GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Chabad explosion: Media says 'mechanical', GCIS source claims unattended 'combustibles' from nearby construction site

 

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Chabad.org

07April2011 8:21pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:

According to Chabad.org news site, authorities worked to clear up the scene of a Thursday morning explosion near S. Monica, Calif.’s downtown Chabad-Lubavitch center, the city’s police department announced that the blast which resulted in the evacuation of a four-block radius around the 1400 block of 17th Street was “not an intentional act.”

“There was no incendiary device,” said SMPD spokeswoman Lauralee Asch. “The explosion was due to a mechanical failure.”

Some witnesses at the Chabad House who had gathered for their 7 a.m. morning prayer services reported hearing some type of explosion, while a call to the police department from a neighboring building reported that debris had fallen on the building’s roof. Police, backed by the city’s fire department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s bomb squad, evacuated the area. (read full report)

(UPDATE from the GCIS Intel Briefing Room: a reliable source has told GCIS that combustible materials left at a construction site in an alley behind the Chabad center were the cause of the explosion. Our source explained that while the building had sustained minor damage, the device was not a bomb, and the center itself was not the target of an attack.)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: NISA reports: reactor core meltdown caused explosion

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Nikkei.com

12March2011 5:29pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: TOKYO --The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) said Saturday afternoon the explosion at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant could only have been caused by a meltdown of the reactor core.

The same day, Tokyo Electric Power Co. which runs the plant, began to flood the damaged reactor with seawater to cool it down, resorting to measures that could rust the reactor and force the utility to scrap it.

Cesium and iodine, by-products of nuclear fission, were detected around the plant, which would make the explosion the worst accident in the roughly 50-year history of Japanese nuclear power generation.

An explosion was heard near the plant's No. 1 reactor about 3:30 p.m. and plumes of white smoke went up 10 minutes later. The ceiling of the building housing the reactor collapsed, according to information obtained by Fukushima prefectural authorities. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Explosion at Japans nuclear plant, disaster toll rises

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: Daily Herald

12March2011 10:25amEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: IWAKI, Japan — An explosion at a nuclear power station Saturday destroyed a building housing the reactor, but a radiation leak was decreasing despite fears of a meltdown from damage caused by a powerful earthquake and tsunami, officials said.

Government spokesman Yukio Edano said the explosion destroyed the exterior walls of the building where the reactor is placed, but not the actual metal housing enveloping the reactor.

That was welcome news for a country suffering from Friday's double disaster that pulverized the northeastern coast, leaving at least 574 people dead by official count.

The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. One report said four whole trains had disappeared Friday and still not been located. Local media reports said at least 1,300 people may have been killed.

Edano said the radiation around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant had not risen after the blast, but had in fact decreased. He did not say why that was so.

Officials have not given specific radiation readings for the area, though they said they were elevated before the blast: At one point, the plant was releasing each hour the amount of radiation a person normally absorbs from the environment each year. (read full report)

 

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"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Swiss EPFL develops tech to safely detonate IEDs

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: HSNW

01March2011 8:17pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Swiss technology institute EPFL has designed an electromagnetic weapon capable of safely exploding improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from twenty-five meters away.

Working alongside Colombia and Los Andes universities, the institute has been investigating for the past two years how to disarm the explosive devices left behind by guerilla groups in Colombia and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Middle East oil war spreads. First demos in Saudi Arabia, Iraq refinery blasted

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: DEBKAfile

26February2011 12:04pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Iraq's biggest oil refinery at Baiji, 180 kilometers north of Baghdad, was blown up early Saturday, Feb. 26, by an Al Qaeda cell activated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Al Qods Brigades, DEBKAfile's Middle East sources report. Tehran is using the Middle East turbulence to generate fuel shortages in Iraq and boost oil prices worldwide.

Thursday night, Feb. 24, saw the first signs of unrest in Saudi Arabia with demonstrations by young people demanding reforms of the kingdom's system of government and by Shiites living and working in the kingdom's oil-rich eastern regions. They demonstrated at Awwamiya in Qatif in solidarity with the protests in Libya and Bahrain. They also demanded the release of detainees rounded up by Saudi security authorities among the two million Shiites living and working in the main oil centers of Saudi Arabia to nip potential unrest in the bud.

Friday, in the Red Sea town of Jeddah in the west, a group calling itself "Jeddah Youth for Change staged a demonstration.

The slightest sign of unrest in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, is bound to affect the price of oil. Iran is the biggest beneficiary of soaring prices. Day after day, as Arab capitals are beset by popular turbulence, Tehran is watching the damage caused its economy by international sanctions shrinking. (read full report)

"GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is an intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, it's partners or affiliates. All opinions presented are those of the author, and not necessarily those of GCIS or it's partners.

GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Sinai gas pipeline blast. Cairo diverts supplies to Israel, Jordan for domestic use

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: DEBKAfile

08February2011 10:00amEST

GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: Egypt's suspension of gas supplies to Israel after the North Sinai pipeline was blown up Saturday, Feb 5 has suddenly cut Israel off from 25-30 percent of its gas neds and 80 percent of Jordan's. A few hours after the blast, Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmad Shafiq announced the gas supplied to both countries under contract would henceforth be diverted to domestic requirements.

With Egyptian gas cut off for the foreseeable future, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu went into hasty non-stop consultations with ministers and energy military and security officials. Alongside the emergency declared by Israel's electricity corporation, those consultations centered on three additional facets of the crisis: The expanding occupation of North Sinai by Palestinian Hamas extremists from Gaza and anti-Egyptian Bedouin tribesmen, culminating in the gas pipeline explosion; the failure of joint Israeli and Egyptian military efforts to contain it and, thirdly, concerns that Hamas may cross into Israel and sabotage Israeli power stations or fuel reservoirs to bring about the collapse of Israel's electrical power system.

DEBKAfile reported earlier Saturday.
The pipeline supplying Egyptian gas to Israel and Jordan was blown up near the North Sinai town of El Arish early Saturday Feb. 5.  Egyptian state TV reported "terrorists" had carried out the attack which caused a huge explosion and fire. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu conferred urgently with Infrastructure Minister Uzi Landau and energy firms over the abrupt cutoff of 25 percent of Israel's gas needs and ordered security beefed up at energy installations.

The Egyptian and Israeli accounts are contradictory. (read full report)

 

 

"GCIS/MSS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE" is a cooperative intelligence briefing presented by Griffith Colson Intelligence Service and Machaseh Security Service, and provided to the public for informative purposes only. All subject matter is credited to it's source of origin, and is not intended to represent original content authored by GCIS, MSS or it's advertisers or affiliates.

GCIS INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING: Report: At Least 23 Dead in Explosion in Moscow’s Busiest Airport

ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center

SOURCE: FOX NEWS

24January2011 9:25pmEST

GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE:  A witness to the massive explosion that killed at least 35 people at Moscow's busiest airport Monday says he saw a man carrying a flaming suitcase seconds before the blast.

Artyom Zhilenkov, a 35-year-old driver, told The Associated Press he was just a few yards away from the explosion and saw a man who may have been the bomber.

"I saw the suitcase, the suitcase was on fire. So, either the man blew up something, or something went off on the man's body, or the suitcase went off." said Zhilenkov, whose clothes were soaked in blood.

"The guy standing next to me was torn to pieces," he added.

Russian officials put the death toll at 31 and said nearly 170 people were injured in the explosion Monday afternoon, while an airport spokesman reported 35 dead and about 46 wounded.

(read full report)