Feral Jundi

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Jobs: Union Pacific Special Agent, California

Filed under: California,Executive Protection,Jobs — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 9:46 AM

 

Special Agent

Work Location: Mira Loma, CA

Closing Date: November 30, 2009

Basic Purpose of Job:

Responsible for employee and public safety; protection of facilities, real estate and assets; and the protection of our customer’s lading through police activities, security services, and crime prevention and safety initiatives.

There is no relocation assistance available for this assignment. If selected for this position, you must be willing to relocate without Company reimbursement.

Accountabilities:

• Promote public safety through grade crossing traffic enforcement operations (CARE) and the investigation of     unsafe motorist incidents.

• Implement the Union Pacific’s Homeland Security “security” plan counter measures as threat levels change.

• Participate in “red team” audits on critical targets to test vulnerabilities and validate effectiveness of security measures.

(more…)

Friday, October 23, 2009

Somalia: Scores Killed as Somali President Leaves for Kampala

Filed under: Industry Talk,Somalia — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 5:52 PM

   Boy, CSS Global has their work cut out for them.  What gets me about this kind of attack, is this is Nisour Square material.  Insurgents opened up in a crowd, the ensuing firefight ends up killing innocents because they were caught in the cross fire, and no doubt, the insurgency will blame AMISOM and the government and turn it into a propaganda salad for everyone to eat.  In a place where there is such little value placed on life, this comes as no shock and you have to expect that. One thing that CSS might want to think about, is putting video cams on their vehicles.  That way, as soon as there is a fire fight or ambush, it can be proven who started it and where it came from, and they can show on film what their response was.

     Al Shabab and others will be doing all they can to take advantage of any propaganda scenarios, and trying to force a CSS protection team into a fight that results into civilian deaths would be up on the top of the list for embarrassing the US and the new Somalia government.  How you counter that, is to get the film out about what went down, way before the window lickers can.  To visually show justification for the ensuing fire fight(if it came to that), and turn it around on these guys.  Either way, the guys at CSS need to study the Nisor Square accident, and figure out what they need to do in order to work through that kind of worse case scenario.

   However they counter the attack and the propaganda value of the attack, is up to them.  I highly suggest the company reach out to those in the industry and government that are in the loop for the best industry practices for dealing with this kind of thing.  All sorts of companies do things a little different, and by now, everyone has found their happy place with this kind of operation.  Build your snowmobile with this one, because all eyes are on CSS to get this one right. Good luck.-Matt

—————————————————————–

Somalia: Scores Killed as Somali President Leaves for Kampala

22 October 2009

Nairobi — Fifteen people died and many more were wounded when Somali rebels attacked the airport as a presidential convoy headed there before jetting off for a summit in Uganda.

As the presidential convoy headed for Mogadishu’s Aden Abdulle Airport, Islamists opposing the Transitional Federal Government started targeting the airport and Maka al-Mukarramah Avenue that links Villa Somalia, the state house in Mogadishu, to the runway.

(more…)

Kidnap and Ransom: ‘The Snatchback’, Gus Zamora, and Rescuing Children in Foreign Lands

Filed under: Kidnap And Ransom — Tags: , , , — Matt @ 10:44 AM

   What’s interesting about this story, is the method that Gus Zamora uses in order to snatch these children, to get them back to their parents.  The planning, the risk of getting arrested in another country, the emotions of the family and the amazing successes of Gus and his company are a fascinating study.  He hasn’t been arrested, and he has a pretty amazing track record of success. I highly recommend reading this entire story and listening to the audio tape of one of his snatches.

   On a side note, it looks like Gus worked for CTU at one point, and it would be interesting to hear from those folks about this article?

   My question for Gus, is if he has ever thought about going after Joanne Chesimard?  There is a pretty sizable bounty on her head, and that cop killer needs to be brought back to the US.  –Matt

——————————————————————

The Snatchback

November 2009

by Nadya Labi

The Atlantic

ON A HUMID Thursday afternoon in February, I am riding in a rented van in Central America with a man who abducts children for a living. The van’s windows are tinted, and Gustavo Zamora Jr. is speeding east on a two-lane highway toward Siquirres, a town buried in the lush abundance of eastern Costa Rica. Gus is planning to snatch Andres, a 9-year-old American boy who has been claimed by too many parents. Sitting behind me is one of them: Todd Hopson, a 48-year-old lawyer from Ocala, Florida, who considers himself the boy’s father, by rights of love and U.S. law. Ahead of me in the front passenger seat is Gus’s 22-year-old son and partner, Gustavo Zamora III.

“That’s too far for a switch,” the elder Zamora, 53, is saying, pointing to a hotel 10 miles outside of Siquirres. His plan is to use two vehicles for what he calls the “recovery,” or “snatchback.” Once he gets Andres, he intends to drive a white Toyota SUV to a switch point, where he will abandon the SUV and put Andres in the van. That way, any witnesses to the snatchback will report seeing the SUV headed west in the direction of the capital, San José—while in fact Gus and Andres will be in the van headed southeast toward Panama. But this hotel won’t work. “We definitely can’t come all the way back down this way,” Gus says. “I want to make time.”

(more…)

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Africa: UN’s Congo Operation Under Scrutiny

Filed under: Afghanistan,Africa,Congo — Tags: , , , , , — Matt @ 2:08 PM

   I posted another story below this about the UN screwing the pooch on Afghanistan as well, when they sacked Peter Galbraith for speaking truth to power about the elections there.

   But the real star of this post, is the UN and their criminal work in the Congo.  I say criminal, because to sit there and allow these rapes and murders to happen, while standing there with a gun in your hand and calling yourself a peacekeeper, is beyond just incompetence–it is criminal. What happened to the Responsibility to Protect?  How do you allow this to continue and say that it is ok, while in the same breath calling yourselves peacekeepers?  Some heads need to roll on this one, and some top leadership needs to be held accountable. Or better yet, hire some professionals to do the job right, or don’t do the job at all.-Matt

——————————————————————

UN’s Congo operation under scrutiny

By Harvey Morris at the United Nations

Published: October 18 2009 23:15 | Last updated: October 18 2009 23:15

The strategy of the United Nations’ biggest peacekeeping force is under scrutiny following reports that government forces it is supporting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have used wide-scale rape and murder as weapons of war.

Abuses committed in a campaign against rebels in the east of the country have been extensively catalogued by human rights organisations. They have now come to the fore with a claim by one of the UN’s own experts that the results of an 8-month UN-backed offensive have been “catastrophic”.

“Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, thousands raped, hundreds of villages burnt to the ground, and at least 1,000 civilians killed,” Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, said in a statement last week after a 10-day visit to the DRC.

What Mr Alston termed the “nightmare situation” in the eastern Kivu region underlined the dilemma of peacekeepers required to conduct increasingly robust and proactive mandates handed to them by the UN Security Council with what their commanders often complain are inadequate resources.

(more…)

Afghanistan: There’s No Substitute for Troops on the Ground, by Max Boot

Filed under: Afghanistan,Military News — Tags: , , , , — Matt @ 12:27 PM

   Finally, and I love stories like this. We need to hear about the successes out there, and most of all, some proof of concept for today’s COIN strategy in Afghanistan.  It is so easy to fall into the trap of constantly highlighting what is going wrong in this war, because we all want to get this thing right.  It is equally important that we celebrate the successes as well.  And from the looks of it, these troops used a lot of blood and sweat equity to get this job done, and bravo to them. And the war continues…-Matt

—————————————————————–

There’s No Substitute for Troops on the Ground

October 22, 2009

By MAX BOOT

Kabul, Afghanistan

“I HOPE people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like.”

Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan’s strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel’s men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a “security bubble” around Nawa.

(more…)

« Newer Posts — Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress