The Discerning Texan

PVC pipe filled with homemade "low-grade explosive mixture'' and a videotape instruction for turning a remote-controlled toy car into a detonator were among the items found in the car driven by two University of South Florida students arrested in South Carolina and now facing federal explosives charges, according to a federal prosecutor.

A judge set bail at $200,000 for one of the defendants, Youssef Megahed, but the government immediately appealed, which means Megahed will remain in custody.

Earlier in the court hearing Friday, an assistant U.S attorney outlined the evidence confiscated from the car driven by Megahed and another suspended USF student -- describing a container and three pipes filled with a low-grade explosive mixture.

The list also included a videotape that instructs viewers on how to convert a toy electric car into a detonator. Defendant Ahmed Mohamed has admitted making the tape, and in it he says he intended the instruction "to save one who wants to be a martyr for another battle,'' said federal prosecutor Jay Hoffer. Click here for complete coverage of the case.

Hoffer told a federal magistrate today that the government believed Youssef Megahed should be detained because he is a danger to the community and a flight risk. He itemized what South Carolina authorities found in the trunk of a car he and Mohamed were driving that concerned them.

Those items included: three pieces of PVC piping that were filled with a mixture of potassium nitrate, Karo syrup and cat litter. Federal authorities called it a potassium nitrate low-grade explosive mixture, and said they also found more of that mixture in a separate container in the trunk.

Additionally they found an electric drill, a box of .22 caliber bullets, a five gallon container filled with gasoline and 23 feet of safety fuse.

FBI analysts said the explosive mixture met the definition for a low-grade explosive. Hoffer said many of the items had been purchased locally, in and around Tampa, by Mohamed.

They also found a laptop computer in the men's car. On the laptop they found a 12-minute video on which a man shows how to turn a radio-controlled toy car into a remote-controlled detonator, Hoffer said.

Mohamed admits that it is him in the video, although you cannot see his face, Hoffer said.

In the video, Mohamed said that he was showing how to make such a device "to save one who wants to be a martyr for another battle,'' Hoffer said.

Mohamed also makes reference to a toy boat in the video. ...

Labels: Homegrown Jihad, Islamic Fascism, Media Bias, Terrorism

Labels: Communism, Hugo Chavez, Mexico, Socialism, Terrorism

Labels: Al Qaeda, Europe, Germany, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: 9/11, Homeland Security, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: 9/11, 9/11 Truthers, America War Support, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Earlier today, three individuals were arrested in Germany on terrorism related charges. Information came out slowly, but we now know significantly more about the suspects, what they were planning to do and what organization they work for. One of the most frightening aspects about this case is that two of the three suspects are native Germans. The other suspect is not German, but neither is he from the Middle East. In fact, he is from Turkey.

Fritz G., Daniel S. and Adem Y. were reportedly planning to blow up Frankfurt’s international airport, which is Germany’s biggest airport. In addition, the three terrorists planned to hit several American targets in Germany, including the Ramstein Air Base. It should be noted that these attacks were not planned on a small-scale. According to German authorities, the three men wanted to use chemical bombs for the attacks.

German police and the American Secret Service were closely watching the three suspects since March of this year. It seems that the Islamic Jihad Union created a cell in Germany back in December 2006, whose goal was to commit terrorist attacks and recruit new members for the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist organization. In March, the three suspects truly started preparing for the terrorist attack. They worked on the bombs meant for the attacks in a holiday apartment in Medebach-Oberschledorn, which is in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

When the German police understood – through wiretapping and email surveilance – that the three had no intention to call off the plans and had started building chemical bombs, they acted. Police units forced their way into the vacation home where the three were located and arrested them. One was able to flee, but not for long: A police officer used his gun to detain him. When the police looked at the material found at the sight, they saw that Fritz, Daniel and Adem had collected 730 kilograms of explosive materials. The same type of chemical bombs were used in the London bombings, but they were a lot smaller: only some 3 to 5 kilograms.

While the small bombs used in the Madrid and London attacks caused tremendous damage and many deaths, the plans of those arrested in Germany would have resulted in something more like 9/11. According to German sources, the bomb would have consisted of some 550 kilograms of TNT. For American readers, that’s about 1200 pounds. The chemicals they had in their possession are based on hydrogen peroxide. Although it is, according to experts, fairly difficult to use this substance for a bomb, it is quite effective once successful.

Labels: Europe, Germany, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: Iran, Islamic Fascism, Military Strategy, Nuclear, Terrorism

Labels: Homeland Security, Media Bias, Terrorism

For thousands of years, besieging armies sought to cut the water supplies to walled cities to break down their resistance. No matter how brave, a warrior could not fight without water, and the women and children he defended could not live long without it. The 21st-century-warfare version of depriving a city of water will be to deny entire states the ability to process, protect, and communicate information.

The astonishing thing about last spring's alleged Russian cyberattack wasn't the crippling effect it had on Estonian's government and the lives of its citizens but the lack of serious reaction elsewhere. The European Union raised but one scolding finger, NATO sent a few experts to the Baltic nation, and the US protested mildly and briefly — then President Bush welcomed Putin to the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. In fact, as the world witnessed the trial run of a new mode of warfare, pundits at The New York Times and other publications dismissed the digital assault on the tiny nation as much ado about nothing. Those what-me-worry voices miss three critical points:

First, Estonia's advanced state as an e-society makes it appear uniquely vulnerable, but a full-scale cyber attack on the US could be far more devastating. Beyond the at-risk civilian sector, our armed forces rely on digitized information and communications to fuel their high tech hardware. If petroleum was the indispensable asset that decided campaigns in World War II, today the key is a military's ability to collect, compute, communicate, and shoot. If the computers don't work, the bombs don't strike their targets.

Insiders acknowledge that the Department of Defense is worried about the vulnerability of its networks and weapons systems, and defensive security is being tightened. At the same time, officials are developing offensive methods, though these black programs are classified. Still, the Pentagon doesn't seem to fully grasp the dangerous potential of this new domain of warfare. If you follow defense- budget dollars, funding still goes overwhelmingly to cold war era legacy systems meant to defeat Soviet tank armies, not Russian e-brigades.

Second, in an all-out conflict, digital attacks would not occur in a vacuum. A basic military law is that all weapons are most effective when used in incisive combinations with others. In a major war, Beijing would also attempt to physically destroy the satellites our forces rely on to communicate, find the enemy, and guide precision weapons. Whether attacking military targets or civilian systems, the Chinese would combine virtual destruction with actual destruction.

Read the rest.

Labels: Cyberwar, Technology, Terrorism

Labels: Homegrown Jihad, Homeland Security, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: Russia, Terrorism

Labels: Russia, Terrorism

... Even in the very unlikely case that a nuclear weapon did end up in terrorist hands, it would be a single horrible incident, rather than an ongoing threat. The same is true of dirty bombs, which disperse radioactive material through conventional explosives. No, the real long-term danger from small groups is the use of biotechnology to build weapons of mass destruction. In contrast with nuclear technology, biotech’s knowledge and tools are already widely dispersed—and their power is increasing exponentially.

The biotech field is in the middle of a massive improvement in productivity through advances in computing power. In fact, the curves of improvement that we see in biotechnology mirror the rates of improvement in computing dictated by Moore’s Law—the observation, borne out by decades of experience, that the ratio of performance to price of computing power doubles every 24 months. This means that incredible power will soon be in the hands of individuals. University of Washington engineer Robert Carlson observes that if current trends in the rate of improvement in DNA sequencing continue, “within a decade a single person at the lab bench could sequence or synthesize all the DNA describing all the people on the planet many times over in an eight-hour day.” And with ever tinier, cheaper, and more widely available tools, a large and decentralized industrial base that is hiring lab techs at a double-digit growth rate, and the active transfer of knowledge via the Internet (the blueprints of the entire smallpox virus now circulate on the Web), biotech is too widely available for us to contain it.

In less than a decade, then, biotechnology will be ripe for the widespread development of weapons of mass destruction, and it fits the requirements of small-group warfare perfectly. It is small, inexpensive, and easy to manufacture in secret. Also, since dangerous biotechnology is based primarily on the manipulation of information, it will make rapid progress through the same kind of amateur tinkering that currently produces new computer viruses. Terrorists also have a growing advantage in delivering bioweapons. The increasing porousness of national borders, size of global megacities, and volume of air travel all mean that the delivery and percolation of bioweapons will be fast-moving and widespread—potentially on several continents at once.

It is almost certain that we will see repeated, perhaps incessant, attempts to deploy bioweapons with new strains of viruses or bacteria. Picture a Russian biohacker who, a decade from now, designs a new, deadly form of the common flu virus and sells it on the Internet, just as computer viruses and worms get sold today. The terrorist group that buys the design sends it to a recently hired lab tech in Pakistan, who performs the required modifications with widely available tools. The product then ships by mail to London, to the awaiting “suicide vectors”—men who infect themselves and then board airplanes headed to world destinations, infecting passengers on the planes and in crowded terminals. The infection spreads quickly, going global in days—long before anyone detects it.

It’s very possible that many cities will fall in the face of such deadly threats. Megacities in the developing world—which often, because of their rapid growth, widespread corruption, and illegitimate governance, aren’t able to provide security or basic services for their citizens—are particularly vulnerable. However, cities in the developed world that properly appreciate the threats arrayed against them may devise startlingly innovative solutions. ...

Labels: Afghanistan, Democrat Sabotage, Iraq, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Clipped from michellemalkin.com

Well, you can't say I didn't predict this (I did). Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed and Yousef Samir Megahed--the Smiling Mugshot "Just Fireworks" Muslim terrorists--are tied to Islamic Jihad founder and American frontman, Sami Al-Arian.

Surprise. Surprise. In investigating Pipe Bomb possessors, Mohamed and Megahed, the FBI searched a house owned by a man who now occupies a house owned by Sami Al-Arian co-conspirator and co-defendant, Palestinian Islamic Jihad official Sameeh Hammoudeh. Sounds confusing, but that's how they work. Like the Mob, terrorist groups have a million interlocking companies, directorates, and property (including houses).

Labels: Homegrown Jihad, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Two probably but not certainly unrelated stories for you here, starting with the dumber one first. The NYPD was on full alert for a dirty bomb last night thanks to a report of jihadi chatter from … Debkafile, whose credibility is so low that I actually had people snarking at me in the comments after I posted their item in headlines. The cops had no choice but to take it seriously, obviously, and in their defense some of the chatter was awfully specific:

Police confirmed the increased security was in response to receiving information that a dirty bomb may go off around 34th street in Manhattan Friday evening.

The Empire State Building, New York City’s tallest building, Madison Square Garden and Macy’s department store are in the 34th Street neighborhood.

Say, didn’t Al Qaeda’s camps empty out before 9/11, too?

Dan Riehl asked me that last night in response to yesterday’s post about the Roggio’s scoop. Answer, per the 9/11 Commission report: a-yup.

Labels: Al Qaeda, Homegrown Jihad, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

As an American-born spokesman for Al Qaeda threatens to blow up American embassies abroad, intelligence gleaned from last month's British "doctors plot" of car bombers suggests that a Qaeda cell is on the loose in the American homeland.

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.

"Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States," the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. "This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well." But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms.

Labels: Al Qaeda, Homegrown Jihad, Homeland Security, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism, UK

State authorities in South Carolina are saying there will be a press conference later this morning to announce charges. The FBI, meanwhile, seems to be throwing cold water on the whole incident — sometimes they do that because it really is a false alarm, but they have also been known, much like the mainstream media, to understate things when Muslims are involved, so we'll just have to see.

Here's what I think the reporting indicates at this point. In the late evening on Saturday, two non-Americans of Middle Eastern descent, Ahmed Mohamed and Yousef Megahed, who appear to be in the U.S. to pursue engineering studies in Florida, were pulled over for speeding in a van on Highway 176 in Goose Creek, near Charleston, South Carolina. Goose Creek is home to the United States Naval Weapons Station, which, among other things, houses the brig where some U.S. citizens alleged to be unlawful enemy combatants have been held.

One of the men reportedly tried to hide a laptop computer. Police became suspicious. Eventually, the vehicle was searched. Initially, there was a report that one completed bomb and other explosives related compounds were found. Later reports indicate that police found PVC (polyvinyl Chloride) piping (which can be used in making pipe bombs but also has many other industrial uses), model rocket motors (model rocket engine igniters can also be used as charges for pipe bombs), and other "suspicious" materials which have not been revealed yet (to make pipe bombs you would need some kind of explosive substance).

Police closed the highway for several hours, well into Sunday morning. Moreover, at about 2:45 a.m., they did a controlled detonation of something — not yet described although it apparently sounded to witnesses like fireworks.

John Little has an update - FBI results on explosives due back in a day, or two.

According to the latest, one of the young men arrested in South Carolina was from Egypt and the other from Kuwait, and they could be looking at from 2 - 15 years. No word on any potential immigration charges. But drivers might want to make a note, it probably isn't a good idea to be speeding with a laptop computer and some other suspicious items in your trunk, especially when you're about ten miles away from two Nuclear Submarines. According to a reader, they are training vessels: (Moored Training Ships, MTSs), for the Naval Nuclear Power Training Unit at Charleston. Below is the description via Google Earth. The site is 12 miles from where they were arrested and in the direction from which they were driving.

Here is a very well guarded nuclear sub base up the Cooper River, north of Charleston SC. I found these subs up close during a Waverunner trip down the Cooper. I rode a bit too close to them, and was turned away by gunboats in the river, on guard 24/7. They are teeny fron this perspective, but when you are in the river with them... they are huge!!!! They are painted black, and are at the dock. There are two of them. You will also see the gunboats in the river, and the HUGE dockside hangar, that they are housed in at times. Hope you like this... and yes.. it must be a deep river!!!

If convicted of the charges, Youseff Megahed, 21, and Ahmed Mohamed, 24, could face between 2 to 15 years in prison.

DeWitt said the men were pulled over Saturday night on U.S. Highway 176 while driving more than 60 mph in a 45-mph zone. When an officer approached the car, he saw one of them men fold a laptop computer, which the officer believed was suspicious, DeWitt said.

The officer asked them if he could search the car, which the men agreed to. When he asked if there was anything in the car he should know about, the men said there were fireworks in the trunk.

Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed, 24, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been charged by authorities in South Carolina with possession of an incendiary advice, a felony punishable by at least two and up to fifteen years' imprisonment. AP quotes the sheriff as saying: "They admitted to having what they said were fireworks. Based on the officer's judgment at hand, based on what he had seen, we judged it to be other than fireworks." Authorities remain tight-lipped about exactly what they found in the car. Their bomb technicians did detonate something seized from the car at 2:45 a.m. Sunday.

The two are engineering students at the University of South Florida's campus at Tampa — the same school where Prof. Sami al-Arian, while a computer science professor USF's College of Engineering, was running an outpost of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization. Al-Arian pled guilty in 2006 to conspiring to provide services to PIJ.

Labels: Homegrown Jihad, Islam, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: Al Qaeda, Homegrown Jihad, Islamic Fascism, Terrorism

Labels: Cartoons, Democrat Sabotage, Hearts and Minds, Terrorism

Labels: Bush Derangement Syndrome, Islamic Fascism, Nutroots, Terrorism, The Left