[lit-ideas] Roll Call of Really Stupid Terrorists
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 14 Oct 2005 14:06:49 -0400
from Andy's buddy, Daniel Pipes' Web site:
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3005
One would think Mahmoud Maawad, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from
Egypt living in Memphis, Tenn., would lay low and stay out of
trouble. But no, he defiantly did just the opposite.
He used a fake Social Security number to open a bank account,
arrange for household utilities, and enroll at the University of
Memphis business school. He worked off-the-books at a convenience
store and in early 2005 sold alcohol to a minor, for which he was
arrested. And then, in mid-2005, he ordered US$3,300 worth of
airline-related goods from Sporty's Pilot Shop, including such items
as an airline pilot's uniform, a flight gear bag, a radio
communications handbook, and an instructional DVD titled "How an
Airline Captain Should Look and Act."
To top it off, he placed the order on an overdrawn credit card.
Sporty's, not surprisingly, informed the FBI about Mr. Maawad's
order and federal agents searched his apartment in September. There
they found flight simulation software and detailed information on
Memphis International Airport. Mr. Maawad was then indicted for wire
fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.
While it's far from established that Maawad had terrorism on his
mind, his actions are sufficiently suspicious to enroll him as an
honorary member in my newly created "Stupid Terrorists Club." He
joins plenty of others.
* Mohammed Salameh, the terrorist who returned to the
rental agency in 1993 to retrieve the $400 deposit he had paid on a
truck subsequently used to blow up the World Trade Center. His
penny-pinching lead to his own capture and that of several other
bombers.
* Zacarias Moussaoui, thought to have been the would-be
20th hijacker of the September 11, 2001, attacks, was sitting in
jail on that date because his disheveled and impoverished appearance
at a flight instruction school was so discordant ("there's really
something wrong with this guy") that two of its staff phoned the
FBI. In April 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six counts of
conspiracy to commit terrorism.
* Michael Wagner, an African-American convert to Islam
associated with Al-Qaeda, did not wear a seat belt and that got him
stopped by the police in July 2004 near Council Bluffs, Iowa. His
car contained "flight training manuals and a simulator, documents in
Arabic, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles, a night-vision
scope for a rifle, a telescope, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and
hundreds of rounds of ammunition."
* Zaynab Khadr, accused by Canadian authorities of having
"willingly participated and contributed both directly and indirectly
towards enhancing the ability of Al Qaeda to facilitate its criminal
activities," returned to Canada in February with a computer chock
full of documents that the authorities say "provide insights into
the tactics, techniques and procedures" of Al-Qaeda and other groups.
* Sami Ibrahim Isa Abdel Hadi, 39, was stopped in May for
tailgating in Ridgefield Park, N.J. When a police officer called in
Abdel Hadi's North Carolina license plates, he learned that Abdel
Hadi had been ordered deported to Brazil in December 2001 and is
listed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. Even
more alarmingly, he had a valid temporary identity card permitting
him to paint the George Washington Bridge (a high-profile potential
terrorist target).
* When an accused Los Angeles terror gang, the Assembly of
Authentic Islam, needed money for arms, it robbed gas stations
rather than obtain funds legally. One of its holdup artists dropped
a mobile phone during a June robbery, which the police retrieved and
used to unravel the plot and arrest the conspirators.
Other famous dumb terrorists include Yu Kikumura, a member of the
Japanese Red Army whose odd behavior prompted a search of his car at
a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop in April 1988, turning up three
powerful bombs. Or Timothy McVeigh, apprehended in April 1995 after
bombing the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people,
because his car lacked a license plate.
Counterterrorism is a difficult business, so it is fortunate that
terrorists often act dumb.
Why can't they keep out of trouble until the big day? In part,
because terrorists, like other criminals, are usually not the
sharpest knives in the drawer; and in part because their ideology
and hatred cause them to disdain the enemy, leading them to take
unnecessary risks.
As a result, the rest of us are a little bit safer.
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