Friday, September 25, 2009

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi and other Terrorists

For weeks and weeks, Obama, other elected Democrats, their mouthpieces in the lib media, and former high-ranking officials, like the disgraceful Jimmy Carter, have been warning that the real threat of violence facing the country was coming from Americans speaking out against Obama's government-run health care plan, his failed stimulus package, his infringement on private sector businesses, and his plans to tax, tax, tax.

After the string of arrests in connection with terrorism plots recently, and especially yesterday, they look like fools.

It's not these so-called "angry white people" who are threatening the safety of our homeland.

From the New York Daily News:

Federal agents from Denver and New York to Pakistan are still racing to solve an Al Qaeda bomb plot, unsure whether the arrest of three suspects has put the terror gang out of business.

"They're still looking," a senior counterterror official told the Daily News. As to whether they have identified all the conspirators, "nobody knows the answer for sure," the official said.

FBI arrest documents showed prime suspect Najibullah Zazi, 25, an Afghan, visited the city from Colorado on the 9/11 anniversary carrying a laptop with bomb-making notes he wrote. Specific attack plans or targets remain unknown, a Justice Department statement said.

Zazi was collared in Aurora, Colo., near Denver, by the FBI on Saturday night and was charged with lying about the bomb notes. He'll likely soon be slapped with tougher terrorism charges, sources said.

Also nabbed for lying to feds was Flushing mosque Imam Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, an NYPD snitch who the FBI says alerted Zazi and his father, Mohammed, 53, after cops quizzed him about the son.

The senior official said the feds believe the plot is now "compromised" and would be "hard to bring forward."

"We think we have a pretty good handle on the threat, but we'd know a lot more if Afzali hadn't tipped them in the beginning," another insider said.

The source added that court papers released yesterday reveal only a "sliver" of the conspiracy.

"The FBI is investigating several individuals in the U.S., Pakistan and elsewhere, relating to a plot to detonate improvised explosive devices in the U.S.," the Justice Department said.

Did these men attend Tea Party events?

I thought that's the heart of the anger and threat to the U.S.

Hmmm.

Then there's the case of Michael Finton.

From Reuters:

An Illinois man was ordered held on Thursday on charges he tried to blow up a federal building in the state capital, a case unrelated to the New York terrorism plot.

Michael Finton, also known as Talib Islam, was arrested in Springfield, Illinois, and charged with attempted murder of federal officers or employees and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction, charges that carry a life sentence.

"Fortunately, a coordinated undercover law enforcement effort was able to thwart his efforts and ensure no one was harmed," David Kris, assistant Attorney General for National Security, said in a statement.

Finton was arrested on Wednesday in Springfield as he used a cell phone to try to detonate the bomb he believed was inside a van he had just parked outside the federal building.

...The criminal complaint said Finton, 29, converted to Islam while in prison on other charges. It said he idolized an American who allied with the Taliban, John Walker Lindh, drawing the attention of law enforcement authorities.

After returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia in 2008, Finton told an individual, who turned out to be a law enforcement source, that he wanted to fight against Israelis in the Gaza Strip, according to the complaint.

In early 2009, "it appeared that Finton was on the verge of taking action, so it was decided to proactively provide him with an opportunity for action that we controlled, rather than merely hoping to be able to find out and stop him," according to a government affidavit.

He was introduced to an undercover FBI agent who began working with him to plot an attack, but Finton was repeatedly told he could walk away at any time, according to the Justice Department.

Eventually, Finton picked the federal building in Springfield as the target and on Wednesday he parked a van he believed carried one ton of explosives at the location, the complaint said.

And then there's Hosam Maher Husein Smadi. Yesterday was very disappointing for him. Things didn't go as he had planned. He expected to blow up a Dallas skyscraper and instead he was arrested.

From the Dallas Morning News:

A 19-year-old Jordanian citizen is expected to make an appearance before a federal magistrate in Dallas this morning after authorities accused him of attempting to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper.

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi was arrested Thursday after he parked a vehicle laden with government-supplied fake explosives in the underground parking garage of Fountain Place, a 60-story tower in the 1400 block of Ross Avenue at North Field Street, authorities said.

The arrest was part of an FBI sting operation that began after an agent monitoring an online extremist Web site discovered Smadi espousing jihad against the U.S. more than six months ago.

As more undercover Arabic-speaking agents engaged him, Smadi, living illegally in the U.S. in the small town of Italy, about 45 miles south of Dallas, pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden and expressed a desire to kill Americans, authorities said.

In conversations with agents posing as members of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell, Smadi said he came to the U.S. to wage jihad, or holy war. He told agents he wanted to target military recruitment centers, but eventually settled on financial institutions.

"I want to destroy ... targets ... everything that helps America on its war on Arabs will be targeted," he told undercover agents in May.

What is going on here?

These cases should serve as a reminder that the U.S. has REAL enemies. They are Islamic extremists. They want to kill us. The inauguration of Obama didn't eliminate that reality. They existed long before President George W. Bush took office and they didn't go away when his tenure ended.

Libs need to admit that global citizen Obama isn't being embraced by those in the world posing the most danger to us.

We are at war, and not just in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Dems forget that. They're too busy demonizing Americans exercising their right to assemble and express their dissatisfaction with Obama administration policies. They're focusing on the stay-at-home moms and the retirees and listeners to talk radio.

Democrats need to WAKE UP.

Obama should be thankful that he inherited effective programs from the Bush administration to counter terrorism.

Thank you, President Bush.

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