Homeland Security News

An assailant involved in the prolonged firefight in Jersey City, N.J., that left six people dead, including one police officer, was linked on Wednesday to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which has been designated a hate group, and had published anti-Semitic posts online, a law enforcement official said.

The authorities also suspected that the two assailants,  David N. Anderson, 47, and Francine Graham, 50, may have been involved in a separate killing in neighboring Bayonne, N.J., according to the New Jersey’s attorney general, Gurbir S. Grewal.

The violent rampage on Tuesday took place largely at a kosher supermarket where three bystanders were killed. The authorities now believe that the store was specifically targeted by the assailants.

Read more: New York Times

The Saudi aviation student responsible for a shooting that killed three U.S. sailors on a Florida base last week appears to have embraced radical ideology as early as 2015, well before he arrived in the United States for training, a Saudi government analysis has found.

According to the internal report, a Twitter account believed to have been used by Ahmed Mohammed al-Shamrani indicates that four religious figures described as radical appear to have shaped the Saudi Air Force trainee’s “extremist thought.” A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.

The attack at Naval Air Station Pensacola has raised concerns about the vetting of foreign military personnel who take part in training and exchange programs in the United States, and it has drawn renewed congressional scrutiny of the kingdom following a period of substantial tension. While some lawmakers have criticized Saudi Arabia for its role in Yemen’s punishing civil war and the killing of journalist and Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul last year, the Trump administration has consistently defended the kingdom as a key ally against Iran and other threats.

Read more: Washington Post

Authorities believe a Jewish market was targeted during an hours-long shootout that left six people dead, including a police detective, Tuesday in Jersey City.

“It was a targeted attack on the Jewish kosher deli,” Mayor Steven Fulop told reporters Wednesday morning. “We could see the van move through Jersey City streets slowly. The perpetrators stopped in front of there, calmly opened the door with two long rifles – him and the other perpetrator – and began firing from the street into the facility.”

“There were multiple other people on the street, so there were many other targets available to them that they bypassed to attack that place. So it was clearly – that this was their target and they intended to harm people inside,” Public Safety Director James Shea added.

Read more: CBS New York

U.N. experts say the interference of Chadian and Sudanese fighters in Libya is "a direct threat" to the security and stability of the war-torn country, which a leader of the Islamic State extremist group has declared "one of the main axes" of its future operations.

The panel of experts said in a 376-page report to the U.N. Security Council released Tuesday that the presence of the Chadians and Sudanese "has become more marked" in 2019 as a result of the intensification of the conflict in Libya. It said their continued presence as organized groups or as mercenaries "may lead to further instability."

Libya has been in turmoil since a civil war in 2011 toppled Moammar Gadhafi, who was later killed. In the chaos that followed, the country was divided, with a weak U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli overseeing the country's west and a rival government in the east aligned with the Libyan National Army led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter, each supported by an array of militias and foreign governments.

Read more: ABC News

A suicide bomber struck an under construction medical facility in Bagram, the largest U.S. military base in northern Afghanistan, Wednesday morning, with the Taliban claiming responsibility for the attack, Afghan and U.S. officials said.

Two car bombs were involved in the attack, which was followed by a gun battle between the attackers and local security forces, killing at least one person and injuring at least 65 more, according to the Bagram district governor.

There were no casualties to U.S. and coalition forces, according to U.S. military officials.

The Taliban have now claimed responsibility for the attack.

Read more: ABC News