Aug 13 2006
Cell Phones Tied To Attack On Bridge
The case of the three Texas men arrested on terrorism charges with hundreds of cell phones is going to be one to watch. Prosecutors are not shying away from their claim these men were part of an effort to take down a major bridge:
Tuscola County prosecutors have filed terrorism-related charges against three Texas men they say bought dozens of cell phones Friday in Caro in a globally coordinated plot to bring down the Mackinac Bridge.
They charged brothers Adham Abdelhamid Othman, 21, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman, 23, along with their cousin, Maruan Awad Muhareb, 18, with identical counts of collecting material to support terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target with intent to commit terrorism.
Prosecutor Mark E. Reene wouldn’t confirm what evidence led him to believe the Dallas men targeted the bridge.
“All I can say is that the Mackinac Bridge is the target at issue,” he said. “There’s reason to be concerned.”
We seem to have a major threat ongoing here in the US. Clearly, as I said earlier, the places these people were driving to purchase these phones were the kinds of places people went to try and be undetected. And as details come out it is clear that the actions of these people were to try and avoid detection:
Three Palestinian-born suspects are being held on terrorism charges after a Wal-Mart clerk in rural Tuscola County MI alert authorities that the trio had purchased some 80 cell phones. The cell phones were purchased three at a time so as not to tip-off the store, which places a three-phone limit on customers. The cell phones were purchased with cash. The purchases were made at around 2 a.m.
Driving around to out of the way stores and buying phones 3 at time is not some get rich business plan. It is something else entirely and very dangerous since it is in our back yard.
Someone mentioned in another thread here that they didn’t think the cellphones would likely to be used for detonators and listed technical reasons for that. I realized something else yesterday that is important. You can not approach with the mindset of someone who has lived here their whole live and has had access to the technology available here.
These people are usually (apparently) trained/instructed/directed from Pakistan. They are using methods and materials they have been trained to use and build things as they have been trained to build them. They are probably going to use items available to their Pakistani trainers, not technology generally available only in highly developed Western countries.
So if bombs in Pakistan, Iraq, India, Spain, etc. were build using cell phone detonators, then we should expect to see the same here as these people are getting their instruction from the same groups of people.
At the moment, in order to gain the mindset of what we are likely to see, one has to look at things from the perspective of what is taught in Pakistani terrorist training camps, not what is available here.
Cross Patch – I agree – the ROW (REST OF WORLD) must be laughing at the naive USA citizens -we are incapable of understanding the mentality of a suicide bomber !! We are ignoring the FACT that we are AT WAR !!! WHAT WOULD BE WRONG if we BEGAN profiling young men of middle eastern origin residing in the US on some sort of student visa or other scam permitting them to live here and conduct their terrorist activities. I say who are we kidding ?? Round them up and ship them back to the Country they came from – why should we allow them to attend our wonderful universities ?? If they are serious about wanting to live here permanently they can apply for citizenship. But – we must be crazy to allow unfettered access to our country on a 4 year student visa to radical islamic militants. And lets NOT dignify the discussion of the group just arrested with $11,000 in cash and 1,000 sophisticated clandestine communication and Explosive detonation devices by referring to them as cell phones ………….puhhleeeaaassse !!!
For us to believe that there was anything but an evil intent
behind these huge amounts of cash and devices is to be assuming we are in peacetime and as I said before – the Radical Islamics have declared WAR on the US and Israel – and all who do NOT belive as they do. They are bent on a return to Midevil methods where Women are treated as property and used and disposed as the Men see fit.
Wake up and smell the coffee – they are out to kill us and raise our kids, sitting cross legged in the dirt rocking back and forth reading the Koran over and over. Brainwashed ….
to their way of seeing the world.
I was just told by my friend in Michigan that Sept. 4th is the one day that folks can walk across the Macinac Bridge. My friend says that thousands will be walking across the bridge.
Some comments on blogs I have looked at on this story claim the phone resale business is alive and well on Ebay and that the components bring prices that are unreal.
I question this in that you have the initial phone price, the markup to the “field reps” gathering the parts, the cut ebay takes off the sale of the parts and the shipping cost of the parts would not seem to make economic sense. Any resulting profit margin would have to be rather thin to say the least.
Also it occurs to me that if for example all you really wanted to resell was the batteries, it would be easier to setup a contract with a battery maker to give you batteries at wholesale rather than having to deal with all the other overhead costs.
Results from Ebay loooky see
Tracphone sim cards in bulk 0.20 a piece
http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-NEW-Unused-Non-Activated-TRACFONE-SIM-CARD-2K-LOT_W0QQitemZ320014779059QQihZ011QQcategoryZ48501QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
multiple links for batteries in the 4 – 8 dollar range.
The economic model just doesn’t seem to work.
Kudos, Crosspatch, good catch! You’re right, of course, and I wish I’d thought of that.
Another angle to the economic model, Merlin, they initially claimed they were selling them to ‘some guy in Dearborn,’ then changed it to ‘some guy in Texas.’ Aside from the obvious, why some guy in Dearborn or Texas would pay more then the wholesale cost of buying regular supply lots direct from the distributors or manufacturer, there’s the Dearborn (Michigan) as “hotspot” in terms of Muslim presence. Trying to deflect attention away from Dearborn (as a second thought) is, I think, a bit suspicious by itself.
I’m not sure of the date, Vadkin, but there is an annual BIG day of pedestrian bridge-crossing at Mackinac — my sister and her extended family have been doing that walk for over 30 years, with the toddlers she pushed across in strollers now pushing their own toddlers and, in one case, one of her toddler’s toddlers now pushing a toddler.
A lot of families, multiple generations. If that’s what the Islamofascists have in mind, it is monstrous.