Bring It On!

Homegrown Terrorist Plot Foiled

December 9th, 2006 | by Craig R. Harmon |

Apparently, the war on Christmas has been avoided by good, solid police work (aka, a perp with plans to commit violent jihad told a snitch who told the FBI).

Talib Abu Salam Ibn Shareef, a man from Rockford, Illinois, has been arrested on “one count of attempting to damage or destroy a building by fire or explosion and one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction”. He had agreed to exchange “his stereo speakers … for a gun and four grenades”. He apparently had planned to place the grenades, which had been deactivated without his knowledge, in garbage cans at the CherryVale Shopping Mall.

“I am from America and this tape is to let you guys know, who believe in Allah, to let the enemies of Islam know, and to let the Muslims alike know that the time for jihad is now … be strong, oh Mujahideen … May Allah protect me on this mission we conduct,” he said, according to the affidavit.

You can read the entire affidavit at the first link, above.

So what prompts a man to wish to do something like this? Hatred of Jews, of course, but why hate Jews? His hatred is tied to the Middle East conflicts between Israel and her neighbors. The one thing that is mentioned in the affidavit was the recent Israel/Hezbollah war. It was at that time that Talib first seriously began to go beyond thinking about jihad by looking up Synagogues in the area and planning to stab congregants. So then, the existence of an Israeli state in Palestine, the exile of Palestinian former residents of Jerusalem and elsewhere, illegal confiscation of Palestinian lands and building of Jewish settlements thereupon and America’s one-sided support of Israel in the conflict. The usual. It’s interesting that there’s no mention of Iraq in the affidavit. Was it not a factor in motivating Talid’s murderous plans? Did Talid never mention it? Did he mention it and it was left out? We’ll maybe never know.

So Talib is further evidence that jihad is here in America. There is no mention of Al Qaeda so Talib is, it appears, an independent actor rather than a member of any sort of sleeper cell. That is, this isn’t covered under the Authorization to Use Force that preceded the Afghanistan war. Talib will, I assume, not be sent to Guantanamo Bay but will be tried in criminal court under normal US law rather than by Military Tribunal. He will be accorded, presumably, full constitutional rights.

What surprises me is that only two jihad related attacks have occurred here in the US since 9/11: one using an SUV and the other using a gun. None of them have been related to Al Qaeda, either directly or indirectly. What distinguishes the two successful terrorist attacks from the numerous foiled plots is that they were lone actors who perhaps never told anyone about their planned attacks and who needed no weapons that they did not already have or that they could obtain without outside help. There is a lesson here, perhaps: if you wish to successfully carry out a terrorist act, keep it to yourself and use what is to hand or easily obtainable and what will not raise suspicions.

Does this mean that there are no sleeper cells of Al Qaeda connected and trained agents in the US? Impossible to say. If there are such sleeper cells outside of TV programs like ‘24′, have they refrained from further attacks purposely because it is not yet time? Are they waiting for a signal? Have they simply not found a suitable follow-up to 9/11? Is such a follow-up in the planning stage? I don’t pretend to have any answers. I don’t think that we, as a nation, can simply assume that Al Qaeda or similar groups have given up entirely on further terrorist attacks on the country but the evidence of such organized terror activity has been pretty slim over the last five years.

I suspect that, if America faces a terror threat, that it is likely to be of the sort of the two that have succeeded rather than another 9/11. I suspect that terrorism has moved from acts organized, funded, trained by some centralized leadership to acts by individuals and, at most, a few like-minded individuals who will carry out acts that have been planned by them, financed with whatever funds they can raise on their own or through criminal activity and carried out by them. That’s not to say that such individuals cannot cause damage and lots of deaths, as witness Timothy McVeigh, but it probably means that the sort of well planned and orchestrated attack that we saw on 9/11 is a thing of the past. One can hope because it is unlikely that individuals will be able to carry out a truly catastrophic attack using a nuclear device or dirty bomb or sophisticated biological or chemical agent that would cause tens to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

I just don’t think that we can assume as much.

So what, if anything, would prevent independent actors from carrying out jihadi attacks within the US? Disbanding Israel and dispersal of Jews from Israel would probably go a long way as would removing troops from the Middle East, payment of reparations by the US along with promises to stay out of ME affairs to perpetuity, promising to allow Iran and any other Islamic nation that wishes to, to go nuclear but that’s not realistic as it’s not going to happen.

However, America brokering a peace between Israel and Palestinians and Hezbollah which returned the Sheba Farms, released the many thousands of people detained by Israel, removed all Jewish settlements from lands claimed by Palestinians, returned all of the refugees that have been living in camps for decades to Jerusalem, tore down the wall and returned the borders to their 1967 status might prevent attacks against generalized targets within the US. That is to say, attacks would probably not be carried out in shopping malls where Americans in general were targets. It might not prevent attacks against Jews, synagogues and centers within the US since there might remain anti-Jewish hatred and it might not even prevent generalized attacks that do not target Jews specifically since we were, for so long, abettors of Israel. Even if Israel agreed to all of these things, I doubt that it would stop terrorist attacks in Israel and if such attacks continued, I don’t see how we could avoid returning to the policy of supporting and arming Israel, which would leave us open to attacks again.

Well, I didn’t say that I had an answer to the problem of terrorism. If I did, well, I’d be preparing my acceptance speech for the next Peace Prize, not writing this article for BIO!

Merry Christmas, everyone, or whatever holiday or non-holiday you celebrate at this time of year.

Sphere: Related Content