Ariel Cohen

New information released this morning identifies the suspects in the Boston marathon bombings as coming from Chechnya.

Heritage Foundation expert Ariel Cohen released a report last fall on the threats posed to the U.S. and our allies by instability in Chechnya and Russia’s Northern Caucasus region.

“As Russia continues to lose control of the region, it is becoming a significant base for Islamist terrorist organizations and organized crime and may ignite an even greater terrorist campaign inside Russia and beyond,” Cohen wrote.

Read the whole report, which includes substantial background on the region and its instability.

Heritage Foundation experts have been hitting the airwaves to provide insights into the tragedy in Boston and the ongoing investigation into Monday’s bombing.

A full list of media appearances is below.

For Heritage’s take on the attacks, please read today’s Morning Bell. Continue Reading »

Keiko Hiromi/Polaris/Newscom

“America is at its best when it faces adversity with courage, confidence, and determination,” Heritage Foundation homeland security expert James Carafano writes in today’s Morning Bell.

He continues:

A security professional knows what to do first: Take care of the injured, protect the responders and bystanders who are racing to the scene to help (who can often be the target of follow-on attacks), and preserve the evidence available at the scene. Those efforts appear well underway. We should be proud of the responders and the citizens of Boston.

Our assessments and speculation on what to do next should not outpace what we know. Even very authoritative-sounding reports issued from the scene or shared by on-scene reporters or witnesses may turn out to be inaccurate. That has already proven the case in Boston with conflicting reports on the number of explosions, claims of suspects in custody, and statements about unexploded devices being recovered.

In cases such as this, officials often can garner a tremendous amount of evidence from the crime scene in the first 72 hours. In such investigations, you start with the evidence and that leads to suspects, not the other way around.

While we should boost security at future events like this upcoming marathon in Pittsburgh,  we should also be aware that no measures are foolproof, Carafano argues. “The best security, if this is confirmed as a coordinated, predetermined act, is to stop the perpetrators before they undertake their attacks.”

More importantly, we should show our love and support for the victims of this cowardly act.

“For now, we should all stand with Boston,” Carafano says. “We should all show the world that today we will get up unafraid, and America will step forward into the day.”

Lawmakers from the northeast, including New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Rep. Peter King (R-NY), are accusing Congress of being “selfish” for not holding a vote on a $60 billion Hurricane Sandy relief bill before lawmakers adjourned for the last time.

But as The Heritage Foundation’s Amy Payne reminds us, the law wasn’t really about helping the hurricane’s victims: Continue Reading »

Last week, President Obama asked Congress for $60.4 billion for Hurricane Sandy response and recovery. But where is that money actually going?

According to Heritage Foundation research, only $12 billion of the President’s request, or just 21 percent of the total, will be used directed to Hurricane Sandy response and recovery. The rest is going to fund unrelated projects.

Heritage’s Jessica Zuckerman explains where the money is actually going: Continue Reading »

A cable sent from the American consulate in Benghazi weeks before before the September 11 terrorist attack raised grievous security concerns. It specifically listed known terrorist groups in the region and concluded that the consulate could not withstand a “coordinated attack.”

Heritage Foundation national security expert James Carafano points out that Americans have a right to know exactly why our government failed to ensure the security of the four citizens who perished in Benghazi:

After the first 9/11, all we asked was for a government to be better at “connecting the dots” and then sharing that information. We have a right to know why our government has failed miserably at this fundamental task.

Carafano asks the following five questions about the government’s response to Benghazi: Continue Reading »

The Heritage Foundation has been arguing for years that local communities and individuals, not the federal government, should take the lead in disaster response. Hurricane Sandy should serve as a reminder of the need for these reforms.

In 2007, Heritage’s James Carafano, Jennifer Marshall and Lauren Hammond explained what this “grassroots disaster response” would look like: Continue Reading »

Our thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Godspeed to those who must recover and rebuild. Let us take this opportunity to be reminded that America can sustain and will thrive even after such devastation caused by Sandy.

As Hurricane Sandy bore down on the East Coast, the New York Times took the opportunity to publish an editorial politicizing the storm that caused dozens of deaths.

The Heritage Foundation’s Matt Mayer explains how the Times took advantage of this catastrophe in the Orange County Register:

In a shameless attempt to politicize Hurricane Sandy, The New York Times rushed out an editorial, “A Big Storm Requires Big Government,” attacking conservatives for advocating a rebalancing of disaster response responsibilities.

The Times says the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) “was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.”

Mayer says this line of attack just isn’t true. Conservatives believe that FEMA has a role in responding to national catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina, 9/11, and Hurricane Sandy. In he last twenty years, though, local natural disasters have been nationalized, spreading FEMA’s resources too thin to be fully prepared for catastrophes: Continue Reading »

Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) are supposed to cover both foreign and domestic policy in tonight’s debate for vice presidential candidates. The Heritage Foundation’s policy experts have developed ten questions they want to see asked during the debate.

Remember to watch the debate live with Heritage tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. You can watch it online on our Debate 2012 page, where you can also follow our experts’ live blog of their reactions and chime in on Twitter. Continue Reading »

Last week, federal officials arrested 11 people for attempting to smuggle sophisticated and sensitive electronics to Russia. These electronics are used to detonate triggers and guide weapons.

This is the second such espionage threat discovered in two years. In 2010, the FBI arrested 11 Russian “suburban” agents for espionage.

These events demonstrate that espionage remains a very real threat, one that cannot be countered with ”reluctant enforcement as well as lax persecution,” The Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen and Dmitri Titoff explain: Continue Reading »