Major Update: The Blotter has a good round up of the arrests and situations regarding underground purchases of cell phones linked to possible terrorist attacks. Included in this round up is the arrest we noted in Grafton WV (my family’s home town) which clearly indicated to me these groups where trolling the back roads of America to avoid detection. Turns out the early Grafton arrest may be linked to the recent Ohio arrest of two other subjects:

Grafton, W.Va.: Two weeks ago a 24-year old Arabic man, Hashem Sayed, was arrested with nearly 200 cell phones, according to local police. Sayed is currently being investigated for suspected terrorism-related activity and is allegedly connected to two other men arrested in Marietta, Ohio.

Marietta, Ohio: Last week, two Michigan men of Lebanese descent were charged with money laundering and aiding of terrorism. The suspects, 20-year old Osma Sabhi Abulhassan and 20-year old Ali Houssaiky are residents of Dearborn, Mich., which is over 300 miles away.

…

Grafton, W.Va.: Two weeks ago a 24-year old Arabic man, Hashem Sayed, was arrested with nearly 200 cell phones, according to local police. Sayed is currently being investigated for suspected terrorism-related activity and is allegedly connected to two other men arrested in Marietta, Ohio.

Marietta, Ohio: Last week, two Michigan men of Lebanese descent were charged with money laundering and aiding of terrorism. The suspects, 20-year old Osma Sabhi Abulhassan and 20-year old Ali Houssaiky are residents of Dearborn, Mich., which is over 300 miles away.

It is going to be really ironic if the United States of America is going to avoid a terrorist attack because of Wal Mart policies and true blue vigilant American’s living in deep fly over country. But what is clear is this is not some isolated event. There is little money to be made this way when bulk purchases are just as easy and incur less travel and hotel costs to eat away at the supposed profits.

End Update

It seems the men who were buying all these cell phones in Michigan (only to return to Texas and pay for gas and hotel accomodations out of their “profits”) had images and video of the Mackinac bridge in their posession (see here and here). Normally that migh be nothing more than tourist-type stuff, unless they men lied about where they had been or the pictures were close up of the structure. Even more so if the pictures where from the water (then add to the expenses the cost of a boat tour of the bridge). The alibi’s are starting to fall apart – but this sentence buried in one news story really made me sit up and take notice:

“The cell phones can be used as detonators. Batteries can be disassembled and used to make methamphetamine. Obviously there’s something wrong here,” Caro Police Chief Ben Page said.

He said police in communities throughout Michigan have reported purchases of large numbers of cell phones by males of Middle Eastern descent during the past two months.

How many of these have been happening? Why all males of ME descent? Is this the tip of the iceberg? Was the Zawahiri comment about two attacks and the UK intel about attacks on land and air meant to be land attacks in the US land while the air attack was out of the UK?