Posted on 06/05/2006 4:14:43 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
U.S. officials believe Canadian arrests over the weekend and three recent domestic incidents in the United States are evidence the U.S. will soon be hit again by a terrorist attack. Privately, they say, they'd be surprised if it didn't come by the end of the year, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart.
The first of the domestic incidents, all of which drew little attention at the time, began with the holdup of a string of Torrance, Calif. gas stations last summer. Muslim converts who bonded together in prison planned to use the robberies to finance attacks on 20 Army recruiting stations.
Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton admits they stumbled on the plot during a search.
"Make no mistake about it," Bratton said. "We dodged a bullet here — perhaps many bullets."
Police in Toledo, Ohio, busted another cell in February. This one consisted of three men training to attack U.S. forces overseas. Once again, luck played a role. When they tried to enlist someone in their mosque to help, he turned them in.
"These individuals are often hiding in plain sight in cities like Torrance and now Toledo," says John Pistole, a FBI deputy director.
Two months ago, a pair of Atlanta men, one a Georgia Tech engineering student, were arrested not long after communicating by e-mail with two of the suspects arrested in Canada over the weekend. The Atlanta men are charged with videotaping domestic targets, including the U.S. Capitol and the World Bank.
Analysts now conclude similarities between all the cases were dramatic: All were self-financed, self-motivated, and in each case the men were seeking out others to join their cell.
In short, Osama bin Laden didn't pay for these plots, recruit for them or even know of them. They were all totally homegrown — even amateurish. But if four, including the one in Canada, have been uncovered in just 11 months, officials fear there are inevitably other plots that have not been and are maturing even now.
The next attack here, officials predict, will bear no resemblance to Sept. 11. The casualty toll will not be that high, the target probably not that big. We may not even recognize it for what it is at first, they say. But it's coming — of that they seem certain.
Uh, this was front page news in Los Angeles for a week, and here on FR.
>>>all of which drew little attention at the time, began with the holdup of a string of Torrance, Calif. gas stations last summer.
I didnt know that. I thought I read they had been denied bond. Great, now they will split like that rapist who assulted the minor in the same area. He was Morroccan, I believe..
CBS News forgot the nail gun incident in the House building.
Don't expect a liberal to change his views because people he may have known has die over a "war Bush started".
For many libs an attack on our soil would just make them more upset at Bush.
Al Qaeda terrorist expertise is about to increase exponentially now that Israel has disengaged from Gaza and will shortly do so from the WB. The Palis have been fighting the best counter-terror people on the earth--the Israelis. They are only too glad to hand the benefits of their experience to Al Qaeda, the Chechens, Hizbollah, and anyone else with anti-Western agenda. I am afraid this push to give them a state is one of the most ill-conceived moves in modern history. It is almost as though many of our elites are getting advice from our enemies on how best to mix the kool-aid vat that will be our death.
Sadly.
It WILL take another attack,
and the reaction to that attack will set the stage only for chaos or enslavement.
If we jump back and concede to the islamists, they win. If we react by rounding them up for deportation the islamists have their 'proof' that we are at war with their so called relegion. If, as a public & not as a state, there followed a string of lynchings; the socialists and one worlders within the US win and the islamists get what they wanted anyway.
We, the conservatives or almost conservatives in American politics, are in the usual mode of waiting for something to react to.
Even when Dick Tracy and Mary Poppins voted in Lucas County (Toledo area), they still don't win.....
Well, if it happens before the midterm elections; it might be the only thing that saves the GOP's butt.
I agree 100 percent. They have no idea. Just like they didn't have any idea on United's Flight 93.
LOL.
Well (insert "we're special" huff here) you must of cheated then.
It is amazing to me they do not see their own biases.
If the perps are proven to have entered from Mexico, what do you think the reaction will be?
See post #112.
Hmmm.... The Gateway to the West... How safe is that thing?
Of course, people like Joseph Farah, Tom Tancredo, Pat Buchanan, and their worshipers would just love for terrorists to cross the Mexican border and kill a few million Americans.
What if they entered like the last batch of foreign muslim terrorists? With legal papers via the airport?
The truth is we still admit far too many people from all the wrong places with inadequate scruitny.
We're even still handing out green-cards to about 100,000 new alien muslims yearly.
Do we think its at all possible that the recent laptop thefts (one belonging to a hotel.com employee and another from a military analyst) containing the personal information of thousands of Americans could be linked to any of this?
The Arch was closed for awhile after 9-11, and there are still those who believe that two guys who should have been detained when their TWA flight landed on 9-11, were planning to hijack the plane and hit it. If STL is using the 30s (Runways 30L and 30R), the approach brings you right past the Arch..
That remark is as stupid as they come. And yeah, the abuse button is going down. DU couldn't say it better than you.
People keep saying that. I keep wondering why someone would come in to the US from the ME through Mexico when there is a whole bunch of coast line they could land on?
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