Yes unfortunately we will probably never be able to have a holiday without thinking about who may attack us. They are here, let's not fool ourselves!!!
Here is more on Texas that I pulled from the archive at thecabals backup site.
In a small South Texas town, an illegal immigrant managing a convenience store aroused suspicion by asking customers about explosives -- enough to detonate several city blocks. Investigators said he was also collecting photos of skyscrapers, including ones in Houston.
In Corpus Christi, investigators found 30 illegal immigrants from the Middle East hidden in the bowels of a large ship. The stowaways refused to say why they had come.
And in The Woodlands, the owner of a $350,000 house is about to be sentenced for leading a double life as an arms dealer for terrorists.
Two floors of the FBI headquarters in Houston are devoted to task force operations, giving members a round-the-clock base where they can access secure telephones and computers.
Local police have been sent to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to interview Taliban and al-Qaida detainees, though Powers declined to elaborate on the missions.
"They went to get names and intelligence about possible cells to disrupt," he said.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez, who serves on the local task force and is chief of the regional Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, said the group thwarted attempts by suspected terrorists to cross the Mexican border into Texas.
In one, a few days after the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, task force members received intelligence that five Iraqis in Mexico City wanted to exchange millions of dinars for U.S. currency and find a smuggler to bring them across the border near Laredo, officials said.
They were believed to be planning an assault on President Bush's Crawford ranch, where they "wanted to blow something up," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Porto, another task force member.
The smuggler they approached sought help from two people with links to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, which has been named a foreign terrorist organization, Martinez said.
"The threat was interrupted and went away," he said. "I can't say how."
Another tip triggered a task force investigation of a convenience store owner in Alice who was seeking explosives and collecting photos of tall buildings. Muhammad Navid Asrar is now in federal prison after pleading guilty to being an undocumented immigrant in illegal possession of 50 rounds of 9 mm bullets, records show.
Asrar, a Pakistani who overstayed his student visa, denied any connection to terrorists, and investigators said they could not prove what he intended to do with the photographs.
However, FBI Agent David Troutman has testified that Asrar remains the subject of an investigation.
"Besides trying to purchase explosives from an oil field worker, Asrar had made donations to the Holy Land Foundation," Martinez said. A federal appeals court in 2003 ruled that the U.S. Treasury Department had ample evidence connecting the Texas-based foundation to a terrorist group blamed for orchestrating suicide bombings in Israel.
"It is the only area in the U.S. with critical infrastructure in all risk categories," he added.
Houston also has the nation's second-largest Muslim population, numbering 350,000, and 80 mosques, Martinez said. Yet investigators are quick to stress that they do not use a broad brush to target Middle Easterners.
With the informant's help, investigators were able to track Varela from his fashionable home in The Woodlands to AUC commandants in the Colombian jungles. The trail led to clandestine meetings in Mexico City, London, St. Croix, Panama City and San Jose, Costa Rica. Eventually, a case was built against Varela and three others, all of whom have pleaded guilty.
Some probes expose breaches in security that need to be corrected, Martinez said, citing the discovery in 2003 of 30 Middle Easterners illegally hiding on a ship in Corpus Christi. The stowaways would not tell investigators why they were sneaking into the country, and they eventually were deported.
The U.S. Coast Guard ordered four armed security guards posted to see that none of the stowaways escaped. None did, but when Coast Guard officers returned they found only three guards on duty. One was asleep and only one was armed. Furthermore, the firm supplying the guards was not licensed to do business in Texas and was owned by a felon convicted of smuggling illegal immigrants, authorities