.FBI Arrests a Suspected Bomb Plotter
Federal agents charged a Saudi student in Texas with attempting to construct improvised explosives and compiling a list of possible targets, including the home of former President George W. Bush.
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20 years old, was arrested and charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. Aldawsari is in the U.S. on a 2008 student visa and is enrolled at South Plains College, near Lubbock, Texas.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have scrambled in recent weeks to determine whether Mr. Aldawsari has links to international terrorist groups and have found none, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Aldawsari is set to appear in federal court in Lubbock on Friday and faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Attempts to contact Mr. Aldawsari's attorney weren't successful.
The FBI alleges that electronic surveillance and searches of Mr. Aldawsari's apartment turned up Internet blog postings and a personal journal that expressed his desire for jihad and martyrdom.
An FBI affidavit filed in federal court says the investigation began Feb. 1 after a North Carolina company alerted law enforcement about suspicious purchases of the chemical phenol. The FBI says phenol has common legitimate uses but can be used to make trinitrophenol, an explosive also known as picric acid.
After the company's shipping restrictions for the chemical thwarted the purchase, Mr. Aldawsari bought the chemical and other ingredients—including wiring, clocks and lab equipment to help make explosives—from other sources, including Amazon.com, according to the FBI affidavit.
In recent years, jihadi websites and articles published in the Yemeni al Qaeda affiliate's magazine have urged Muslims living in Western countries to build improvised explosives from substances easily found in anyone's kitchen. It isn't clear whether Mr. Aldawsari viewed those websites.
Federal authorities have developed tripwires in the private sector that could alert them to terrorism suspects who are seeking to buy ingredients for explosives. For instance, companies that sell chemicals often used in hair products are required to maintain records and report suspicious customer purchases.
James T. Jacks, the U.S. attorney in Dallas, credited the information supplied by the public with thwarting Mr. Aldawsari.
Mr. Aldawsari's alleged plot was derailed in part by what appear to be his own missteps. According to the FBI, he sent himself bomb recipes through email accounts that were monitored by investigators. He also allegedly maintained a personal journal, which FBI agents copied during searches of his apartment.
The criminal complaint alleges that Mr. Aldawsari emailed himself a list of possible targets for attack, including the Dallas address of former President Bush, reservoirs and dams in Colorado and California, nuclear-power plants and Dallas nightclubs.
Mr. Aldawsari also researched realistic-looking baby dolls, which the FBI alleges he considered using to hide explosives.
In one journal entry, the suspect said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks produced a "big change" in his thinking and that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden, according to the FBI.
Another journal entry cited by the FBI is alleged to read in Arabic: "I excelled in my studies in high school in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a scholarship to America, offered by the [Saudi] government and its companies....Now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for jihad."
A Jan. 12 email Mr. Aldawsari sent himself was characterized by the FBI as "a simplified lesson on how to booby trap a vehicle with items that are readily available in every home."
Mr. Aldawsari was enrolled at Texas Tech University in Lubbock before transferring to South Plains. Jimmy Woods, a sophomore at Texas Tech who took a chemical-engineering seminar with Mr. Aldawsari, described him as a dedicated student who always showed up for homework-group meetings.
"He seemed like a normal kid to me, scared about being away from home for the first time," said Mr. Woods, who met Mr. Aldawsari when they were both freshmen in the fall of 2009. "It's not like I ever suspected him to be a terrorist."
Mr. Aldawsari always came to class cleanly shaven and with his hair combed, Mr. Woods recalled, and seemed shy. In the photo released by the FBI, "he looked like a different person," Mr. Woods said.
WSJ
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20 years old, was arrested and charged in a federal criminal complaint with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Mr. Aldawsari is in the U.S. on a 2008 student visa and is enrolled at South Plains College, near Lubbock, Texas.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents have scrambled in recent weeks to determine whether Mr. Aldawsari has links to international terrorist groups and have found none, according to U.S. officials. Mr. Aldawsari is set to appear in federal court in Lubbock on Friday and faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
Attempts to contact Mr. Aldawsari's attorney weren't successful.
The FBI alleges that electronic surveillance and searches of Mr. Aldawsari's apartment turned up Internet blog postings and a personal journal that expressed his desire for jihad and martyrdom.
An FBI affidavit filed in federal court says the investigation began Feb. 1 after a North Carolina company alerted law enforcement about suspicious purchases of the chemical phenol. The FBI says phenol has common legitimate uses but can be used to make trinitrophenol, an explosive also known as picric acid.
After the company's shipping restrictions for the chemical thwarted the purchase, Mr. Aldawsari bought the chemical and other ingredients—including wiring, clocks and lab equipment to help make explosives—from other sources, including Amazon.com, according to the FBI affidavit.
In recent years, jihadi websites and articles published in the Yemeni al Qaeda affiliate's magazine have urged Muslims living in Western countries to build improvised explosives from substances easily found in anyone's kitchen. It isn't clear whether Mr. Aldawsari viewed those websites.
Federal authorities have developed tripwires in the private sector that could alert them to terrorism suspects who are seeking to buy ingredients for explosives. For instance, companies that sell chemicals often used in hair products are required to maintain records and report suspicious customer purchases.
James T. Jacks, the U.S. attorney in Dallas, credited the information supplied by the public with thwarting Mr. Aldawsari.
Mr. Aldawsari's alleged plot was derailed in part by what appear to be his own missteps. According to the FBI, he sent himself bomb recipes through email accounts that were monitored by investigators. He also allegedly maintained a personal journal, which FBI agents copied during searches of his apartment.
The criminal complaint alleges that Mr. Aldawsari emailed himself a list of possible targets for attack, including the Dallas address of former President Bush, reservoirs and dams in Colorado and California, nuclear-power plants and Dallas nightclubs.
Mr. Aldawsari also researched realistic-looking baby dolls, which the FBI alleges he considered using to hide explosives.
In one journal entry, the suspect said the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks produced a "big change" in his thinking and that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden, according to the FBI.
Another journal entry cited by the FBI is alleged to read in Arabic: "I excelled in my studies in high school in order to take advantage of an opportunity for a scholarship to America, offered by the [Saudi] government and its companies....Now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives, and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for jihad."
A Jan. 12 email Mr. Aldawsari sent himself was characterized by the FBI as "a simplified lesson on how to booby trap a vehicle with items that are readily available in every home."
Mr. Aldawsari was enrolled at Texas Tech University in Lubbock before transferring to South Plains. Jimmy Woods, a sophomore at Texas Tech who took a chemical-engineering seminar with Mr. Aldawsari, described him as a dedicated student who always showed up for homework-group meetings.
"He seemed like a normal kid to me, scared about being away from home for the first time," said Mr. Woods, who met Mr. Aldawsari when they were both freshmen in the fall of 2009. "It's not like I ever suspected him to be a terrorist."
Mr. Aldawsari always came to class cleanly shaven and with his hair combed, Mr. Woods recalled, and seemed shy. In the photo released by the FBI, "he looked like a different person," Mr. Woods said.
WSJ
posted by madtom at 9:32 PM
1 Comments:
Professulas love foreign students because they are servile and do not make the professulas work for their paycheck. The professullas don’t care about students, they only care about their grant grubbing parasitism at taxpayer expense. They want all their students to be commy nutty ochronosers like Obama, not get real jobs. So many foreign born professullas fled to the USA because we are better but then they have the audacity to insist we become like the places they fled.
UPI June 6, 1992 Sovern took over at Columbia after student protests of 1968 and New York's fiscal problems in the '70s resulted in less financial support for the school, a situation made more dire by recent federal government budget cuts. . . But Columbia will be looking for a new president in a period troubled by criticism for destroying records that were being reviewed for improprieties. Universities in general have been under greater scrutiny for how they charge the government for federally sponsored research.
Surely Joking Feynamn p 215 "If I ask you a question during the lecture, afterwards everybody will be telling me, 'What are you wasting our time for in the class? We're trying to learn something. And you're stopping him by asking a question'."
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San Jose Mercury News June 26, 2006 Monday Tech visas come with obligation for valley leaders Mike Langberg Pg. 1 Norman S. Matloff, a professor of computer science at UC-Davis and a longtime H-1B critic, counters that claims of low unemployment among engineers don't count underemployment... A former software engineer now working as a teacher or a real estate agent doesn't count in the statistics... employers unwilling to hire older engineers, even if they've retrained themselves... The AFL-CIO, in a February position paper, argued that H-1Bs and other loopholes allow employers ``to turn permanent jobs into temporary jobs.
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