“Terrorists in the Homeland” Film at 11
September 25th, 2009d9 sent this commentary—which is essentially what I’d write, with a link to the same previous Cryptogon story that I’d reference.
Thanks, d9! I was dreading having to spell this out again.
Commentary by Cryptogon reader d9:
FBI find a 19 year old dunce in an “Islamic extremist” webchat, go undercover as agents of a sleeper cell, survey him constantly, and allow him to drive a van with an “inert bomb” into the parking garage. They arrest him after he triggers the lame detonator, and then pat each other’s ass for a job well done on the 10:00 o’clock news.
Remarkably similar to the ecoterrorist story here: https://cryptogon.com/?p=2540
It will probably get more absurd as the details come out. I didn’t know if this was something you’d put up as it’s maybe not that surprising, but here it is just in case. I really appreciate what you do, thanks.
I wonder, however, if all of this is laying the backstory for, “the one that got away.”
Via: Dallas Morning News:
A 19-year-old Jordanian citizen is expected to make an appearance before a federal magistrate in Dallas this morning after authorities accused him of attempting to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper.
Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested Thursday after he parked a vehicle laden with government-supplied fake explosives in the underground parking garage of Fountain Place, a 60-story tower in the 1400 block of Ross Avenue at North Field Street, authorities said.
The arrest was part of an FBI sting operation that began after an agent monitoring an online extremist Web site discovered Smadi espousing jihad against the U.S. more than six months ago.
As more undercover Arabic-speaking agents engaged him, Smadi, living illegally in the U.S. in the small town of Italy, about 45 miles south of Dallas, pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and expressed a desire to kill Americans, authorities said.
In conversations with agents posing as members of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell, Smadi said he came to the U.S. to wage jihad, or holy war. He told agents he wanted to target military recruitment centers, but eventually settled on financial institutions.
“I want to destroy … targets … everything that helps America on its war on Arabs will be targeted,” he told undercover agents in May.
The sting culminated in Thursday’s arrest after Smadi parked a 2001 Ford Explorer Sport Trac, supplied by the FBI, in the garage of the emerald-green glass office tower that is home to many businesses, including a Wells Fargo Home Mortgage office.
Inside the SUV was a fake bomb, designed to appear similar to one used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Authorities say Smadi thought he could detonate it with a cellphone. After parking the vehicle, he got into another vehicle with one of the agents, and they drove several blocks away.
An agent offered Smadi earplugs, but he declined, “indicating that he wanted to hear the blast,” authorities said. He then dialed the phone, thinking it would trigger the bomb, authorities said. Instead, the agents took him into custody.
Related: Illinois man charged in plot to bomb federal offices
Related: U.S. terror suspects accused of targeting Marine base
