Austin police announced that the man described by police as a “serial bomber” is now dead. The suspected bomber reportedly blew himself up with a bomb as police approached. Investigators identified the suspect as a 24-year-old white male.
The self-inflicted death of the suspect brings a three-week terror campaign of bombings to a close. The five exploded bombs left two people dead and five injured.
This may be a picture of the bastard.
UPDATE 8:05 a.m.: “We know the mastermind behind these bombings is deceased,” Governor Greg Abbott told Fox & Friends Wednesday morning, the Washington Times reported.
The governor said “We don’t know if there are any other bombs out there,” and “We need to make sure we rule out whether there was anybody else involved in this process.”
UPDATE 7:55 a.m.: KVUE is reporting that a person has been arrested outside the bombing suspect’s home. A reporter on the scene say the person arrested may be a photojournalist who got too close to the suspect’s home.
KVUE Video Screenshot of person arrested outside bombing suspect’s house.
UPDATE 7:45 a.m.: Pflugerville Police Chief Jessica Robledo said officers are investigating a suspicious package near the downtown area, KXAN reported Wednesday morning. Residents have been advised to remain indoors.
KXAN reporter Lauren Kravets tweeted from the scene that DPS troopers confirmed the location is the bombing suspect’s house.
UPDATE 7:05 a.m.: The scene where the Austin serial bomber killed himself is located less than ten miles from the scene of the original March 2 bombing that killed 39-year-old Anthony Stephan House
UPDATE 7:00 a.m.: Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted a congratulatory note to law enforcement authorities following the death of the suspect.
KVUE reports police are inside the deceased suspected bomber’s home and are conducting a search for additional evidence. Investigators are also reported to be talking with the suspect’s parents.
UPDATE 6:40 a.m.: Police warn people in Austin and the surrounding communities to maintain vigilance as they do not know where the suspect has been for the past 24 hours. Investigators found the suspect in Round Rock which is located just north of Austin.
UPDATE 6:35 a.m.: Media outlets in Austin are reporting they know who the suspect was and where he lived but they have not yet released the information.
UPDATE 5:50 a.m.: The Austin American-Statesman reported via KVUE that the suspect wore a disguise, including a wig, when he entered the FedEx store in Sunset Valley where he shipped two explosive devices. In the video surveillance released by investigators, the suspect can also be seen wearing gloves.
UPDATE 5:45 a.m.: President Donald Trump tweeted a congratulatory message to the law enforcement investigators involved in the Austin serial bombing investigation.
UPDATE 5:35 a.m.: Austin Interim Police Chief Brian Manley asked the community to remain vigilant and look out for each other. “We don’t know where this suspect has spent his last 24 hours and therefore we still need to remain vigilant to ensure that no other packages or devices have been left in the community.” The chief asked people in the surrounding communities to remain vigilant as well. This announcement came after locating the suspect in Round Rock, a few miles north of Austin.
Police are waiting for daylight to continue searching the vicinity of the bomb blast that killed the suspect. The delay is to ensure the safety of the investigators and to make certain they can preserve evidence at the scene.
Chief Manley tweeted his thanks to the law enforcement team that successfully brought the bombing campaign to a close.
UPDATE 5:15 a.m.: Chief Manley announced the death the bombing suspect. The man blew himself up with his own device after police made contact with his vehicle. One officer was injured in the explosion. Manley described the bomber as a 24-year-old white male. He did not provide any additional information about the suspect or his motivation for the bombing campaign that left two people dead, five people wounded, and a community terrorized.
Manley said they found the vehicle that had previously been described to police by witnesses. Investigators found the vehicle in the parking lot of a Red Roof Inn in Round Rock, Texas, just north of Austin.
“We had multiple officers from both the police department and our federal partners that took up positions around the hotel awaiting the arrival of our tactical team,” Manley said describing the scene. “We wanted to have ballistic vehicles here so we could attempt to take this suspect into custody as safely as possible.”
The chief said the vehicle began to drive away while the officers were waiting.
Officers began following the suspect’s vehicle and the suspect stopped his car in a bar ditch. “As the SWAT team approached the vehicle,” the chief stated, “the suspect detonated a bomb inside the vehicle knocking one of our SWAT officers back. One of our SWAT officers fired at the suspect as well.”
“The suspect is deceased,” Manley stated, “and has significant injuries from a blast that occurred from detonating a bomb inside his vehicle.”
The chief said he could not release any information about the suspect’s identity pending formal identification by the medical examiner and notification of the suspect’s family.
Original Story Follows:
“A man whom authorities were attempting to arrest early Wednesday in a string of bombing attacks in Austin killed himself with an explosive device as authorities closed in,” according to a report from a high-ranking law enforcement official, the Austin American-Statesman reported early Wednesday morning.
Investigators reportedly used “cell phone technology” to track the suspect’s location and found him just north of Austin in Round Rock, Texas,” KVUE reported.
Police reportedly identified the man after reviewing video at a FedEx store where he allegedly shipped two bombs.
“The Austin serial bomber is dead this morning,” KVUE reported.
Police reportedly used cell phone technology to track down the suspect’s location after identifying him from security video and online searches, KVUE reported.
During an interview on KVUE, American Statesman reporter Tony Plohetski said police began to track down the suspect by finding receipts from materials he allegedly used in the bombings. The investigation led police to obtain a search warrant to obtain online search information. Some of those searches included Google searches for FedEx locations — including the Brodie Lane store where the suspect allegedly shipped two packages.
The searches led to police finding the IP address of the suspect which revealed additional information.
Plohetski said police then used “cell phone technology”to track the suspect down to a location in Round Rock where he eventually blew himself up with his own device.
The man allegedly killed two people and injured five others in a series of explosions that rocked the capital city region since March 2.
The bombing campaign began on March 2 when a package exploded in northeast Austin. The blast killed 39-year-old Anthony House. On March 12, a second package exploded when 17-year-old Draylen Mason opened a package left on the front steps of his home. The parcel exploded, killing him and injuring his mother.
A third explosion detonated a few hours later and sent a 75-year-old woman to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Shortly after this explosion, Chief Manley disclosed the bombs were linked.
Less than one week later, Austin’s fourth bomb exploded and injured two young men on the city’s southwest side.
On Tuesday morning, officials told reporters that a medium-size package exploded inside the FedEx sorting facility in Schertz, near San Antonio. There were about 75 people inside the plant at the time of the blast that occurred shortly after midnight Tuesday morning. One woman near the package was treated for minor injuries and was released at the scene.
The package originated in Austin and was addressed to be delivered back to Austin, KENS reporter Charlie Cooper stated. An FBI agent told the CBS reporter that “it’s more than possible” that this explosion is connected to the four bombs that have exploded in the Austin area this month.
Officials confirmed Tuesday afternoon that the Schertz explosion and a “suspicious package” that was later determined to be an unexploded device were both connected to the series of package bombs that exploded in Austin since March 2. Both packages were reportedly shipped from a FedEx store in Sunset Valley, southwest of Austin.
The Trump administration’s record numbers of airstrikes in Afghanistan have failed to expand the Afghan government’s control over its population and stop the Taliban from quickly replacing its opium and heroin processing labs pulverized by the U.S. military, a watchdog agency said in a report to Congress released Tuesday.
In its latest quarterly audit to lawmakers, the U.S. Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) noted:
The expanded authorities provided [by President Trump] to U.S. forces in Afghanistan have resulted in a significant uptick in U.S. air strikes and special operations against the insurgency, with the U.S. dropping 653 munitions in October 2017, a record high since 2012 and a more than three-fold increase from October 2016.
These actions have yet to increase the Afghan government’s control over its population … The goal of the Afghan government is to control 80% of its population within the next two years.
While the U.S. military is targeting the Taliban’s opium business, dealing a blow worth millions of dollars to the group, it is barely making a dent on the illicit trafficking of the lucrative poppy plant, noted SIGAR, explaining:
U.S. and Afghan air strikes this quarter have targeted the Taliban’s opium-production industry, which the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) estimates has as many as 400–500 active facilities at any given time.
According to [U.S.] General [John] Nicholson, [the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan], U.S. and Afghan forces recently began targeting them, destroying 10 on November 19 alone.
Gen. Nicholson vowed to continue the pressure on the Taliban’s economic engine — opium and heroin — while remaining careful to avoid collateral damage and civilian casualties, which have increased by more than ten percent to 4,474 between June 1 and the end of November 2017 when compared to the same period the previous year.
Why let the Taliban have the fields.
Afghan security forces, supported by U.S. Air Force B-52s, F/A-18s, and other aircraft, including the F-22 Raptor, are carrying out the operations against opium and heroin, which generate up to 60 percent of the Taliban’s funding.
“Brigadier General Bunch announced that 25 narcotics labs had been destroyed since the beginning of the campaign in November, which he said was the equivalent of nearly $80 million eliminated from the drug-trafficking organizations while denying over $16 million in direct revenue to the Taliban,” reports SIGAR.
The inspector general suggested the cost of carrying out the airstrikes on the heroin labs may outweigh the outcome, noting:
According to the latest DOD [U.S. Department of Defense] financial- management report, an F-22 costs between $35,294 and $36,799 per hour to operate; a B-52 between $32,569 and $34,341 per hour; and an F/A-18 between $9,798 and $16,173 per hour, depending on the model.
By contrast, the labs being destroyed are cheap and easy to replace. Afghans told Reuters it would takes three or four days to replace a lab in Afghanistan. According to UNODC [United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime], the morphine/heroin labs need only simple equipment such as a stove, iron barrel, and locally made pressing machines. According to DOD, the value of seizures and destroyed equipment is based on DEA baselines.
In the report, SIGAR revealed that for the first time, the Pentagon prohibited the watchdog agency from publicizing the full district and land-area under the control of the Afghan government and terrorist groups.
The Pentagon also banned SIGAR from reporting on the strength and capabilities of the struggling Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), who, along with Afghan civilians, have borne the brunt of casualties primarily at the hands of the Taliban in recent years.
“Afghan government control or influence has declined and insurgent control or influence has increased overall since SIGAR began reporting control data in January 2016,” noted the auditor.
U.S. military combat deaths have also increased in recent months.
“From January 1 through November 26, 2017, 11 U.S. military personnel were killed in Afghanistan, and 99 were wounded. This is double the personnel killed in action compared to the same periods in 2015 and 2016,” noted SIGAR in a press release announcing its report to Congress.
Gen. Nicholson did say in November, “About 64 percent of the population is controlled by the government, about 24 percent live in contested areas, and the Taliban control the remaining 12 percent,” without mentioning anything about who controls the territory.
Based on the top commander’s assessment, Afghan terrorist groups, primarily the Taliban, control or contest 36 percent of the population.
Some independent analysts, namely experts from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), have questioned the U.S military’s assessment placing the territory under terrorist control or influence at about 45 percent in late September.
In a significant departure from previous administrations, President Trump authorized the U.S military to strike opium and its heroin derivative in Afghanistan, the world’s top producer of the poppy plant.
Despite investing $8.7 billion in American taxpayer funds on counternarcotics efforts since the Afghan war began in October 2001, Afghanistan is producing more opium and heroin than ever before, doubling production last year to 9,000 tons from 2016, revealed the United Nations.
The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) branch in Afghanistan is reportedly growing, claiming responsibility for an attack in Kabul this week and “the deadliest attack” covered by the SIGAR quarterly report “when an IS-K [Khorasan province] militant detonated a suicide bomb during a gathering of 150–200 people at a Shi’a cultural center in Kabul. The Afghan Ministry of Public Health said at least 41 people were killed and 84 wounded.”
The State Department announced a new $600,000 taxpayer-funded study that suggests “ideals of masculinity” in Kenya are contributing to terrorism.
The department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism is seeking a nonprofit group to “explore gender identities of boys and men in Kenya.” The grant proposal states that men being “tough, heterosexual, aggressive, unemotional, and achieving” can make them vulnerable to joining Islamic extremist groups.
“Gender is increasingly recognized as an essential aspect to understanding and countering violent extremism throughout the world,” the State Department said. “To date, research and interventions on gender in Kenya have predominantly focused on the role of women and girls in violent extremism. However, men and boys are disproportionately recruited by and join terrorist groups and carry out terrorist operations. In Kenya, there currently exists no CVE [countering violent extremism] programming dedicated to the role of gender of boys and men and vulnerability to violent extremism.”
To remedy this, the State Department will spend up to $592,500 on the “Masculinity and Violent Extremism” study, which will be awarded to an American nonprofit or nongovernmental organization later this year.
The study will “determine existing knowledge and gaps on male gender and violent extremism as well as explore gender identities of boys and men in Kenya.”
The grant proposal blames Kenya’s “patriarchal” society of “tough, heterosexual” men for problems facing the developing country.
“In Kenya, boys and men are disproportionately recruited by al-Shabaab and more likely to be both operators and victims of terrorist acts,” the State Department said. “Kenyan society, while diverse in its ethnic and cultural composition, is uniformly patriarchal and highly prescriptive of gender expressions and identities.”
“Kenyan males are expected to head the household as well as provide for, protect, and maintain the family,” the department continued. “Socially, males are expected to be tough, heterosexual, aggressive, unemotional, and achieving. The practical and social pressures to fulfill these expectations can be immense and create vulnerabilities that are exploited by violent extremist groups who appeal to these characteristics and offer the opportunity to fulfil [sic] these roles.”
The State Department added that the research would involve fathers and community leaders in Kenya in the hopes to “shape existing cultural narratives on masculinity, gender, and violent extremism.”
“Funds will support male-to-male dialogue and training on issues of gender and encourage stronger social and familial support structures,” the department said.
