Prosecutor: Mackinac Bridge was target (plan for cell phones)

The Saginaw News ^ | JUSTIN ENGEL08/12/06

[SE Mom]

Tuscola County prosecutors filed terrorism-related charges Saturday against three men who they say bought dozens of cell phones Friday in Caro in a globally coordinated plot involving the Mackinac Bridge.

They charged brothers Adham Abdelhamid Othman, 21, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman, 23, along with their cousin, Maruan Awad Muhareb, 18, with identical counts of collecting material to support terrorist acts and surveillance of a vulnerable target with intent to committ terrorism.

[SleekMaid]

I'm surprised that not many people seem to think this way. For years, my feeling has been that the impact they are going for will include everything and everywhere. All at once, bombs will detonate on trains, bridges, malls, stadiums, perhaps more planes, airports, Churches, schools...nothing will be off limits. Big cities, small towns. Museums, ships, ports...power stations, etc. The picture is being painted so broad, that evacuating trains and stations, airports and grounding airplanes will do very little to help. That's what I think their plans are. This is why they are so spread out.>>>>>>>>>

You voiced the nagging small petrifying inkling I've had since i witnessed 9/11.

Im proud and deeply thankful for how hard LE and civilians are working to identify these fiends, but still Im afraid of a few getting by unnoticed

Faces of Evil From left: Maruan Muhared, Adham Othman and Louai Othman

[PA-RIVER]

They just need to drop off some duffle bags one morning.
500 muslims, 10000 locations. 20 per Muslim. Maybe 200 in each state. Not hard to do. Drive back home. Blow stuff up all day. 10 here, 10 there, all day, for a week. Fires and explosions in every state. That's what you call a Peaceful Muslim celebration.

[reformedliberal]

https://tips.fbi.gov/

local phone call may be faster. Look in your phone book.

[tommix2]

Thank you . There are 37 strands, I had forgotten. where did you find this I'd like to read up on it.

[eleni121]

I'm aware of all that. I have already called on others ...

I just wasn't sure on the cellphone thing. It's been going on for a long time.

[GarySpFc]

Mackinac Bridge

[STARWISE]

Dear lord .... their evil knows no bounds or depths of depravity.

So, JohnFK, all election-bound Rats, and the warped MSM believe W lied about the risks we face.

"bought dozens of cell phones Friday in Caro in a globally coordinated plot involving the Mackinac Bridge."

[Monterrosa-24]

You are thinking along big lines and so are the bad guys. They keep saying something big is coming down.

I remember when the two main suspension bridges in El Salvador were blown. One of them was blown after New Years Eve became New Year's day in the wee hours of the morning. Some of the soldiers on guard had been nipping the spirits.

Joan Didion in her snotty book SALVADOR claims the country had been cut in two by the destruction of those bridges and that is why she flew to the eastern part of the country. In reality, regular traffic was diverted almost immediately to an upstream dam and there was a steady traffic flow within sight of the main destroyed bridge. Joan Didion was an elitest Leftist and that is why she stayed in a four-star hotel (the Weston Camino Real) yet made fun of Salvadoran middle class women for having "children and maids in tow" while shopping.

[GarySpFc]

There is a major problem with a multiple bomb scenaro. Creating multiple bombs increases the chance of discovery, and while they may have as many as 10 attacks it is highly unlikely. Any time you make an attack more complex you also increase your chance of failure.

[Gondring]

Hmmm...what do these 3 have in common? I'm trying to figure it out.

They stand accused and not yet convicted?

[reformedliberal]

I had to call in my area and the events I knew about were 3 weeks past.

However, I think the more tips they get, the more they can connect dots. They have a bigger picture than we do.

[WoofDog123]

i imagine, along with the economic impact AND sending a message to terrorists that they aren't going to get any free publicity here if the government has anything to say about it.

Could have backfired horribly for bush & co if another similar attack had taken place later in the season.

[L_Von_Mises]

If 'talking' was the purpose, why discard the batteries?

... And it could be that they want to charge the batteries en-mass, outside of the phone, then distribute the phones with the batteries disconnected, to ensure that the GPS devices are disabled....

Bingo!

This is the first thing that came to mind when the article said they were separating the batteries form the phones. Even if the batteries are minimally charged, 1,000 in one van would be easy to track through the GPS. My understanding is that it is federally mandated that all cell phones have GPS of some type built in. The only way to disable the GPS is to remove the battery. To me it reinforced that they were up to a lot more than just reselling them for a quick profit.

Also, if they just were looking to turn a quick buck, why would they travel all that distance to purchase them, all their profits would be eaten up on the gas they needed.

[softwarecreator]

and crossed the bridge...it flipped me out and has on every crossing since

Know the feeling.  Traveled it many times and it's unnerving each time.

[SleekMaid]

I have just sold my condo 1 mile outside New York City. The closing is this Friday.

For some reason in May I felt compelled to sell it.

I live next to Jersey City, NJ and am situated between the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels.

To be honest I've got a nagging feeling in my gut that says not to stick it out in NYC anymore and to move back to suburban Pennsylvania or somewhere else more rural.

I already witnessed the WTC being hit in person and imagining my former co workers at my old job dying horrible deaths inside.

Should I feel smart or wimpish to leave the NYC area asap ?

[softwarecreator]

Has this been reported in the MSM yet?

Haven't seen it on the websites for CNN, Fox or MSNBC.

[tommix2]

Adham Abdelhamid Othman, 21, and Louai Abdelhamied Othman, 23, their cousin, Maruan Awad Muhareb, 18, are all quiet, freindly Muslim boys who were very religious and who prayed every day. There must be a mistake here! Or were they framed by Home Scurity because it wants to justify the millions of dollars spent on home defence?

[SleekMaid]

Yeah sure, that picture I posted of them looks so sweet doesn't it ?

No even if they weren't terrorists they look like total thug criminals.

[L_Von_Mises]

Don't know, but they were separating the batteries, the phones and the chargers into separate boxes in the van when they were caught. That made me think the batteries were what they were actually after, but an explosives expert would know better, I'm sure.

The lithium ion batteries are explosive. Especially when directly shorted. I just don't know how explosive or, how multiple batteries could be added to get a more powerful explosion.

Not sure if it is practical/possible to make a bomb from a lithium battery but if that is the intent, why not just buy the batteries. It would be a lot cheaper and attract much less attention?

[patriciaruth]

Thought I'd tell you about something freaky that happened to me today while I was at Walmart in the Central Valley of California getting some movies and drink mix for the troops.

Three of four young men, darker complexions, were filling up three and then four shopping carts with individual size bottles cartons of Gatorade and gallon bottles of Clorox.

The two I saw first weren't speaking Spanish. I speak some Spanish, and I couldn't make out the language. Could have been Middle Eastern. One was at most 30 years old and one was at least 17 or 18, and they were the two speaking the unknown language. Another one approached them and spoke a couple phrases of Spanish.

I'd never seen anything like this before, and as I was on the way home I remembered that if you mix chlorine bleach with phosphoric acid (easily obtainable from a cleaning supply store) you get phosgene gas which is deadly.

So I called the FBI in Fresno, but I hadn't got my act together enough to stick around and wait for them to leave so I could check a license plate as they drove away.

Just putting out a heads up to have everyone and anyone you know who sees someone who could be Middle Eastern buying lots of drink bottles and Clorox or other liquid bleach to stick around and get a license plate.