Video: The new home-grown terrorist threat?
posted at 8:40 am on February 24, 2012 by Ed Morrissey
There’s nothing quite like sitting down with your first cup of coffee, and then watching a national news story about how your own city is a central location for recruiting home-grown Islamic terrorists. CNN reports on the growth of American influence on the Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab and their growing partnership with al-Qaeda. The report focuses on the recruitment of Americans in Somalian immigrant groups for terrorism and includes footage of recruiter/leader Omar Hamaam al-Ameriki — of Alabama. But for those of us who live in the Twin Cities, this isn’t new at all:
We’ve been writing about this for almost five years at Hot Air. It was over three years ago that a Twin Cities recruit conducted a suicide bombing in Somalia, after being radicalized at a local mosque. More than twenty young Somalian men disappeared from Minneapolis, and the Somalian immigrant community has been working with the FBI to find them and end terrorist recruitment. In fact, they publicly protested against CAIR when the Muslim interest group tried to bully them into non-cooperation; they have been very cooperative in attempting to keep their children from getting entangled in the civil wars they fled. The FBI conducted raids on cash-transfer shops suspected of funding terrorist recruitment, the DoJ indicted eight men here, and then even more around the country, including in Hamaam’s native state of Alabama.
Not much has transpired since then, except for the continued press for recruits from al-Shabaab. The real danger for the US is that the recruits could easily re-enter the US and conduct terrorist attacks, although that has not yet happened — and as CNN notes, al-Shabaab has not had much success in conducting attacks in their own region, let alone back in the US. That doesn’t mean we should not remain vigilant, and CNN’s report is a good reminder to keep our focus on this threat.
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To be fair, “attacking” a reservoir is massive undertaking…It’s not exactly like you are putting cyan!de into Aunt Esther’s lemonade. Any adulteration involves a massive volume of chemicals and an equally complex means to mix those chemicals into a fairly substantial volume of water.
JFKY on May 16, 2013 at 2:00 PM
Obama said today that he does NOT support an Independet Counsel being appointed for ANY of the scandals….
The bottom line is if Holder des not call for an Independent Counsel it will NOT HAPPEN, they will be able to get away with all of it, & there is nothing anyone can do about it.
easyt65 on May 16, 2013 at 2:01 PM
:) not yours as in ‘you voted for him’ :), of course not… ‘your preezy’ (and mine too, I suspect, but then I’m in denial :) as in your (and our) collective curse…but only for 2 more years or so…I’m looking fwd to the last two lame duck years of his preezydency…
jimver on May 16, 2013 at 2:04 PM
I think Jon Stewart needs to add to that skit decrying government incompetence highlighted on the Internet a day or two ago.
This is the stuff government needs to be worrying about. Not people wearing “Don’t Tread on Me” shirts.
WTH is going on in this administration.
BuckeyeSam on May 16, 2013 at 2:05 PM
Obama’s administration / term in office so far:
FAILURE & SCANDAL!
easyt65 on May 16, 2013 at 2:09 PM
Brat, great find. Thanks.
Schadenfreude on May 16, 2013 at 2:10 PM
INCOMPETENCE is the hallmark of this administration. Starting in the Oval Office.
GarandFan on May 16, 2013 at 2:10 PM
Only credible option: crowdsource.
Names, photos, known acquaintences and known addresses.
Time to take your lumps with the rest of them, US Marshalls.
socalcon on May 16, 2013 at 2:12 PM
I hope and pray, most earnestly, that the last years are mired in controversy and scandal….and a painful inability to accomplish much of anything, I prepare for a “good” 2014.
JFKY on May 16, 2013 at 2:13 PM
Well why not? It’s not like they were planning on praying the rosary in front of a Planned Parenthood Clinic or something terroristy like that.
Lily on May 16, 2013 at 2:14 PM
Hmmm, scandal has been a feature of many a president’s second term, even if it boiled over from the first.
Maybe a president should only serve one term. That makes for more than enough potential scandal.
hawkeye54 on May 16, 2013 at 2:15 PM
{facepalm}
socalcon on May 16, 2013 at 2:16 PM
I didn’t know about the IG REPORT…(of course, knowing about what the IRS was doing is another story…)
easyt65 on May 16, 2013 at 2:18 PM
hawkeye54 on May 16, 2013 at 2:15 PM
MAYBE we just shouldn’t elect inexperienced Communist-tutored (Frank Marshall Davis) hate-spewing racist Communist-based Black Liberation theology pastor-mentored (Wright), Socialist Ideologist-quoting (Saul Alinsky) Community Organizers as President, especially one who plans to put a scndal-plagued Eric Holder in charge of the DOJ & a tax cheat in charge of the Treasury?! Just saying…
easyt65 on May 16, 2013 at 2:21 PM
Same here…methinks we are getting a preview of how his last two tears in office will look like…good news is that by then his political capital would have been spent and exhausted, so that his lame duck years will be even lamer…all these scandals will take a toll which makes me really optimistic about 2014…
jimver on May 16, 2013 at 2:29 PM
No we shouldn’t have. But Barry was the perfect stooge at the perfect time for this job. His election was carefully coordinated by a crafty organization and abetted by the LSM. It was certainly an effort he could have never have hoped to coordinate on his own.
A mastermind he is not.
hawkeye54 on May 16, 2013 at 2:30 PM
And don’t they perform daily water test/analysis anyways? you’d think that a basic test would reveal the chemicals that are not supposed to be in there, especially if they are in lethal quantities…it’s not quite the Middle Age with the Borgias or the Medicis poisoning the water wells of their enemies :)…
jimver on May 16, 2013 at 2:37 PM
Probably placed them in a munitions factory…no one would ever look there…
right2bright on May 16, 2013 at 2:51 PM
government is good for you! let’s make it bigger!!
Sachiko on May 16, 2013 at 3:22 PM
Isn’t keeping track of terrorists racist or something?
We’ll have to wait till they join a tea party. Then they’ll find them for sure.
PattyJ on May 16, 2013 at 4:17 PM
Which name: their original one, or the one they use in the WPP?
Or the false one they are going to use once they get fake documents?
AesopFan on May 16, 2013 at 4:21 PM
It’s all a conspiracy to deny Hillary her turn at the wheel. Dirty Mysogynysts.
abobo on May 16, 2013 at 5:47 PM
The problem is that any highly-public “attack” would close smaller/on-site reservoirs until they could be tested, drained, cleaned, tested again, verified, etc. Then the equipment. Then the distribution system (the comical part is realizing where the water from the flushed lines would go.)
The country re-elected Obama. It’s not a stretch that many or most of them would think one gallon of ________ in a 100 million gallon tank would kill them.
rogerb on May 16, 2013 at 8:46 PM
There are two ways to go after a reservoir.
First is the water, but that hasn’t been treated yet so you are unlikely to do much there.
Second is the dam, which is an earthen dike for the Quabbin Reservoir.
I have a t-shirt around here someplace that says: ‘There is no problem that can’t be solved with the suitable application of high explosives.’
ajacksonian on May 16, 2013 at 9:06 PM
“Man arrested at Boise Bench home on terrorism charges…
BOISE — Federal agents have arrested 30-year-old Fazliddin Kurbanov, who was living at a Boise Bench home, as part of a federal terrorism investigation.
The U.S. Attorney says federal terrorism charges were filed Thursday afternoon in Boise and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Kurbanov is an Uzbekistan national and is legally in the United States.
Kurbanov has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Boise on three counts; one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, one count of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and one count of possessing an unregistered destructive device.
A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City also returned an indictment charging Kurbanov with one count of distribution of information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction.
Government officials say this arrest was the culmination of an investigation by the FBI’s Salt Lake Division, which covers Idaho and Utah; and Joint Terrorism Task Forces in Idaho and Utah, which include a number of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.
Federal agents have been closely monitoring Kurbanov’s activities for any potential threat….
KTVB has learned that Kurbanov has a police record here in Idaho. He was pulled over for traffic violations in three different Idaho counties over the past two years.”
http://www.ktvb.com/news/FBI-conducts-investigation-on-Boise-bench-207753341.html
workingclass artist on May 16, 2013 at 9:08 PM
Large amounts of ricin can be fairly easily made, radioactive isotopes in even modest amounts can be detected, and botulin is extremely toxic in small amounts. The entire reservoir need not be made highly lethal; detections of toxicity need only be high enough to close down the reservoir for some time and cause fear or even panic. That’s what terror is about.
Of course, these foreign Muslims from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore were trespassing in the middle of the night only for the purposes of making observations of the water supply for their “education and career interests” , and they are not (as the media is making a point of) known to be connected to criminal groups. So nothing to worry about, move along unless you’re a greasy racist Islamophobe.
Chessplayer on May 17, 2013 at 11:21 AM
The picture in the caption is priceless and says it all!
rjoco1 on May 17, 2013 at 11:28 AM
Just as Ed used the word “unexpected” for months (years?) regarding the growth in unemployment, perhaps the word “Incompetent” should be used with this administration every time one of these incredible messups occurs. It’s time that the truth be told – either this administration is really into “changing America as we know it” – that is, changing America to a hunting ground against decent Americans or it is incredibly incompetent and the word must be used.
Who else is getting their phone tapped?
MN J on May 19, 2013 at 11:07 AM
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