by Kurt Haskell
Over the past 21 months, I have come into contact with many people that fail to even consider the possibility that U.S. intelligence agents could have been involved in the underwear bomber plot. It is with these people in mind that I decided to write the following article. I have noticed that recent terrorist attacks within the United States have many similar characteristics. If you look at these plots together as a series of attacks, the modus operandi of U.S. intelligence agencies begins to develop. For this article, I have decided to look at only "terrorist attacks" from January 1, 2002, to the present.
1. Mohamed Mohamud (The Portland Christmas Tree Bomber)
Date Of Incident: November 26, 2010.
The 2010 Portland car bomb plot involved an incident in which Mohamud, a Somali-American student, was arrested in an FBI sting operation, after attempting to set off what he thought was a car bomb at a Christmas tree lighting in Portland, Oregon.
Mohamud had been monitored by the FBI for months. Prior to Mohamud's arrest, an undercover FBI agent, posing as a terrorist, had been in contact with him since June 2010 (A 5 month period). In preparation for the planned bombing of a public gathering, Mohamud and undercover FBI operatives drove to a remote area of Lincoln County, Oregon, where they conducted a test run on November 4, 2010 by detonating a real bomb Mohamud believed to have been hidden inside a backpack. The fake bomb was in a white van that carried six 55-gallon drums with what appeared to be real detonation cords and plastic caps. Mohamud tried to detonate the bomb by dialing a cell phone that was attached to it. When the device failed to explode, the undercover agent suggested he get out of the car to obtain better reception. When he did so, arresting agents moved in. According to the FBI, the device it provided to Mohamud had no explosive components (even the detonating caps were inert) and the public was never in any danger.
2. Sami Samir Hassoun (Wrigley Field Bomber)
Date of Incident: September 19, 2010
Hassoun placed a backpack authorities say he thought contained a bomb near Chicago's Wrigley Field. The fake but ominous looking device (a paint can fitted with blasting caps and a timer)was given to him by an FBI undercover agent. According to Hassoun's attorney, Hassoun didn't bring anything of his own making to the incident. All materials were given to him by an under cover FBI agent. Hassoun also had no apparent affiliation with extremists. The complaint alleges he raised the specter of terrorist groups only by suggesting it would be helpful to blame them for any attacks he staged. At least two FBI undercover agents got in touch with Hassoun, posing as co-plotters and eventually helped to deliver the bogus bomb.
3. Bronx Terrorism Plot
Date of Incident: May 20, 2009
On May 20, 2009, US law enforcement arrested four black Muslim men in connection with a plot to shoot down military airplanes flying out of an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, New York and blow up two synagogues in the Riverdale community of the Bronx. The events leading up to the attempted attack began in June 2008. Shahed Hussain, an Albany hotel owner and FBI informant, showed up at the Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque under the name "Maqsood", talking of jihad and violence. Hussain, a Pakistani immigrant, agreed to serve as an FBI informant after being arrested in 2002 over a scam involving driver's licenses. Four men expressed interest to Hussain. They planned to both bomb the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx, and, using Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles, shoot down military planes flying out of a nearby air base. On May 6, 2009, the men traveled to Stamford, Connecticut, to pick up what they believed to be a surface-to-air guided-missile system and three improvised explosive devices, all of which were incapable of actually being used. The men placed fake bombs wired to cell phones in three separate cars outside the Riverdale Temple and nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, both in the Riverdale community of Bronx. The FBI informer also served as the driver of the suspects’ vehicle. Both the car bombs and the missiles were actually fakes given to the plotters with the help of an informant for the FBI. Each of the two homemade bombs was equipped with about 37 pounds of inert material designed to look like C-4 plastic explosive, and "there was no danger to anyone," according to the FBI. The men were returning to their vehicle and heading to attack aircraft at the Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, New York, with the fake Stinger missiles when law enforcement stopped them.
4. Antonio Martinez
Date of Incident: December 8, 2010
Martinez was arrested in an FBI sting after agents said he tried to detonate a phony bomb outside a Maryland military recruitment center. The FBI began investigating Martinez in early October 2010 after an informant pointed out postings on Martinez's Facebook page. Martinez's attorney said the lack of a recording of the informant's initial three conversations with Martinez is a sign the government was trying to obscure its role in developing the plot. It was in those conversations that Martinez first mentioned attacking the recruiting center, according to a criminal complaint. Also according to his attorney, the government "induced him to be involved in an act which was clearly the design of the government and provided Martinez with the fake bomb".
5. Rezwan Ferdaus
Date of Incident: September 28, 2011
Federal prosecutors allege in court documents that Rezwan Ferdaus outlined an elaborate plan to undercover FBI agents posing as al-Qaeda operatives that involved the use of three drone aircraft carrying deadly payloads to attack and destroy federal government landmarks. Ferdaus was arrested after allegedly accepting delivery of materials, including three grenades, six Ak-47 assault rifles and a quantity of what he believed to be powerful C-4 explosives. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said all of the weaponry was in the control of undercover agents who were closely monitoring the plot's developments. She said the public was never in danger.
However, some legal organizations and Muslim groups have questioned whether Ferdaus, whose activities were carried out with two undercover FBI agents posing as terrorists, would have been able to carry out such a sophisticated plot if left to his own devices. In numerous previous cases in the US, the FBI has been accused of over-zealousness in its investigations and of entrapping people into terror plots who might otherwise not have carried out an attack. On April 19, 2011, undercover agents met with Ferdaus and questioned the "feasibility" of his plan. That raises the prospect that the FBI agents were somehow goading Ferdaus into more action.
At the same meeting the undercover agents also gave financial assistance for Ferdaus to travel to Washington on a scouting trip: a fact that raises the question of whether he would have made the trip without that financial help. The undercover agents also supplied thousands of dollars in cash for Ferdaus to buy the F-86 Sabre miniature plane to be used in an attack.
Analysis Of These 5 Attacks:
When looking at these plots, the most obvious connection between them (Other than the Muslim male connection) is that the FBI provided each of these "terrorists" with fake weapons, including fake explosives, to carry out the plots. Also, each of the terrorists attempted to carry out the plots with the aid of undercover FBI agents. It is unclear to what extent the FBI agents came up with the initial idea. However, it certainly is questionable whether any of these attacks would have occurred without the aid of the undercover FBI agents. Before meeting up with the undercover FBI agents, most of these men had little to no criminal record and were guilty of no more than random terroristic thoughts. It is also very apparent that the undercover FBI agents allowed the "terrorists" to conclude a significant portion of the plots including attempting to detonate fake bombs. While researching these and other "terrorist" attacks, I could not help but notice the lack of "terrorist" attacks from 2002-2008. I can't help but question whether the increase in these attacks is related to the term of office of President Obama, which began in January 2009. As I chose to not make this article poilitical, I won't delve into such aspect any further. During this same time period, on December 25, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,the "Underwear Bomber" attempted to detonate an explosive in his underwear as he sat 8 rows in front of me.
Analysis of the Underwear Bomber Incident:
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab(Umar)allegedly received his bomb from Al Qaeda in Yemen and due to U.S. Intelligence Agencies "failing to connect the dots", was able to board flight 253 with a bomb. The U.S. Intelligence Agencies "failed to connect" the dots despite the fact that they had been warned by Umar's own father several months earlier that Umar was a threat. Further, we are told that it was this "failing to connect the dots" that led to Umar boarding, despite the Congressional testimony of Patrick Kennedy (see his testimony here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN_33ojupTc).
This testimony from Kennedy, the Under Secretary of State, indicated that a yet to be disclosed intelligence agency was tracking Umar, and wanted to track him into the U.S. to catch "bigger fish". Now how would such agency do that if it didn't allow Umar to board a plane heading to the U.S.? What's also troubling is that nearly all of the mainstream U.S. media failed to even report on this Congressional testimony. The one newspaper that did, the Detroit News, has now erased the story from its archives. Of course, I witnessed Umar near the boarding gate of flight 253. He was escorted by a sharp dressed man, that spoke perfect American English without an accent and told the gate agent that Umar didn't have a passport, that he needed to board the plane, that he was from "Sudan, and we do this all the time". My next question is who is the "we" that he was referring to. Obviously, I have to ask what sort of U.S. authority figure in Amsterdam could say that "we" let refugees on planes all of the time without passports and apparently, has the authority to make it happen. It seems that an undercover FBI agent would fit the bill. Although Schiphol Airport has the most security cameras in the world, the airport audio and video remain unreleased under a court protective order. In December 2010, Umar's stand-by attorney, Anthony Chambers reported to the Detroit Free Press that "The Government's own experts have indicated that the bomb was impossibly defective as it lacked a blasting cap". That story has now been erased from the Free Press archives. Although pieces of the bomb laid all over the airline cabin near row 19, law enforcement officers made no effort to remove passengers from such area and passengers trampled through pieces of the bomb as they exited the plane. The NPR interview of Jay Howard, the man who sat next to Umar, is very telling (see below)(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123821351. In this interview, Howard relates that the FBI told him not to talk about what happened and took all of his clothes that were covered with pieces of the bomb. Although the FBI had samples of the bomb all over the airline, it seized all of his clothes to "test the bomb materials". I have to wonder if the FBI actually seized Mr. Howard's clothes in order to not let others test the bomb materials. In his NPR interview, Mr. Howard makes the following curious comment "I don't want to call him a terrorist because he hasn't been treated as a terrorist and it wasn't a national threat". Really Mr. Howard? Why wasn't it a National threat? Is this why the FBI told you not to talk about this too much? Note that I am not saying that Jay Howard was involved in this lot, but only that he knows more than he is letting on. Remember, after we exited the plane, we were taken to a baggage claim area where we stood with our carry on bags for an hour, not knowing if other bombs were located in the carry on bags. Law enforcement was not concerned, however. At this time, Umar had already exited the plane and told officers that "there is another bomb on board". Another man was taken into custody during this time, after a bomb sniffing dog found explosives in his carry on bag. The U.S. Government changed its story on who this man was 5 times before finally deciding to ignore the existence of the man entirely. It's most likely that this man was an FBI undercover agent that provided Umar with his "bomb" and the bomb resideue in his bag alerted the dog. In late 2010, Umar was charged with conspiring with "persons known and unknown" yet none of these persons have ever been named. Their involvement with the plot has never been explained. Shouldn't such persons be on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted List? Shouldn't the FBI solicit the public to help identify such individuals, who should be some of the most wanted men in the world? Not if they are FBI agents. There are very few differences between the Underwear Bomber incident and the 5 incidents I listed above. One difference being that this attack occurred on a plane which caused a fire that did indeed threaten lives. The other plots seemingly didn't risk injury to others. We must remember that the U.S. needs legitimate "terrorist attacks" to keep making money for those that benefit from the fraudulent war on terror. Also, a legitimate airline attack was needed to usher in the body scanning machines. Without a failed bomb in a terrorist's clothes, the American public would never stand for the body scanning machines. Lastly, the flight proceeded over Detroit before the "bomb" was lit, on Christmas Day, in order to make the biggest splash in the media. The U.S. Government's modus operandi of setting up these attacks with fake bombs and without risking injury to others was seemingly achieved. This led to Janet Napolitano's explicit comment that "the system worked" when referring to this attack. Janet knows what happened here, and so do I. Hopefully, I have convinced other that read this post that the U.S. Government, via its intelligence agencies, gave Umar a fake bomb and escorted him through security in order to assure a fake "terrorist attack". This "terrorist" attack occurred in order to continue padding the wallets of those that benefit from the war on terror and its repulsive body scanners. Would this plot have happened without the aid of the unnamed U.S. Intelligence Agency that allowed Umar to board, provided Umar with his fake bomb and God knows whatever else? Not a chance. I sit here writing this article a mere 30 minutes from Dearborn, Michigan, which has the largest segment of Muslims in the U.S. I realize that if the U.S. were truly in danger of terrorist attacks from Muslims, this area should be in jeopardy of suicide and car bombings that frequently occur in the middle east. These attacks do not occur here. I know why, and I ask that you also ask yourself why. Those that are hopeful that the upcoming trial will reveal anything of this sort should think again. Umar is representing himself and thereby refusing to let standy-by attorney Chambers use the entrapment defense (that he told me he would) if he was allowed to. This action by Umar is inexplicable, unless of course he is involved in the plot, has been threatened or promised a lenient sentence. I don't know which, but there seemingly is no other explanation. Obviously, there is more to this story than the FBI is telling us.
Have not posted in forever--been busy, and I always feel weird posting when so many people I don't know personally are visiting the blog to read Kurt's posts about the trial. But, whatevs. This was initially MY blog and was taken over by Kurt, so people can just skip over this, ;).
