Michigan Jihad Update: move along, nothing to see here. Of course, the FBI is still working according to the utterly useless proposition that one is not a "terrorist" unless one has a "direct" connection to "known terrorist groups." The possibility that these bridge plotters could have been inspired by the same ideology that motivates jihad terrorists around the world, and that that ideology continues to spread even in the United States, and that one need not be a member of a "terrorist group" to hold that ideology, is of no apparent interest to them. From AP, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
CARO, Michigan (AP) -- The FBI said Monday it had no information to indicate that the three Texas men arrested with about 1,000 cell phones in their van had any direct connection to known terrorist groups.Authorities had increased patrols on Michigan's five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge after local prosecutors said investigators believed the men were targeting the span.
Local authorities didn't say what they believed the men intended to do with the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones, but Caro's police chief noted that cell phones can be untraceable and used as detonators.
The FBI issued a news release Monday saying there is no imminent threat to the bridge linking Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
The release also said the FBI had no information indicating that the men, Palestinian-Americans living in Texas, had any direct links to any known terrorist groups or to the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic jetliners that was announced in London last week....
Meanwhile, one of the suspects' wife plays the race card:
Louai Othman's wife, Lina Odeh, told The Associated Press on Saturday that she thought her husband and relatives were targeted because of their Arab descent. She said the men's families come from Jerusalem.
Has the FBI ignored the autonomous terror cell inspired by Al Qaeda ideology. A guy in Denmark and Turkey met on the internet and travelled to Bosnia in October 2005 and purchased weapons and explosives for an attack in the West. Guys are only linked by ideology.
I will await anxiously what they found in these guys apartments.
If a successful attack is launched by any individual or independent group, I am sure it will be very comforting to the victims' families and friends to know that the attacker(s) had "no known links to any known terrorist group."
The absence of a positive does not prove a negative.
Sorry Muslims, but your actions warrant profiling. If that offends you, then go back home to the Middle East. This is not your home.
I'm to the point I don't care if it hurts their feelings. I'd rather their feelings be hurt than my granddaughter's life taken away. It's easier to deal with hurt feelings than grief.
Let's send them home where they won't have to worry about being offended or profiled by mere infidels.
One wonders how much influence FBI sensitivity training has when reading pre-emptive dismissal of islamic terror being determined as unrelated to events like this.
OT (sort of)
There are documented reports atGates of Vienna that known organizations with terror links are running security firms here in the USA. Jamaat ul-Fuqra doesn't appear to be on the FBI radar.
How many detonators can be made from the copious sales of trac phones to young ME males?
Remember Beslan?
That Esquire report states that the detonators were wired with pre-measured lengths of wire indicating insider access to specific school details prior to the massacre.
Jihad security - under the FBI radar.
The first days of school are upon us. Should a single hair be touched on a childs head in this country . . .all bets are off.
I wish the FBI would quit saying the people that get arrested "have no known links to terrorism". The FBI should be saying "we know they are terrorist, we just haven't figured out which bunch of islamofascists they belong to".
But of course, that will not be said. It's not PC to say the obvious.
Here is another logical explanation as to the use of the cell phones.