Orange Alert! Orange Alert! now with shiny things!

"Vigilance is at a medium level. This is not 9/11, but the information we have
received is of concern and we need to have heightened vigilance," said Mr. Baird.

But the attempted airliner bombing on Christmas Day could be a "pilot project" for attacks on North America and represents the first time al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula has attempted to strike this part of the world, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said.

CTV, the G&M, the Star, and NaPo are all reporting on the Transport Canada "heightened alert" for Canadian airports this last weekend, a full two weeks after the Detroit underwear bomber told of 20 more guys in Yemen planning attacks on North America.
And apparently there's also the other terrorists ...

"But sources say Canadian intelligence also had credible information of other terrorists planning to come to Canada.
Federal authorities say the terrorists did not pose a direct threat to Canada. They were not planning to blow up a Canadian airliner, nor were they planning terrorist attacks at the Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler, or some other target in Canada."
The terrorists want to use Canada as a jumping-off point to get into the U.S."

So we should be scared, but not too scared?


Robert Fife wastes no time getting to the point : The Canada-US border would be shut down immediately, he said - a disaster because 75% of our trade is with the US.

Then CTV, the Star, and the G&M all end their reports with :

In addition to the heightened security already in place, Transport Canada said it will install full-body scanners at major Canadian airports by the spring.

even though full-body scanners would not have stopped the underwear guy anyway.

Say, will we be buying the scanners promoted by former Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff, who now represents Rapiscan, "one of the leading manufacturers of whole-body-imaging machines"?

Security theatre plus expensive new shiny things.
Scanners might not be any good at detecting whatever device the next Detroit bomber is carrying; what they will do is keep our trucks rolling across the Detroit River.
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GWOT - A Moveable Feast

Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan ... next stop - Yemen?

Since that guy who detonated his underwear on a plane on Christmas Day claimed to have been sent by the al-Qaeda network in Yemen in retaliation for US/Saudi bombing raids inside Yemen, Saudi policy analysts are popping up in the Globe and Mail to report that Yemen is now more dangerous to the West than Afghanistan:

The botched attack on the U.S. plane came a day after Yemeni forces, with the help of U.S. intelligence, launched the second of two major air and ground assaults on major al-Qaeda hideouts in Yemen. [Ed : Odd coincidence, that]

Anwar Eshki, the head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies based in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, said al-Qaeda in Yemen “is stronger than it was a year ago and is turning Yemen into its base for operations against the West."

Yemen is al-Qaeda's last resort,” Mr. Eshki said. “There's no doubt that al-Qaeda's presence in Yemen is more dangerous than its presence in Afghanistan.”

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, home to 15 out of 19 of the 9/11 hi-jackers, has been helping the US-backed Yemeni president with his Operation Scorched Earth assault against the minority Shiite Huthis, using "fighter-bombers, helicopters, heavy artillery and special forces" and shelling well into Yemen.

Once again the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies was on hand to explain :

"From the Saudi point of view the existence of a Huthi 'state' with the support of Iran is intolerable. They are going to squeeze the Huthis, to shut them down," he said.

The Saudis seek to create a permanent 20-kilometre (12 mile) wide no-go zone straddling the border, and has vacated scores of villages on the Saudi side to that end, according to regional security expert Anwar Eshki.

"The problem in Yemen gave us a good chance to fix our border problem," said the former Saudi general, head of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah.

And right on schedule, from The Times, today:

'Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants planning attacks from Yemen'

Hundreds of al-Qaeda militants are planning terror attacks from Yemen, the country’s Foreign Minister said today.
“They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit.
There are maybe hundreds of them — 200, 300.”

The Global War On Terror moves on ...

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