman Kyle Loven said NDSU received a call about 9:45 a.m. that included a “threat of an explosive device.”

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FBI: No bomb, no danger in downtown scare

September 14, 2012

By CHRISTINE VENDEL

The Kansas City Star

Kansas City police used a robot to search a man’s car for a possible bomb this afternoon after he walked into the federal building downtown about noon and asked whether he was on the terrorist watch list.

Nearly five hours later, federal officials said there was no public threat and that no one inside the federal building was in harm’s way. Bridget Patton, an FBI spokeswoman, said federal officials and police locked down the area and searched the car out of “an abundance of caution.”

Sources told The Star the man created a disturbance inside the lobby by yelling something to the effect of: “Why am I on the terrorist watch list?”

A police bomb sniffing dog “hit” on the man’s car parked near the state office building, but the man told police he had only fertilizer in the trunk.

Authorities tentatively identified him as Wahed Moharam, known to many Kansas Citians as “helmet man,” once a regular attendee at Chiefs’ games. The Chiefs revoked his tickets out of safety concerns in 2003 because he was in the federal witness protection program after testifying for the government in the first World Trade Center bombing.

The Star called a phone number linked with Moharam’s cleaning service, and a man who identified himself as Wahed answered around 2:15 p.m. He said he was talking with the FBI.

“Everything is OK,” Wahed said. “I don’t have to tell you exactly where I am. The FBI requests me to hang up the phone, but I can assure you I’m OK and they treat me good.”

He added: “And everything mistake. Everything mistake. I didn’t have any bad thing anyway. Everything is just — thank you and God bless you and I’m OK.”

His car was parked in a handicapped stall in the circle drive directly in front of the Fletcher Daniels state office building, which is across the street from the federal building. After the dog gave its handler a positive indication on the trunk, police considered the incident as a credible threat. Police also found a gun in the car.

It is not clear if Moharam’s car contained chemicals or other materials related to his cleaning service. But Steve Scott, a police dog trainer based in Ohio, said a bomb-sniffing dog might react to cleaning materials.

“It’s quite possible,” he said. “Some of those chemicals can leave traces.”

Police shut down streets in the area of 12th to 13th streets and Cherry to Charlotte streets. Police evacuated the state building and moved employees in the federal building to the north side of the building. The south side faces the state office building parking lot. The Jackson County jail, which sits directly next to the state office building’s parking lot, was placed on lockdown, according to jailers.

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FBI Clears Halliburton Crew in Loss of Radioactive Tool

September 13, 2012

Halliburton Co. (HAL) crew members who lost a radioactive rod used in drilling wells in West Texas weren’t guilty of criminal conduct, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said as a hunt for the tool entered a fourth day.

FBI officials working with the Texas Department of Transportation questioned three employees who were unable to locate the device this week after it went missing on a 130-mile (209-kilometer) route from Pecos to Odessa, according to a Nuclear Regulatory Commission incident report today.

“The FBI would only say that they believed there was no criminal activity involved with the missing” tool, Halliburton told state officials according to the NRC report. A well near Pecos, where the device was last used, has been searched three times, it said.

A National Guard unit based in Austin sent a three-person team with detection gear yesterday to assist local officials, said Amy Cook, a spokeswoman for the Guard. The Texas Department of State Health Services said yesterday it requested help to find the radioactive item, which can pose a health risk if touched or held for several days.

Halliburton lost the unit on Sept. 11, according to an NRC report. Pickup trucks with detection gear retraced the route of a vehicle that carried the device before it was lost. The trucks drove at 10 miles an hour between Pecos and Odessa without finding the unit, the report said.

“It’s not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form,” Chris Van Deusen, a spokesman for the health department, said in an interview. “But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet.”

Oil-field service companies lower the radioactive units into wells to let workers identify places to break apart rock for a drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which frees oil and natural gas. While the loss of such a probe occurs from time to time, it has been years since a device with americium-241/beryllium, the material in Halliburton’s device, was misplaced in Texas, Van Deusen said.

Loss of such a device hasn’t been reported to the NRC within at least the past five years, Maureen Conley, an agency spokeswoman, said in an interview. She said the material would have to be in someone’s physical possession for several hours for it to be considered harmful. The agency works with states to regulate use of radioactive materials.

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And This:

Dirty Bomb Threat Lurks in U.S. Hospitals, Fed Study Warns

September 11, 2012

Eleven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Government Accountability Office has released a report saying that hospitals have been negligent in securing the radioactive materials they use to treat cancer patients, potentially putting the materials in the hands of terrorists who could use them to make a dirty bomb.

While authorities have identified no specific plot or target for this 11th anniversary of 9/11, the GAO, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has warned Congress about lapses in hospitals, many of which routinely use equipment containing these radioactive materials.

“Although we realize how important these facilities and equipment are, they have to be secured,” Gene Aloise, director of national resources and environment at the GAO, said.

Nearly four out of five hospitals across the country have failed to put in place safeguards to secure radiological material that could be used in a dirty bomb, according to the report, which identifies more than 1,500 hospitals as having high-risk radiological sources. Only 321 of these medical facilities have set up security upgrades, according to the GAO review, which found some gaping lapses of security in 26 hospitals.

Eleven years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Government Accountability Office has released a report saying that hospitals have been negligent in securing the radioactive materials they use to treat cancer patients, potentially putting the materials in the hands of terrorists who could use them to make a dirty bomb.

While authorities have identified no specific plot or target for this 11th anniversary of 9/11, the GAO, the investigative arm of the U.S. Congress, has warned Congress about lapses in hospitals, many of which routinely use equipment containing these radioactive materials.

“Although we realize how important these facilities and equipment are, they have to be secured,” Gene Aloise, director of national resources and environment at the GAO, said.

Nearly four out of five hospitals across the country have failed to put in place safeguards to secure radiological material that could be used in a dirty bomb, according to the report, which identifies more than 1,500 hospitals as having high-risk radiological sources. Only 321 of these medical facilities have set up security upgrades, according to the GAO review, which found some gaping lapses of security in 26 hospitals.

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More Links About Recent Bomb Threats.. What’s going on?

Bomb threat empties East Side shelter- Sept 14th

Woman makes bomb threat at Canton bank- Sept 14th

Police think man made bomb threat to avoid court- Sept 13th

Bomb threat shuts down Boeing’s Chinook facility- Sept 12th

Vt. police call bomb threat domestic terrorism- Sept 12

Menger Hotel evacuated after bomb threat call- Sept 12th

US Airways flight rerouted after false bomb threat- Sept 7th

Major Conspiracy Alert: UFO Flying over Austin, Texas

I could keep going with all the bomb threats at different schools, factories, airplanes/airports and in public places. Could this be something that the MSM is trying to hide for some reason? Or is it another way to take away our rights or even begin something before the elections? Could this be a reason or is it a hoax… We are already at way with Libya?