"Washington - A Pakistani-born man (Farooque Ahmed) has been arrested for a plot to bomb subway stations in and around Washington DC on Wednesday.
The Virginia man was indicted on charges that he attempted to aid what he thought were al-Qaida operatives in planning the bombings of several subway stations in the Washington area, according to a Washington Post report."
Britton/AP
Photo taken by Virginia neighbor of ex-New Yorker Farooque Ahmed shows federal agents poised to raid the terror suspect's home.
"Ahmed wanted to kill as many military personnel as possible," the complaint alleges.
Ahmed is the second would-be terrorist from Staten Island arrested this week. Abdel Hameed Shehadeh was charged Tuesday with lying to the feds about attempts to join the Taliban.
For some reason, the above quote is not used very much and "METRO riders" replaces "military personnel".
Other items from the story - In Staten Island, he was registered as a Republican in 2002 (note: something not unheard of from radicals trying to stay below the radar) - His wife, Sahar Mirza, ran the Northern Virginia Meetup.Com group Hip Muslim Moms, under the banner of Moderate Muslim Moms. Some reports say she is from Birmingham, England.
- Farooque Ahmed is the son of a retired Pakistani bank executive.
- Farooque Ahmed is reported to have a LinkedIn profile that matches this one.
In predictable form, Salon asks: Did the FBI cook up a fake bomb plot? without so much as a peek at the FBI's legal complaint. They continue to poo-poo several of the pending cases against alleged terrorists. At least they stop short of theorizing that the FBI placed the gun in the hand of MAJ Hasan to cook up a fake shooting spree.
I agree with others, like Joshua Pundit, that a radical wahabi imam/mosque connection is in this story somewhere waiting to be revealed.
Hat tip to the Chris Plante show (follow him on Twitter). I was hearing bits about the new terror threats in the news and Chris is tying it all together today.
"A senior US official said that while there is a "credible" threat, no specific time or place is known. President Obama has been briefed about the threat, say senior US officials.
Intelligence and law enforcement authorities in the US and Europe said the threat information is based on the interrogation of a suspected German terrorist allegedly captured on his way to Europe in late summer and now being held at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan.
US law enforcement officials say they have been told the terrorists were planning a series of "Mumbai-style" commando raids on what were termed "economic or soft" targets in the countries. Pakistani militants killed 173 people with guns and grenades during the 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India."
Farther into the article:
"The new threat to France, and to Germany and Britain and the U.S., is coming from Pakistan, according to intelligence officials. The captured German reportedly said several teams of attackers, all with European passports, had been trained and dispatched from training camps in Waziristan and Pakistan. Officials say the German claimed the attack plan had been approved by Osama Bin Laden.
US intelligence officials said they believed an attack on American soil was more likely to come from terrorists connected to the al Qaeda group in Yemen, known as AQAP, al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula."
A photo from the article shows a Jihadi
wearing the latest US Army camouflage.
"In the last four years, dozens of German citizens have been recruited to train in al Qaeda-connected camps in Pakistan, according to US and German law enforcement officials. German language jihadi videos on the internet help to attract more trainees.
"Some are German converts, many are Turks, many are Arabs," said Guido Steinberg, a counter-terrorism analyst at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. "Right now we already have the first Afghans and even Iranians in these circles. It's a very mixed bunch of people -- quite international."
"The American authorities are extremely nervous about what is going on, the Germans are extremely nervous about what's going on," said Steinberg.
"The advantage, of course, is the passport," said Steinberg, "because with the German passport it's a lot easier to travel.""
Fair use does not do justice to the ABC coverage. Stop by their site and read the whole thing.
Meanwhile in Georgia, USA tractor trailers were being stopped and inspected at an elevated rate:
(h/t Chris Plante and wizbang)
"DOUGLAS COUNTY, Ga. -- A team of federal agents stopped tractor-trailers on Interstate 20 just west of Atlanta, inspecting each truck as it passed through a weigh station, and Channel 2 has learned its part of a counter-terrorism operation.
Channel 2's Linda Stouffer reported a flashing sign on the interstate directed the trucks to pull into a state-owned inspection station near Lee Road in Douglas County at the height of the evening commute.Channel 2 Action News confirmed that agents from several federal agencies, including Homeland Security, the Department of Transportation, and the Transportation Security Administration were involved. The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office assisted in the exercise."
Someone called into the Chris Plante show (did not get on the air) and reported that certain classes of trucks used in landscaping ind delivery were being stopped at an increased rate inside the Washington, DC beltway.
Perhaps unrelated, this blog was receiving odd traffic from Atlanta and Albuquerque in early September. It resumed this week from Ashburn, Virginia.
