re: "Peshawar: Bomb Attack On Consulate Car With No Serious Injuries"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") has some good news about a bad thing.

Money quote(s):

"State Department employees in Pakistan have another reason to thank the U.S. taxpayer for the enormous investment he has made in heavily armored vehicles for our missions abroad."

We do spend a lot of money on security for our diplomatic and consular missions abroad. We make them harder targets for the bad guys. This helps keep our people alive.

It just doesn't do to make it easy to kill our people. It's good not only make that difficult to accomplish, but to discourage it whenever possible.

"(T)he bomb was about 50 kilos (100 pounds), which is more than large enough to destroy an unhardened vehicle. Happily, our well-protected vehicle sustained only minor damage, and the two employees riding in it were only slightly injured."

FN - Bomb Suspect's Citizenship Raises Questions About Naturalization Process

From my archive of press clippings:

Fox News

Bomb Suspect's Citizenship Raises Questions About Naturalization Process


FOXNews.com

Updated May 04, 2010

In this photo from the social networking site Orkut.com, a man who was identified by neighbors in Connecticut as Faisal Shahzad, is shown. (AP/Orkut.com)

The suspect in the Times Square car bombing attempt is the latest in a series of U.S. citizens and green card holders to be implicated in a terror plot inside the United States, raising questions about the naturalization process that turns foreigners into Americans.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Several hurdles are in place for immigrants to attain U.S. citizenship and, in turn, its platinum-status passport. Pakistani-born suspect Faisal Shahzad, according to reports, passed clean through his security checks and became a U.S. citizen in April 2009. He first entered the United States on a student visa in the late 1990s.

An official with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said "it's too early" to say whether any signs were missed in Shahzad's naturalization process. But the official acknowledged that any screening is just "a snapshot in time" and can't catch everything."

&

"For those who come from outside the United States, the naturalization process is complicated and lengthy.

Applicants generally need a sponsor -- a relative, spouse or employer -- to get the green card. Then they have to wait between three and five years to qualify for citizenship.


The citizenship process includes not just background checks, but a citizenship test and final interview. The interview officer has the authority to reject the applicant at the end of the process or send him or her back for further review.


Click here to review the questions on the citizenship application form."

S&S - Afghan militants increase attacks on contractors

From my archive of press clippings:

Stars and Stripes


Afghan militants increase attacks on contractors


By Joshua Partlow, The Washington Post

Online Edition, Saturday, April 17, 2010


KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — The Taliban has begun regularly targeting U.S. government contractors in southern Afghanistan, stepping up use of a tactic that is rattling participating firms and could undermine development projects intended to stem the insurgency, according to U.S. officials.

Read the whole article here.

Snippet(s):

"Within the past month, there have been at least five attacks in Helmand and Kandahar provinces against employees of U.S. Agency for International Development contract companies who run agricultural projects, build roads, maintain power plants and work with local officials.

The USAID implementing partners, as the contract companies are known, employ mainly Afghans, who are overseen by foreigners. The their role is becoming increasingly important as more aid money floods into southern Afghanistan as part of a dual effort to generate goodwill and bolster the Kabul government.

A suicide car bomb that exploded Thursday evening outside a compound used by Western contractors in Kandahar was the latest and deadliest attack. The Associated Press reported that the blast killed at least six people wounded 16 other people, including at least two Americans, along with South African and Nepalese employees."

"At least one company working in Kandahar, Bethesda, Md.-based DAI, evacuated some employees to Kabul after the attack, the officials said."

&

"Thursday’s attack came two days after Hosiy Sahibzada, 24, an Afghan who worked for DAI, was gunned down in Kandahar City. On Tuesday, an Afghan employee of Arlington-based International Relief & Development, was shot and killed in Helmand province’s Garmsir area.

The U.S. official in Kandahar said it would be foolish to think that the attacks were independent of one another. “This can’t be coincidental,” he said. “This is what they’re doing now.”"

re: "U.S. Embassy in Mexico City Annexes a Street (For Mexico's Own Good)"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") explains things for those with too-short memories.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Mayor may or may not know why the practice of blocking access to Rio Danubio started, since it goes way back to 1986, but it was, in fact, for the purpose of providing better security to the visa applicants who line up outside the embassy.

The section of Rio Danubio in question is a one-block stretch that runs between the embassy office building and the Marie Isabel Sheraton hotel."

&

"In 1986, the embassy's consular section was located in a lower level of the embassy office building and visa applicants queued up along Rio Danubio to be admitted into the embassy, one small group at a time, via a side entrance that was roughly in the middle of the block. The street had a fair volume of vehicle traffic, some of it associated with a side entrance into the Sheraton, and it was not unusual for cars to be parked there.

In May 1986 a group calling itself the Commando Internacionalista Simon Bolivar parked a carbomb on Rio Danubio next to the hotel's side entrance. That put the bomb directly opposite the routine daily queue of visa applicants; clearly, it was an attempt to cause mass casualties. Fortunately, the bomb was discovered and rendered safe by the police (if I recall correctly, the bomb's crude homemade timer had failed), so no one was injured."