Zulkifli Abd Khir a Malaysian on FBI's most wanted list

Kuching
Saturday, 7th May 2011

Zulkifli Abd Khir, who fought alongside Osama in Afghanistan, is on the FBI's "most wanted terrorists" list for his role in a string of terror activities here, Indonesia and in the Philippines.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Osama bin Laden may have been removed from the FBI's "10 most wanted" list but among those still being sought is a Malaysian who has a US$5 million (RM15 million) reward on his head.

Zulkifli Abd Khir, who fought alongside Osama in Afghanistan, is on the FBI's "most wanted terrorists" list for his role in a string of terror activities here, Indonesia and in the Philippines.

He is the head of Kumpulan Mujahidin Malaysia (KMM) and a member of Jemaah Islamiyah's (JI) central command.

He was a protege of JI bomb expert Dr Azahari Hussin, a Malaysian who was killed by an Indonesian anti-terrorism unit on Nov 9, 2005.

Zulkifli, 45, is wanted for his role in leading KMM in the Southern Bank robbery in Petaling Jaya in May 2001, the murder of Lunas assemblyman Dr Joe Fernandez in early 2000 and the bombing of a Hindu temple in Pudu here.

A reward of RM50,000 was offered for his capture but he fled to Indonesia where he was believed to be involved in the Bali bombings in 2002, which claimed more than 200 lives.

In the Philippines, he got together with Abu Sayyaf and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and attacked and bombed several American interests and military bases there.

He is also high on the Philippine police's wanted list after two police officers were killed in a clash while trying to approach his hideout near Manila in August 2006.

Zulkifli, from Muar, is said to be hiding in central Mindanao where he is holed up with the Abu Sayyaf and MILF.

The father of four, who is fluent in English, Tagalog and Arabic, is an engineering wizard with a penchant for explosives and studied in the United States on a government scholarship.

Upon completing his degree in 1989, he become a mujahideen fighter where his role was to defuse Soviet bombs and land mines.

Three years later, he returned home where he found a job as a district engineer with a local council. It was then he founded KMM.

Two other family members are serving prison sentences in the United States and in Indonesia for terrorist activities.

His brother, Rahmat Abd Khir, allegedly provided Zulkifli and JI with cash and radios for the Bali bombings. Rahmat, who is two years older than Zulkifli, studied computer engineering in the US before obtaining citizenship there.

He was tracked down by US federal officers and was arrested at his office in Sunnyvale, California in 2007.

The authorities also found ammunition, sniper scopes and military training manuals in his home.

Another relative, brother-in-law Taufik Abdul Halim, is languishing in an Indonesian jail for his role in the botched bombing of the Atrium shopping mall in Jakarta in 2002.

He placed a bomb in a cardboard Dunkin' Donuts box and was carrying it into the mall when it exploded prematurely. Taufik lost a leg while six others were arrested.

The attack was against a Christian group which had an office there.

Taufik, from Kampung Jeram Masjid in Muar, was also a KMM member.

Taufik entered Indonesia illegally in 2000 and went to Ambon, the provincial capital of the Moluccas, to join a three-year-old jihad against Christians there.

Several months later, he travelled to Jakarta, where he took part in church bombings.

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BA worker Of Bangladesh Origin ‘conspired to blow up plane’

Kuching
Friday, 4th February 2011

 An Islamist extremist who worked as a British Airways computer expert conspired with a radical preacher to blow up a plane bound for the United States, a court was told on Tuesday.

Rajib Karim, 31, moved to Britain from Bangladesh in 2006 and was employed with the airline in Newcastle, joining a gym, playing football and never airing extreme views, Woolwich Crown Court heard.

But all the while, the prosecution claimed, he was communicating with a terrorist cell and radical cleric Anwar al Awlaki who is believed to be in Yemen.

“The defendant, as will become plain to you from the ideological and operational material recovered from his home after his arrest, is entirely committed to an extreme jihadist and religious cause,” Jonathan Laidlaw, prosecuting, told the court.

“He believes that terrorism, including the murder of civilians, is permissible to establish, as he views it, a true Islamic state.

“The defendant, as you will see from his own writings, was anxious himself to carry out such an attack and he was determined to seek martyrdom - to die and to sacrifice himself for his cause.”

In secret email exchanges, Karim, who had access to offices in Newcastle and London's Heathrow airport, shared details of his BA contacts, the Press Association reported.

The prosecution said he had received a degree of terrorist training and was highly skilled in conducting secret communications, including codes and encryption.

The defendant is accused of plotting to blow up a plane - no details of which were immediately available - sharing information of use to groups such as al Qaeda, offering to help financial or disruptive attacks on BA and gaining a job in Britain to “exploit terrorist purposes”.

He denies the charges. The jury was told that Karim pleaded guilty to three terrorism charges on Monday.

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Google accuses Microsoft on search data

Kuching
Thursday, 3rd February 2011

Google has accused arch-rival Microsoft of plagiarising its internet search results in an 

attempt to narrow the big lead  that Google still holds in the highly profitable search business.
Matt Cutts, head of search quality at Google, called the Microsoft practice “crazy”, and 
challenged the company to reveal  how much data it had collected from Google users and how
this was being used to determine results on its own Bing  search service. 


The dispute broke out after Google released the results of a test it carried out to try to show
 that Bing was copying its results.The software group did not deny the claims directly, but said
 that Google’s allegations were based on “a few outlier examples”. It also claimed that using 
data about what internet users did on Google to help refine its Bing service reflected general 
practice on the web, where internet services learn from wider online behaviour. 


It posted dummy results on the Google search engine in response to deliberately garbled 
queries. When carried out  later on Bing, the queries returned the same dummy responses,
Mr Cutts said. Microsoft had captured the data about searches on Google through its Internet 
Explorer 8 browser and toolbar, which send details of “clicks” back to Microsoft  when users 
accept certain settings on the Microsoft software, he added. Harry Shrum, the executive in 
charge of Microsoft’s search service, sought to brush off the accusations. 

“It’s not like we actually copy anything. We are learning from the data that customers share 

with us,” he said.  “The reason the web works is [due to] that collective intelligence.”

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Self-Performance Audit in January 2011

Kuching
Tuesday, February 01, 2011

This is my report for January 2011 Self-Performance Audit

1. Custom Main Gate (New Custom Gate A)

Arrived at Custom main gate at about 2145hrs. The guard house's door was opened and from the door I could see one guard was  on duty but without wearing security uniform.

2. Street Lights Along the Road From Custom main gate to Company's Main gate

Street lightings were all lighted ..

3. Company's Main Gate

Arrived at company's Main gate at about 2150hrs. The guard on duty was alert. The Company signage at the entrance was not lighted.

4. Harmony Walk and Its Sorrounding Area.

Harmony Walk and its sorrounding looked okay. The street lighting at Smoking Corner and Gate 2B were not function. Instructed on duty supervisor to report such to FMCS (Facility Monitoring and Control System)

5. Inside The Building (Administration Building, Ground Floor FAB and Second Floor FAB)

Cafeteria : First visit to the cafeteria at 2010hrs noticed that no fast foods were served. Two cooks were on duty and both of them were being seen not wearing proper attire, without cap ,apron and safety boots.

Second visit to the cafeteria was made at 2340hrs and noticed that the foods were sufficiently served with one meat and two vegetables.

Ground Floor FAB and Admin Building: Visit ground Floor FAB from 2300hrs to 2340hrs. And followings were the observations:

At south dock, a bottle of IPA was seen.

At Entrance to Sub-FAB, few spare parts were seen kept here

6. Leaving the Premises

Leaving the premises at about 0005hrs.

Please leave your comments if you like this posting or if you have any suggestions or comments.

Thanks

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Self-Performance Audit December 2010

Kuching
30th December 2010

This is my report for December 2010 Self-Performance Audit

1. Custom Main Gate (New Custom Gate A)

Arrived at Custom main gate at about 2200hrs. The guard house door was closed and from the window I could see one guard on duty.

2. Street Lights Along the Road From Custom main gate to Company's Main gate

Street lighting were all lighted except the one along the road at the second roundabout.

3. Company's Main Gate

Arrived at company's Main gate at about 2210hrs. The guard on duty was alert. But one of the beacon light (the one from the direction of the company). Had asked guard on duty to dismantle it and to change the batteries.

4. Harmony Walk and Its Sorrounding Area.

Harmony Walk and its sorrounding looked okay. The street lightings at Smoking Corner and Gate 2B all function.

5. Inside The Building (Administration Building, Ground Floor FAB and Second Floor FAB)

Cafeteria : First visit to the cafeteria at 2020hrs noticed that not many fast foods were served. An on duty cook also seen not wearing proper attire, without cap and apron.

Second visit to the cafeteria was made at 2340hrs and noticed that the foods were sufficiently served with one meat and two vegetables.

Ground Floor FAB and Admin Building: Visit ground Floor FAB from 2340hrs to 0005hrs. The sorrounding looked safe and no security violations being observed.

6. Leaving the Premises

Leaving the premises at about 0010hrs.

Please leave your comments if you like this posting or if you have any suggestions or comments.

Thanks

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How syndicate gets you into "reselling" their fake USD

Kuching
Wednesday, 29th December 2010

Today I would like to share with the readers of Securesafe how a lady was the subject of a well planned and obviously very well organised syndicate. She almost fell for it and fell for the baits along the way.

About four months ago, a lady whom I met through an international social network, started short correspondance with me. After about 2 weeks of short 2-3 liners, she asked me to buy some nyonya curry powder and paste for her; and said that she will send me the monies to cover the purchases and shipping them out in advance.

No problem, right? Ok, so I said.

About two days later, yes, my bank called me and told me about a wire received for RM1300. It only costs about RM350 for the stuffs I am required to buy and about RM 600 for the shipping. So I bought the stuffs and sent if off by parcel post with a balance of about RM300. She told me to keep the balance as my service charge

....Hmm, not bad but this is bait number One.

She then told me that she has businesses in Manila which have branches/reps in Malaysia dealing with commodities. She even asked me to source some commodities such as tea, coffee etc in bulk and if  the purchase is successful, they will finance it and pay me generous commission.

So far so good. This is bait  number two

Then all of a sudden she called me from London (yes, shows a London number indeed on my handphone) and asked me if I mind if she deposits US$680,000 into my account. She said her KL rep office has a big problem and she will be down in about 2-3 weeks but they cannot leave the money with him and they cannot take the money out for the time being. Its ok with me since they are the ones depositing into my account. I did get a bit suspicious but they are depositing into my account. Her uncle will call me the next day.

The next day, my bank called me and said that somebody is trying to deposit US$680,000 into my account. However the bank does not take foreign cash deposits directly. To play safe, I called my bank back and talked to the manager who told me that they will not accept US$ deposit (cash) but they will do so if the money is TT in, or it is in RM cash, but there are paper works involved. The amount is very big but its acceptable for my account as I have been doing "mid 5 figures" biz through them.

My London's friend uncle then immediately called my friend in London and asked me to keep the money with me until she comes down in about 2 weeks time - . . US$680,000 -- wow!

Her uncle told me that she (Londonfriend) is a multi millionaire in Euro $, described as VERY VERY RICH & GENEROUS. She will pay me RM50k just to help her out of this situation.

I do not know what over came me but instintively I said that I am currently in Malacca and will be back

on the next day(That's a lie - I was in KL) I would not like the idea of holding so much $ and then got robbed etc. . anyway, he said he will stay in KL and wait for me to take the $ the next day.

I contacted my friend at Special Branch (my father was in SB) and he advised me not to get involved as his

theory was that yes, they will pay you the 50k etc but it is probably they wanted a safe haven for  COUNTERFEIT US$. His theory is that the fake US$ is being brokered around and once they find a buyer, "she" will come and take the money and pay me the 50k and every body's happy but me like a little sucker, did not know what even happened. Every thing went well, nothing happened. Something goes wrong, I get

caught with the fake money, they disappear into thin air only to re surface looking for their next victim in one of the global social network.

Anyway, I told them the next day that they can deposit the money with the hotel store as nobody will even know, and if they want I can arrange for a safe deposit box which they have to sign in to. I told them they can deposit into my account but I will not hold cash.

I think they know that I know, so they beat a noble and polite retreat. They even told me that they

will hand over the money to me at the British consulate. I did not hear from her again but she is still active I know. The numbers are still in use. Just be very careful. My SB friend told me not to report the matter as people like that have vast networks and if they get busted, they know who did it and repercussions will follow.

I have actually given him the numbers etc but they will wait for about a year before moving in as they are trying to trace the roots and not just the end fruit. (Sounds a bit like T Harv Eker !). It seems that this is now

quite a standard modus operandi for pushing fake currencies.

To all the readers of Securesafe out there, please share this information with all your relatives and friends so not to become the victim of this international syndicate...

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Self-Performance Audit November 2010

Kuching
Sunday, 5th December 2010

First of all I would like to say sorry to the security practitioner out there for not updating my Self-Performance Audit in Secusafe as soon as the audit was done. The reason being,  for the past two weekends my schedule was quite tight and no time to update this blog.

For month of November 2010, I conducted my audit on 26th November 2010. I left my house at about 2245hrs and reached Custom New gate (gate A) at about 2300hrs. As expected, the guard house was looked dark inside with its door closed. The security guard was nowhere to be seen inside the guardhouse or within the vicinity of the area. 

From custom New Gate, I drove straight to my target. At the guard house, one enforcer was on duty. Everything looked well except for the beacon light where the light was so weak. The security supervisor was informed immediately and the battery was changed instantly.

From the guardhouse, while driving to Harmony Walk it was observed that the street lightings along the boulevard and the car parks were functioned well and sufficient.

I reached and entered the building at about 2330hrs. From there I went straight to the cafeteria with the supervisor on duty. I saw few employees having supper in the cafeteria. The menu served was fast food al-carte. No complaints heard from employee but I saw the long bean served was not fresh...probably brought forward from dinner.

From the cafeteria I went to my office to check on my e-mails. 

At about 2345hrs I went to make a round to ground floor FAB. My route - Warehouse-HPM Corridor-Sub-FAB entrance/Gowning-South Dock-Second Floor FAB-Cafeteria-Admin Second Floor-SCR

No major security issues were observed except for the main door Ware house-HPM corridor where the lock was not function.

Before leaving the company, at about 0245hrs I went back to the cafeteria. During this visit, I have two observations (1) The rubbish-bins were full and were not covered , and (2) While doing the serving, one of the waiter used the tooth-pick while doing the serving. He was reprimanded immediately.

After discussed with the supervisor, I left the premises/company at about 0300hrs.

Please see the photos that I took during the Audit below. 

Where were the guards on duty?

First Visit to Cafeteria..

Second Round Visit to Cafeteria

 While the waiters were seen sitting comfortably watching TV, the washing area look so dirty. The rubbish-bins were not lit.

Please leave your comments if you like the article.

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Self-Performance Audit October 2010

Kuching
Friday, 29th October 2010

Last month, my Performance Audit was done after I recieved a call from duty supervisor about the fire in the cafetaria.
This month, it was done according to the schedule-last weekend of the month.
After came back from family dinner, I went to the company to do my audit. Effective from tonight, the scope of my audit had been added to include the inspection of the company cafetaria. The inspection willl cover the safety and cleanliness aspects, based on the Cafetera  Inspection Checklist.

I reached Custom New Gate A at about 2210hrs. I saw one guard sitting in the guard house with its door closed. The weather was drizzling.
I reached the Main gate at about 2220hrs.
From Custom New Gate A until to the round about infront of the Harmony Walk, the situation looked bright and safe as the street lightings were functioned and good.

The situation of the street lightings from the small round about to the round about infront of Harmony Walk.

The situation at the roundabout infront of Harmony Walk - Both of the spot lights were

 in good working conedition.

I left the company (Main gate )  at about 0200hrs

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Personal Security Tips - New Tactic On Car Theft

Kuching
Wednesday, 20th October 2010

Just recieved this Security Tip from a colleague of mine , who had recieved it from a reliable source.

BEWARE!

APPLIES TO BOTH WOMEN AND MEN . PLEASE BEWARE OF PAPER ON THE BACK WINDOW OF YOUR VEHICLE-- NEW WAY TO DO CARJACKINGS (NOT A JOKE).

This is how your can get stolen right under your nose at the same time endanger your life.

1. You walk across the car park, unlock your car and get inside. You start the engine put it into Reverse.

2. When you look into the rearview mirror to back out of your space, you notice a piece of paper stuck to the middle of the rear window. So, you stop and jump out of your car to remove that paper (or whatever it is) that is obstructing your view.

3. When you reach the back of your car, that is when the carjackers appear out of nowhere, jump into your car and take off.

4. They practically run you over as they speed off in your car. And guess what ? I bet your purse is still in the car. So now the carjacker has your car, your home address, your money, and your keys. Your home and your whole identity are now compromised!

HOW TO AVOID FROM BECOMING ONE OF THE VICTIM ?

If you see a piece of paper stuck to your back window, lock your doors and just drive away. Remove the paper later.

Please Pass this Tips Around!

To those whom had visited SECURESAFE, please forward this important tips to your friends and family, especially to women.

A purse contains all kinds of personal information and identification documents, and you certainly do NOT want this to fall into the wrong hands.

If you like the posting, please leave your comment.

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Self Performance Audit August 2010

Kuching

Monday, 30th August 2010

This Monday is not a good day. In the afternoon at about 3.00PM received report from one of the engineer handle recycle materials that few pieces of metal material have been missing from the storage area.

After the on-scene investigation, the first task was to narrow down the date of the item being missing by printing the engineer activities in the store throughout the month of July-August 2010.

I left office at about 5.40PM as I need to response to my friend SOS whose car was stranded in one of the popular private school in town. I reached the school at about 6.15PM but was told that his car will be towed to the workshop by AAM and he will need to follow the tow-truck.

I reached home at about 7.30PM after a two stops, one at Mile 7th "Bazaar Ramadhan and another at a coffee-shop after the Mile 8th traffic light.

After dinner at about 9.30PM, received phone call from supervisor on duty that a car belong to a technician which was parked not far from the small round-about was broken into. Based on the On scene-investigation done by the supervisor, the incident could had happened at about 700PM to 7.45PM. The culprity gained entry into the car by smashing its front-left side window using a hard object. In the incident, the car CD player model Pioneer was missing.

After received the phone call, I decided to go to the company to do my month of August Self-Performance Audit. My activities were as follows :

10.13PM - Arrived at new Custom gate. Saw one security guard sitting in the guard house. He was seem to be dozed-off and without wearing security uniform.

10.20PM - Arrived at my company Main gate. Two enforcers on duty and both alert and wear proper uniform.

10.30PM- Arrived at Harmony Walk. Saw one guard on duty; alert and wearing proper uniform.

10.35PM - Went straight to SCR. Discussed with supervisor on duty about overall situation, and the incident of Car Break-in that he reported.

1040PM - 1130 - Visiting admin building offic.

1130PM-1200PM - Visiting Car Park and the surroundings. All street-lights were function and the surrounding area looked brights.

1215AM - On my way back from the company noticed that all stretch of traffic lights from MEMC office until to the second round about were off.
And when I arrived at the Custom new gate, I saw that the guard house light was off. Went to check the guard house, and saw two guards sleeping. When queried further they told me that they did not stop or check the car during night. The guard house light was off to avoid being robbed, because according to one of the guard in the past one of their colleague had been robbed because he switch on the light.
After remind them to work deligently as the security inside the park relied on them, I left Custom New gate at about 1225AM.

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The girl Varsha missing on UPSR day was killed brutally

Kuching
Friday, 6th August 2010

I recieved this information from my friend who is also the owner of Hornbill-Hornbill. Would like to share the information here as a reminder to all of us on why we should always monitor the movement of our children.
According to the e-mail, the little girl name Varsha was missing during the UPSR (last year I guess) but found brutally murdered few days later.
The news had never been published in the newspaper, probably for reason to protect the tourism industry. Please see the photos below.

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