Man arrested over 'plot to bomb Washington DC metro'

[Kevin23]

A man of Pakistani origin who lives close to me in my hometown has been arrested and indicted on three counts, for attempting to conspire with Al-Qaeda to target subways or "Metro's" in the Washington DC area.

This news hits home to me, even though I never knew the guy or met him.

Here is a link to the story,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11610328

[davidbfpo]

Once again the FBI and others snare a suspect, arousing the question was he the victim of an agent provacateur? From the BBC report:


Officials said the public were never in danger during the investigation and that they had been aware of Mr Ahmed since the beginning.

[omarali50]

It seems he was caught using flypaper. Do people think this is a good strategy? Is the main benefit supposed to be taking one potentially dangerous person off the streets or does the main benefit lie in scaring other wannabe jihadi morons from contacting people at the mosque who look like-minded?
Or is it waste of time and effort?
In my absolutely amateur opinion, its number 2: I would think that after a few such cases are publicized, spontaneous jihad syndrome volunteers will think twice before trusting other similarly inclined people in the local mosque.
on the other hand, this is hardly the first case and yet new morons continue to be trapped at regular intervals. Maybe the morons are too moronic to understand the concept?

[bourbon]

PDF of the indictment (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Ahmed_indictment.pdf) courtesy of the WSJ.


Trapped?
Once again the FBI and others snare a suspect, arousing the question was he the victim of an agent provacateur?
I am not sure it is legally entrapment if there is cause to believe that the suspect is inclined to support terrorism. The article says that prosecutors will be using classified information during the case, which I imagine is related to just how they found that cause. Farooque probably tried contacting some AQ type, and in doing so caught the attention of the intelligence community, who in turn passed it along to FBI.

[tequila]

Maybe the morons are too moronic to understand the concept?

I'm inclined to agree with this one. The proportion of these retards who are genuinely dangerous is probably quite small. Yet the fact of bad intentions is undoubted - don't feel bad at all about such types being swept up, even if in real-world terms there likely isn't much danger.

[rgregory]

The FBI used plants as part of their tactics to roll up a lot of anti government/neo nazi types in the 80's and 90's. They essentially caught the unwary and dumb ones.
It is not like this a new tactic. Tom Metzger, founder of White Arayan Resistance warned them about this and they still did not learn.
So the question remains.Is it smarter to roll up the dumb ones before they can really do anything or do we let the dumb ones maybe lead us to someone a lot better skilled?
Bob Gregory

[AdamG]

The arrest Wednesday of a Virginia man who thought he was aiding an Al Qaeda attack on the Washington, D.C., transit system is further proof that "radical jihadists" are inside the United States, and it's a reminder to cities around the country that ground transportation is still a "highly attractive" target for terrorists, according to a New York Police Department threat assessment obtained by Fox News.

Read more: http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/28/nypd-issues-threat-note-after-va-arrest/#ixzz13gSZDk00

What's the proper response command to this? Oh yeah : first rank, kneel. second rank, stand.

[omarali50]

I had a thought just now. What if the FBI were to try similar flypaper with the postcolonial-postmodern anti-establishment fringe (of course, using someone spouting anti-imperialism and Noam Chomsky instead of Abdullah Azzam and Masood Azhar)? I suspect they would soon pick up some morons who will start discussing ways of planting bombs. In fact, i am sure they would find the same among rightwing militia types (this time using someone talking about Black helicopters, Waco and Sarah Palin's wacko church).
But I also think the spectrum of morons willing to indulge some fantasy of "sticking it to the man" spreads wider into "normal middle class persons" in the Muslim community because of our exposure to holy war rhetoric and conspiracy theories about Jews and the elders of Zion. Still, such moronic fantasies are not UNIQUE to the Muslim community, they are just spread wider and reach into bedroom communities like Ashburn. Just a random thought.

[subrosa]

amazing job by the undercover officers- they must be damn good to be able to pass as al-Qaida members!