The Terror Nobody Knows: Thwarted Attacks on the U.S.

[austin552]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,335498,00.html

In July 2005, the Los Angeles Police Department caught a group of men who had been robbing gas stations in the area. While investigating, police uncovered something far worse: The gas station hits were bankrolling a terrorist plot to attack National Guard facilities, synagogues, the Israeli consulate and Los Angeles International Airport.

Deputy Chief of Police Michael Downing said the group was "closer to going operational at the time than anyone since 9/11."

Thomas P. O'Brien, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said, "An untold number of lives may have been saved when this terrorist cell was dismantled."

This story is hardly unique: Since 9/11, authorities have disrupted more than 20 publicly known plots against domestic U.S. targets, involving dozens of arrests at home and abroad.

Some of these plots are well known, such as Richard Reid's failed "shoe bombing" in December 2001 and the liquid explosives plot of 2006, when British investigators uncovered a plan to carry bombs on airliners bound for the U.S. Each of those incidents permanently changed airport security protocols.

Then there was the plot to kill U.S. soldiers using assault rifles and grenades at Fort Dix in New Jersey, and the so-called "Lackawanna Six," who pleaded guilty to providing support to Al Qaeda.

But others have passed by with little notice from the general public, as well as critics of government efforts to protect the U.S. from homegrown terror attacks.

• Terrorists and their targets

Take, for example, Iyman Faris, of Columbus, Ohio, who plotted to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and was convicted of conspiracy and providing material support for Al Qaeda in 2003.

Later that year 11 men with connections to Al Qaeda were discovered training for jihad in Virginia, using paintball games to simulate battlefield situations. In 2004, James Elshafay and Shahawar Matin Siraj were convicted of planning to bomb New York's Penn Station during the Republican National Convention.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a household name for his role as mastermind of the September 11 attacks, is also known to have prepared little-known strikes against America's tallest building, the Sears Tower in Chicago, as well as the Empire State Building in New York and the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles.

In contrast, Dhiren Barot may not be familiar name, although some security experts say he should be. An Indian convert to Islam, the Pakistan-based Barot planned a series of ruinous attacks in the U.S. and U.K, including the New York Stock Exchange and the IMF building in Washington, D.C. Barot was caught by British authorities in 2004 and sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit murder.

Andrew C. McCarthy, director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, credits much of the success in preventing terrorist attacks at home to the pursuit of enemies overseas.

"There have been days in Iraq and Afghanistan," he said, "where we have killed or captured more terrorists than we did between 1993, when the World Trade Center was attacked, and 2001, when the World Trade Center was destroyed."

"But," McCarthy cautions, "once you get them over here, the rules of the justice system apply."

Successful prosecutions are key to tackling terrorism, but they are not an easy process. Investigators prefer to wait for overwhelming evidence of a terrorist plot, and the timing is difficult.

"It's more dangerous to let things play out because law enforcement is rarely if ever in control during these investigations," McCarthy says.

Plots are often disrupted early, and as a result, he says, "you don't often have well-developed cases."

But there have been successes, and the courts have been very active since 9/11. According to Sean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, 527 defendants have been charged in terrorism or terrorism-related cases arising from investigations primarily conducted after 9/11.

Those cases have resulted in 319 convictions, with an additional 176 cases still pending in court.

It's not a perfect record for the Justice Department, but it's still a good one, says McCarthy, who prosecuted and convicted "blind sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman, ringleader of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.

"The batting average is not as high as it was prior to September 11," when most investigations focused on crimes already committed, "but that again is something that we are going to have to accept," McCarthy says.

Allison Barrie, a security and terrorism consultant, agrees on the difficulties involved. "The evidence (in these trials) is always at its best at the 11th hour," she says. Waiting until the last moment is dangerous, but "you've got to weigh that against actually getting that prosecution."

So far, that strategy has been decisive in preventing another attack on the scale of 9/11. "We've just been plain lucky," Barrie says.

And intelligence work hasn't prevented smaller attacks from being carried out.

On July 4, 2002, Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national, opened fire at the El Al ticket counter at LAX, killing two people before a security guard killed him.

That same ticket counter would later be targeted by those L.A. gas-station robbers, a homegrown terrorist group with roots in a California prison.

Homegrown groups are often difficult to detect, and the California cell was not found through careful intelligence work; the LAPD stumbled upon them by accident. They might never have been discovered at all.

"The cliché is true," says Barrie. "Terrorists only have to be lucky once, but the good guys have to be lucky every time."

[MRM]

What concerns me is that almost none of the thwarted plots were thwarted by anti-terrorism efforts. Most, like this one, were broken up by old fashioned cop work becauseof crimes other than terrorism. Others, like Richard Reid, were stopped by members of the public after the terrorist passed through all security measures. The liquid explosives attacks foiled by the Brits seems to be the exception.

[Tobra]

I have friends who work in a California State Prison, they tell me African Americans are recruited by the muslims in prison(didn't Mike Tyson convert Islam while in prison)and it is pretty scary thinking about them getting out. Go steal a tanker truck, get some fertilizer and stick it to the man who perpetrated a spurious conviction in an organized program designed to incarcerate and emasculate men of African descent. That last part is close to verbatim according to the individual from whom I heard this tale of woe.

There was a 19 year old kid at UC Davis who got caught with a couple of pipe bombs the same morning that recruiting station in times square was blown up, made me think of the recruiting station in Berkley, and wonder if there is a recruiting station in Davis...

They evacuated the dorms, did not hear much more about it

[tabs]

Well MRM you stumbled into part of my thinking. Before 911 nobody was watching or thinking Terrorist activity in the USA. I could rant a bit here about the Clinton mind set of it being a criminal enterprise instead of a war against the USA and West. Which helped keep the issue out of the forefront that it is today. However it is that knowledge and awareness that has alerted varous police orgs to be more watchfull of things out of the ordinary criminal activity.

[MRM]

As far back as the 70s when Libya tried to recruit street gangs, the black gangs in America have been targeted for recruitment by Mid Eastern terrorists. You read about it in the papers every once in a while. I always wondered why they weren't more successful at it. I think the point is that the threat of terrorism is so broad that we can never close all possible avenues of terrorism without shutting down society, so the best thing to do is enhance intelligence gathering on the front end, train law enforcement on the back end, and maintain a vigilent populous in the middle.

[Tobra]

My wife is a good shot, and I bought her a sweet little S&W airweight spoon for our first Christmas. I figure I have done my part for local enforcement of security.

Everybody has to pay attention. Often, but unfortunately not always, shady characters act sketchy. Gotta keep your eyes open and your boot loose at the ankle.

[Joeaksa]

The British MI-5 (same as our FBI) are watching 1600 terrorist groups in the UK. Guys, if there are 1600 in the UK, is there any reason to believe that there are not the same or more here in the United States?

When most of us wake up and realize that we are at war, then the mindset will change.

[MRM]

Well, some of that depends on how you count terror groups. There are plenty of home grown bad guys right here, from organized crime to street gangs to just plain armed thugs. Sarah Jane Olson/Kathleen Soliah was a doctor's wife in a quiet upscale neighborhood not five miles from my other house when the FBI arrested her in her minivan. Her neighborhood was more expensive than mine. We've got right wing militias, white separatists, the old fashioned KKK, American Nazis, the American Muslim Brotherhood, Black Panthers, JDL, Nation of Islam, Bloods and Crips, Hell's Angells, Banditos, La Cosa Nostra - east coast, west coast and midwest varieties, Asian gangs, Latino gangs, ELF, and then you have your crazy loners with a gun and/or bomb a la Timothy McVeigh, Unibomber, Olympic Bomber, and the people who shoot up schools because they have too many pimples or their cat tells them to.

As if that wasn't enough, on top of that you have international terrorists. When I did insurance fraud defense for insurance companies I defended a claim brought by a young immigrant named Mohamed Warsame. We had an arbitration and the arbitrator gave him everything he asked for. Three months later he was in federal prison. I didn't know he was a terrorist; I just knew his claim smelled bad and he was probably getting kickbacks from the doctor to run up his bills at our expense. The arbitrator didn't have the decency to act embarassed later, either.

The upside is that the world is a big place, 300 million people is a lot of people, so there are going to be crazies and predators out there. The vast majority of people are benign and the good guys will always outnumber the bad. Our society is robust and freedom is stronger than tyrany. We can survive every terrorist attack that could be planned against us and still prosper as a nation. The bad guys can hurt us, and for that they should be run down and killed like the threat to our personal safety that they are before they kill us first, but only we can destroy our own country and way of life.

[Mule]

Any way you slice this, it looks like somebody somewhere has been doing some things right. To all the folks involved in that sort of activity I would offer up a hearty thanks & keep up the good work. It's not going unappreciated!

[fintstone]

Originally Posted by MRM

What concerns me is that almost none of the thwarted plots were thwarted by anti-terrorism efforts...

Just because you don't hear about them...doesn't mean they are not happening.

[Icemaster]

Originally Posted by austin552

Andrew C. McCarthy, director of the Center for Law and Counterterrorism at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

Always wondered what happend to him since he an Molly Ringwald never seemed to hit it off.

[Rick Lee]

On a slightly related note, I flew from Jacksonville to Dulles last night. I always carry a sidearm and check it in my luggage, a SIG P239 last night. No biggie, sign a card, throw it in the case, lock it up, throw it my checked luggage, all done. As we were just about to land, the flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder and said the captain would like to speak with me before I deplane. I was in the very last row of the plane, so I knew it would be a while before I got up there. Turns out I got ahead of several people and was probably 10th from last off the plane. But as I approached the front of the plane, the other flight attendant also told me to come see the captain. So I walked into the cockpit and asked what was up. Captain asked if I was LEO. But he said it like, "Are you a lee-oh?" I thought, "No, I'm a Taurus." But then I said, "You mean am I a cop?" He nodded. I said, "No, why?". He said he had me on a list of having brought a firearm aboard. I told him yes, I had, but that I had checked it. He said the list didn't mention that!!!!! I said, "Well, I hope it's still in my luggage and you could have asked when I came aboard." He said it was no biggie. Again, I was in the very last row. Had they thought I was a sky marshal, why would they let me sit as far a possible from the cockpit door? Had I been a sky marshal and had there been some drama, I never would have been able to get up there quickly, if at all. And if the captain thought I had a gun and wasn't sure I was a cop (I believe all LEO's must fill out paperwork to carry on a plane and meet with the sky marshal or pre-board), why did I first hear of this after we landed? Who's in charge here?