Ed Morrissey on today’s FBI arrests of al-Qaeda wanna-bes in New Jersey;
In what seems a familiar move among al-Qaeda jihadis, they had videotaped their training as well as angry statements denouncing America. And, in what seems like familiar stupidity among tri-state jihadis, they brought the film to a retail store to get it made into DVDs. This recalls the idiot who tried to get his deposit back on the Ryder rental truck used to blow up the World Trade Center garage in 1993. That allowed the FBI to track down the terrorist cell that executed the attack.
This AP account provides the type of detail we don’t often get from a media ordinarily mired in “broad strata” whitewash;
The three brothers owned a roofing business, and the women in the ethnic Albanian family wore head scarves. They kept farm animals in the backyard until others in the neighborhood of tidy two-story houses complained, Levine said.
Authorities say the brothers’ unremarkable blue-collar lives belied the mayhem they allegedly planned to unleash with others in a plot to kill hundreds of soldiers at Fort Dix. They and three other foreign-born Muslims living in the area were arrested Monday night.
[…]
Also arrested were Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22, of Cherry Hill; Serdar Tatar, 23, of Philadelphia; and Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township. Shnewer and Tatar were charged in the alleged plot; Abdullah was charged with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers’ illegal possession of weapons.
The Duka brothers were born in the former Yugoslavia and residing illegally in the U.S. Shnewer, a native of Jordan; Tatar, a native of Turkey; and Abdullahu, who was born in the former Yugoslavia, are legal residents.
Dritan and Shain Duka once owned a pizza shop in Turnersville, N.J., about 35 miles from Fort Dix. They sold it in June 2005 to Tony Giordano, who now operates it as Tony Soprano’s Pizza, Giordano said. He said it was “a filthy rat trap” before he remodeled it.
“I had a brief encounter with” Dritan Duka, who goes by Tony, Giordano said. “They weren’t the friendliest people, but then again, who would know something like that?”
Levine recalled seeing some of the Dukas shooting paintballs at trees in their front yard, an incident that seemed harmless at the time. Authorities say the group spoke of playing paintball as a training exercise for the attack.
Shnewer, a cab driver in Philadelphia who comes across in the criminal complaint as the group’s dominant figure, lived just a few miles away.
Neighbors there said four or five families appeared to be living in the house and there were frequent visitors, but they did not mingle with their neighbors.
“They kept to themselves,” said Don Bauer, 40, who lives across the street.
By way of comparison, a decidedly “or so the FBI alleges” CBC account.
“The Duka brothers were born in the former Yugoslavia and residing illegally in the U.S. Shnewer, a native of Jordan; Tatar, a native of Turkey; and Abdullahu, who was born in the former Yugoslavia, are legal residents.”
“The Dukas and Abdullahu are ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, authorities said.”
http://www.serbianna.com/news/2007/01642.shtml
And I bet they all spoke English, rather than Arabic, when all together. The globalization of Islamic fundamentalism. Why did we bother to act in favour of Kosovar, Muslim, Albanians against the Serbs (not to mention in favour of the Bosnian Muslims)? Payback, not thanks.
And the NDP did not protest when the CF deployed tanks in Kosovo. Hmm.
http://www.damianpenny.com/archived/009408.html
Mark
Ottawa
Dear Me Kate ! We have Jordanians! Turks! Former Yugos! – legal and illegal ! ( hey how long ago was it any way when they had all those demos protesting the way illegals are treated?) It certainly seems to be a BROAD STRATA OF SOCIETY !!!
Put those dogs down and get with the program or it’s a re-education center for you!
Underscoring that the jihadis are in place among us.
One more time for the terminally clueless, what’s the common thread with these slobs? It’s not ethnicity, it’s…..? Want to continue wasting time adding Minnesota Lutheran grandmas to the anti-profiling screening?
We’ve got to be brain dead to flirt with any more immigration of Muslims. I’m not saying that all approve of terrorism, but, we just can’t realistically separate the freaks from decent people. Keeping tabs on the ones here is straining the system. Suppose these creeps hadn’t picked a military base, at least the victims were armed, what if it had been a mall or grade school?
Thank God for the guy at the video store.
Waiting for indignant lefties like frank to scream racist…..
penny: But what is the racial link between Albanians, a Turk (Tatar!) and an Arab?
As for shnewer as a name:
http://www.bandarashoor.com/vb/archive/index.php?t-128.html
Mark
Ottawa
Gratitude from those Kosovar Albanians (CBC story):
“Base trains soldiers for Iraq and Afghanistan
Fort Dix is used to train soldiers, particularly reservists. It also housed refugees from Kosovo in 1999.
Jeff Sagnip, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. James Saxton, who represents Fort Dix, said the base, along with adjacent McGuire Air Force Base, has been put on its highest security alert level.
He said Fort Dix typically has 15,000 people, including 3,000 soldiers. McGuire, which is adjacent to Fort Dix, has about 11,500 people.
Soldiers at Fort Dix have been training for warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sagnip said.”
Mark
Ottawa
penny: But what is the racial link between Albanians, a Turk (Tatar!) and an Arab?
Want to re-read my statement: “One more time for the terminally clueless, what’s the common thread with these slobs? It’s not ethnicity, it’s…..?
The answer is pretty obvious, I’m not getting your point.
The CTV local news, in the “broad strata” spirit, simply did not want to mention their religious background, but gave it away when they posted an artist’s rendition of the perps – the dress and beards made it pretty obvious they weren’t Buddhists.
The CBC is allegedly a news service. As such they are alleged to abide by a policy of accuracy, fairness and integrity.
Although these allegations have not been proven, CBC Ombudsman Vince Carlin (who incidently bears a striking resemblance to one George Carlin) is alleged to have investigated complaints of concerned citizens who allegedly alleged that the initial allegations were unfounded.
In an allegedly recent statement Carlin alleges that “Clearly the alleged allegations of these allegedly concerned citizens is without an alleged foundation.”
Now if we could only push them off a ledge.
Syncro
Some might argue that the common denominator among these terrorists is a certain interpretaion of a particular religion, however that suggestion would be culturally insensitive.
penny: I apologize for my mistake. We are making the same point–I do get yours.
Mark
Ottawa
Yeppers Terry
Pink flickin elephants everywhere and very few in the MSM with elephant guns.
I guess we should just call them hufalumps and we can all pretend they don’t exist except in the minds of seven foot tall five year old birds.
Syncro
Glad you corected that, Mark, I was surprised. I was about to give you up as a goner and I don’t remember you as clueless.
We are on the same page.
I hope people notice that this operation was conducted through intelligence and infiltration, not by mass interception of email or phone calls, or by stopping and frisking people at random, or by forcing thousands of people to stand in line for futile security checks. This is the type of operation the billions of dollars being spent on “Homeland Security” should be financing.
“forcing thousands of people to stand in line for futile security checks”
Have you seen the video of the shoe bomb test yet?
KevinB
Do you think the shopkeeper had a warrant before he looked at his customer’s video? Did he invade the privacy of his terrorist customer by looking at the video? He was asked to copy it not view it.
Did he look at the video because he profiled the customer? Did the FBI get a warrant before looking at the video? If they didn’t should the case be thrown out? If not, why not?
Do you want liberal judges making decisions as to what should be surveilled or should the decisions be made by people whose business is to be looking around for these threats?
Won’t the judges just rubber stamp the request any way? How many requests for warrants in these kinds of cases are turned down? Any? Do you think the FBI is seeking so many warrants that they are making frivolous applications? Isn’t it more likely they are asking for too few warrants rather than too many?
Do you realiize 9/11 could have been prevented if it had not been for political correctness? (If you don’t believe me read Steyn’s Eye Of The Tiger.)
Would that change your mind? Just how much risk are you prepared to accept in order to protect the rights of terrorists.You don’t think they pose enough of a threat that we should have special rules, do you?
Do you think terrorists should have the same rights as ordinary criminals? Do you think the rights of the wicked few should take precedence over the rights of the peace loving many?
Do you know as much as you think you do?
I wonder how far they would have gotten if they had tried to do this in KENNAHAW GEORGIA there probibly would have been six less al queda operatives and three brothers laying side by side on marble slabs with tag on their big toes
and we bomb serbia
Terry Gain:
Do you think the shopkeeper had a warrant before he looked at his customer’s video? Did he invade the privacy of his terrorist customer by looking at the video? He was asked to copy it not view it.
I don’t know how you would go about copying something, but I would expect that you would check the finished product before giving it back to your customer. When you send in film to be developed, don’t you think the clerks view your photos to ensure the quality is up to par?
Did he look at the video because he profiled the customer? Did the FBI get a warrant before looking at the video? If they didn’t should the case be thrown out? If not, why not?
If you bothered to read the article, the FBI already had an informant inside the group before the copying was done. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a warrant.
Do you want liberal judges making decisions as to what should be surveilled or should the decisions be made by people whose business is to be looking around for these threats?
Your reading comprehension skills need work. My point was that this threat was uncovered by good old-fashioned police work, not by monitoring all the communications between innocent people.
Won’t the judges just rubber stamp the request any way? How many requests for warrants in these kinds of cases are turned down? Any? Do you think the FBI is seeking so many warrants that they are making frivolous applications? Isn’t it more likely they are asking for too few warrants rather than too many?
You need to get out more. Under the “Patriot Act”, the Department of Homeland Security has bypassed the need for judicial warrants in many cases. Check out the “Your Rights Online” section of slashdot.org for many reports of abuses of this power.
Do you realiize 9/11 could have been prevented if it had not been for political correctness? (If you don’t believe me read Steyn’s Eye Of The Tiger.)
I did hear that actor James Woods reported suspicious activity by a group of Muslims on a flight in July, but that his warning was ignored by the FBI.
Would that change your mind? Just how much risk are you prepared to accept in order to protect the rights of terrorists.You don’t think they pose enough of a threat that we should have special rules, do you?
I don’t think that every piece of correspondence I send over the internet, or every long distance call I make should be eavesdropped upon. And I have no problem at all with racial profiling. It makes no sense to me to make Grandma take off her shoes before she can get on an airplane. How much do you want your rights to be trampled on, and your privacy invaded? Apparently, you don’t care at all.
Do you think terrorists should have the same rights as ordinary criminals? Do you think the rights of the wicked few should take precedence over the rights of the peace loving many?
But that’s my point – my peace loving rights are being violated on a daily basis, and I don’t have a terrorist bone in my body. I don’t care if they throw terrorists in jail, and throw away the key. I wish we still had capital punishment. But let’s do it through real police work, not fishing expeditions.
Do you know as much as you think you do?
More than you, apparently.
KevinB
I’ll try once again to help you. We need to work on your thinking skills, not my reading comprehension skills.
The FBI did not have an informant inside the group before the shopkeeper looked at the video. Why do think so much emphasis was placed upon the role of the shopkeeper if the FBI was already on the case?
I did not read the linked CBC story, from which you drew an erroneous conclusion, because that organization is so overwhelmed with left wing bias I don’t trust anything they say.
Here’s an excerpt from The Smoking Gun which explains the sequence of events.
” The terror plan is detailed in the below FBI affidavit, which was filed today in U.S. District Court in Camden, where the six plotters have been charged with planning to kill military members. According to the affidavit, investigators began probing the cell last January, when a video store worker contacted them after a customer brought a DVD to be duplicated. The DVD showed 10 young men “Shooting assault weapons at a firing range in a militia-like style while calling for jihad and shouting in Arabic ‘Allah Akbar’ (‘God is Great’).” Within six months, the FBI had placed two cooperating witnesses within the terror cell, and both recorded meetings and phone conversations with the plotters.”
I think the key words above are “within six months”. You might think this is about good old fashioned police work but if you think al Qaeda operatives are going to wait around for good old fashioned police work to foil their plots you are delusional.
This case fell into the authorities laps because the would-be-terrorists were amateurs.
As to all of your long distance phone calls and emails being monitored just how many millions of FBI agents do you think there are?
The monitoring of overseas long distance phone calls between people in the United States and known terrorists is conducted under the authority of the NSA. The controversy has been whether these investigators should be required to obtain a search warrant for every subject they monitor.
They are too busy trying to monitor possible threats to be bothered with you. Don’t believe everything you read on a left wing website. These people are more interested in politicizing issues of national security than defending the nation.
This kind of monitoring is needed to thwart sophsticated plots. Old fashioned police work did not prevent 9/11 and won’t prevent another one.
I’m with you on profiling and capital punishment but I don’t believe in throwing away the keys, nor do I believe in ignoring the fact Islamic extremists are at war with us. This does not mean your civil rights should be suspended but it does mean we need to profile to determine whether we have enemies in our midst.
If I can be of any further assistance please let me know.
I promise this is my last post on this topic.
Terry, go visit http://www.schneier.com. Bruce Schneier is no left-wing nut-bar; he is an internationally respected computer security author, and has done work on cryptology, security design, and other areas of security, including working with various areas of the US government.
He makes the point far more convincingly, and with better precision than I can, that the “data mining” used to search email and phone calls, the “no fly” list, etc. are simply futile. Let’s use the no fly list as an example. Some terrorist used the alias “D Nelson” when buying an airline ticket. Subsequently, a completelly innocent man from Minnesota named Don Nelson was denied boarding on repeated occasions. He tried to protest, but as Schneier points out, you are not allowed to see what information was used to put you on the no fly list, you are not allowed to question that information, and there is no legal means to appeal. The funny example was that of Ted Kennedy; some moron at the TSA put “T Kennedy” on the no fly list, and the senator was denied boarding for three weeks until he got it straightened out.
As for “millions of FBI agents”; apparently you haven’t heard of Echelon and its successors. These are powerful computers that scan emails and listen to phone calls looking for specific keywords. If they hear a trigger, the call is recorded, and then listened to by a human. So if I’m discussing a football game with a friend, and I say “The Jets bombed”, it hears “jets” and “bomb”, and suddenly Agent Seymour is listening to my call.
Schneier describes much of what we’re doing as “security theatre”, and proves mathematically how futile much of it is.
And I again point you to slashdot.org, where you will find numerous descriptions of the warrantless wiretaps, searches, etc., being performed in the US today.
I really don’t think you and I are at odds in what we’re trying to achieve, but I don’t think giving up my privacy is required to find terrorists.
I’ll leave you with one final thought: suppose the next terrorist plan involves plastic explosive in a condom placed into a certain body cavity. Would you then advocate that everyone drop trousers and bend over before getting on a plane?
Kevin
You are right. We are not that far apart. By reason of your trumpeting the arrests in New Jersey as an example of the lack of need for extra measures to deal with Islamofascist threats I underestimated your knowlwedge base, as you have mine. But this example does not prove your point that extra measures aren’t required.
I am well aware of Echelon. Few accused Clinton of large scale abrogation of civil rights when his administration used that program. My concern is the politicization of security measures.
Your description of the Echelon program as listening to all your calls and emails is overblown. In the example you give it would be quite clear that you were talking about football. It’s amazing how many emails you can send that don’t contain the words Allah, kill and infidel.
BTW, I’m predicting Ottawa bombs against Buffalo. I have no comment on your cavity search example except to say I have no intention of going there
funny with all these islamofascists, we helped the Afghans fight the soviets and were paid back with 9/11. We helped the Bosnian muslims fight the serbs and they’re out plotting another 9/11.
methinks they need to be unhelped forcefully.
And just you wait some member of the stupid jackass party will want to ban paintball guns becuase these lowlifes were practicing with paintball guns
I’m waiting for the video store owner to be sued by CAIR for reporting these Muslims when they hadn’t broken any laws and were only caught
because of “Racial Profiling”.
Ujjal Dosanj would had hit the roof if the Sikh terrorist were rounded up like the FBI did with these guys, Dosanj would cry Racism no matter what happened .
If the plane blew up it’s racism
If the terrorist are picked up ahead of time it’s racism.
there are about 4,000 muslim kosavars at fort dix they have been there since wee billy clinton got into the act. they are dangerous and the us waived all security and normal us immigration procedures to allow 20,000 to go to the us to escape the serbs. the us will soon wish slobadan was still around.