Homeland Security News

Five people were killed in a clash at a branch of the Communist Party in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, the state news media reported on Thursday.

The authorities described the violence, which occurred on Wednesday, as a terrorist attack. They said that assailants armed with knives and a bomb stormed the Moyu County party offices in western Xinjiang, killing an official and a security guard. The police shot dead three people at the scene, according to Xinhua, a state news agency.

The confrontation was the latest outburst of violence in a region plagued by tensions between the government and the Uighurs, a mostly Muslim minority who inhabit Xinjiang, a desolate area that borders Kazakhstan, Mongolia and several other countries. It has been months since the government last reported an attack in the region.

Read more: New York Times

One policeman has been killed and seven others injured in an attack on a police checkpoint north of the capital Bogota.  The officer was shot dead by two assailants on motorcycles while he was on duty in the city's northern outskirts, police said.

The attackers planted explosives on the body and set them off when other officers came to investigate, they say.  Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said the ELN rebel group is likely to have carried out the attack.  "The leading theory is that this incident is the heinous and irresponsible work of the National Liberation Army (ELN) to terrorise the civilian population," Mr Villegas told Caracol radio.

Read more: BBC News

A state grand jury indicted a 30-year-old man on charges related to supporting a terrorist organization, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office said Friday.

Derrick Thompson, also known as Abu Talib Al-Amriki, was indicted on three counts of terrorism-related charges stemming from an investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force Phoenix field office.

The grand jury on Wednesday indicted Thompson on charges that he solicited, incited or induced others to promote or further the criminal objectives of ISIS since January 2015.

Read more: AZ Central

A bomb squad went to a Santa Ana home Thursday night after a man was found in a bedroom that may have been booby trapped with improvised explosive devices, police said.

Around 7:50 p.m., the man’s family members, who live in the house in the 2200 block of North Jetty Street, became concerned when when he failed to answer a knock on his bedroom door, Santa Ana police Cmdr. Matt Brown said.

The family members went inside the room and found the man dead from apparently detonating one of the explosive devices, although they did not hear an explosion, Brown said.

Several other explosive devices were also found in the room and Santa Ana police called the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad for help, said Brown.

The house and two adjoining residences were evacuated.

The bomb squad was still at the home as of 11 p.m. and the identity of the man -- who is in his 50s -- was not immediately released.

Source:  The Orange County Register

Russia moved on Friday to impose tit-for-tat measures against the United States in the latest flare-up between the countries, with the foreign minister recommending that the country expel 35 American diplomats and close two diplomatic facilities.

The moves are subject to the approval of President Vladimir V. Putin, but given that they were proposed by the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in remarks broadcast on national television, his recommendation seemed likely to be adopted.

On Thursday, the Obama administration declared 35 Russians suspected of being intelligence operatives “persona non grata”; imposed sanctions on two of Russia’s leading intelligence services; and penalized four top officers of one of those services, the powerful military intelligence unit known as the G.R.U., because of its efforts to influence the presidential election.

As part of the punishment, the State Department said that it would close two waterfront estates — one in New York, the other in Maryland — that it said were used for Russian intelligence activities. It was not clear, however, whether the two properties were a base for the election-related hacking.

Read more:  New York Times