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.
Five Percent Nation of Islam
http://comp.uark.edu/~tsweden/5per.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=5+percenters
Agree.
I hate to say it but we have not learned our lesson yet. Five years after 911 and the borders are still wide open for anybody to come in here and kill us and destroy our cities. It will take another 911 before US citizens demand that the politically correct governing elite either close and protect our borders or get tarred and feathered in the streets.
Semper Fi'
Jarhead
Think you missed my point.
My point is that American's have not done a very good job giving the President the capital he needs to help us win this war.
If you don't think that conservatives are at all culpable in his falling support, you haven't been paying very much attention. I used to think that we all ignored the press. But we have been doing an awfully good job of tearing down what we've spent a lot of years building up lately.
Exactly correct. With nary a clue of why they would be culpable themselves. There are a lot of ways to lose one's nerve.
Singularly, unless an attack is overtly obvious as terrorism, the sheeple will be told it was an accident, a lone perp, two white guys in a white van, nothing to see--move along.
You wrote, "If only there was some common element between all these terror groups..."
At least one member of each group is named 'Mohammed'. Not that I'm into profiling or anything...
I don't think it has anything to do with luck.
Remember, if you don't shop, the terrorists win.
Can't disagree but the Islamofascists, just like the earlier German type, launched the war too early. The more attacks here & there, the more people may really wise up. Here's hoping, anyway.
They skewer Bush for "not connecting the dots" before 9/11; they skewer Bush for connecting the dots after 9/11.
I remember during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we would NEVER let the gas tank get lower than half in case we had to get out of town. Being a little tike, I don't know if many had much plans beyond that or if they even thought about foodstuffs or other survival. However, many built bomb shelters that probably wouldn't have sustained much of anything, but then we all knew that crouching under our school desks would be the saving of America.
They still haven't caught that anthrax guy.
Are you kidding? First, liberals are smarter than everyone else, so they can "connect the dots" without any kind of surveillance whatsoever, just like in the Clinton years. Second these guys aren't terrorists, just misunderstood minorities in need of protection from the big bad Bush man. Someone call the ACLU quick, their rights might be violated!
This line has been added for clarity as a courtesy to the sarcastically impaired. ; ).
The only thing that we can do for the present is wait for the attacks that we know will come. I agree that they will not be a monsterous attack like 911, but will be car bombs at shopping malls and sports events, ied's along side the roads...wherever people congregate....maybe in Christian Churches, perhaps??
If I was a lunatic muslm terrorist, I would start tomorrow.....666. I am not going out anywhere tomorrow. I am not superstious, but just in case there are crazy terrorists out there wanting to kill someone, I think I'll stay out of his way.
Frankly, I dont think we will see an end to terrorist attacks until we have won the war, and that may take 50 years in my opinion.
democracy isnt going to flourish in the middle east for a longtime.
Im not even sure that islam is compatible with freedom or secularism, but we have to try to bring some kind of stability to the ME.
The only alternatives are to allow them to wage red war on us or for us to wage red war on them
I think the "DC snipers" (Mohammod and Malvo) are an example of this
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.