From the article, I can see why the US gov. was especially nosey about this one.
It looks a whole lot like a backhanded suggestion of what a suicide bomber ought to attack, given the choice.
I would hope some effort is put into means of detecting these menaces in a way that is itself undetectable.
I do understand our gov looking at the dissertation topic - hopefully so they can learn how to better protect us. What I don’t understand is how they found out about it? Are we to assume that the FBI scans all papers written by college students in the US? or only dissertations? How did they hear about it? I can’t help but think that there was a professor who did not like the fact that someone was looking into the subject. Although the article doesn’t mention it, most of Usmani’s travels involved presenting research papers at various conferences - I recall seeing his name here of FR before (I think it was around April or May) discussing some presentation at a mathematical modeling conference.
The question now becomes, was the informant angry that a Muslim was studying the effects of suicide bombs because the results would help make the bombs more effective, or because they would become less effective? Given the general political tenor of the academic community, I fear it was the latter. We have far too many professors who cheer the terrorists and oppose those who would defeat them.