Posted on 02/12/2002 9:06:27 PM PST by Shermy
NBC News has learned that the FBI has arrested two men of Middle Eastern background who were driving Monday night outside the Pentagon in a tow truck. The FBI is investigating the men to see if they have any terrorist connections.
LUCY CALDWELL, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, told NBC News that state troopers pulled the men over Monday at 10:05 p.m. as they were driving on Route 110 by the Pentagon. Commercial vehicles, including tow trucks, have been prohibited from using that road since November, Caldwell said. She added that the men ignored a trooper who was trying to signal them to pull over their truck. A second trooper down the highway was able to get them to stop. He searched the truck and found numerous false identification cards, Caldwell said, including a half dozen drivers’ licenses from several states “with different identities on them.” Once the trooper saw the fake IDs, he called in the FBI.
Virginia state police have charged the men, whose names were not released, with traffic violations and possession of false identification. The FBI interviewed them at length Tuesday and, federal law enforcement sources say, still are trying to establish who they are. The sources say they expect the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to file federal charges Wednesday against the men in the U.S. District Courthouse in Alexandria, Va.
The men were not armed. Bomb-sniffing dogs searched the truck, but found no explosives or explosive residue, Caldwell said.
The arrest took place just two hours after the FBI announced its latest terrorist warning Monday night. The FBI warned the public that an attack might be planned for as early as Tuesday and told the American public to be on the lookout for a Yemeni man and 16 alleged associates.
Attorney General John Ashcroft on Tuesday urged the nation to be on “the highest state of alert.”
[more on other suspects from other places at link]
Our society as we know it wouldn't function if we are all dead either!!
But I guess its a lot easier to throw out the cynical worn out claptrap about what boobs law enforcement are.
Heck, give them a ticket to Gitmo until it's determined exactly who they are.
He searched the truck and found numerous false identification cards, Caldwell said, including a half dozen drivers’ licenses from several states “with different identities on them.”
Lock them up until they turn states evidence on their "buddies". Send them to Guantanamo.
It seems they get a fixation on a target (the World Trade Center, now the Pentagon) and just keep on hammering until they get it.
They don't seem very imaginative - once they have an idea, they obsess over it. Fortunately, this really helps law enforcement go after them.
Thoughts?
D
I was listening to a radio show where they were talking about the terrorists. Virtually every terrorist they profiled was born in Saudi Arabia but the vast majority of those were Yemeni Citizens. The hosts wondered how that could be since anyone born in America is an American Citizen.
The answer is simple they are the offspring of the vast number of guest workers that Saudi Arabia uses for the menial jobs that Saudi Arabians won't do. Can you imagine the feeling that these people must have seeing the opulence around them as they grew up, hearing their parents bemoan the hard labor, while being born in a country where they will never even be second class citizens?
These non-entities are a fertile recruiting ground for the Terrorist leaders who point their anger away from their Saudi masters toward the developed world. The Saudi Government has to be complicit in this since they need the labor to keep their opulent economy running but don't want the disaffected bombing the royal palaces.
Bringing in a permanent underclass to perform odious tasks has been a mistake since the time of the Romans.
They even had footage of these guys gesticulating away as a policeman sat in traffic in his car - just adjacent to these guys! Moyer then shows all this footage to Police Chief Bernie Parks. Parks makes some excuse, "Well, there is a lot of activity on the street. The officer probably did not notice them." How can they not know this is going on?
Moyers said that in the week that transpired between the taping of the Parks interview and the airing of the piece, NOTHING had been done, no arrests. Damn these people to the craphole where they belong. They are responsible for the craphole this place has become. I hope they get rid of that SOB Parks, if this is his modus operandi.
Maybe these guys were just trying to penetrate security to see if they could or to see what the response would be. This sounds like a scouting mission to me. Maybe they figured that if they drove a prohibited vehicle (but clean of anything incriminating) into the security zone, they would just be told to leave and/or pay a ticket on a fairly bogus charge, the payoff being that they get a firsthand look at the security hardware and procedures.
And oh yeah, up your nose with a rubber hose, jerk!
Damn, what's wrong with a parking ticket?
I really agree, they piss me off. I don't feel sorry for them when they get assaulted. Maybe if they had a job that served society instead of taking advantage of the law and exploiting people, people wouldn't be hitting them with crowbars. That goes for the boot-man, too. I have no sympathy when the local boot-man gets beat down.
If you are going to be a terrorist and want to have a powerful vehicle to go into key areas and be transparent, get yourself a tow truck!
Hell you would even become more transparent if you turned on the flashing lights. Then you could tow away any vehicle you needed for your next terrorisms assignment. No one would bother you.
About a decade ago, some bright thugs stole a tow truck in the Visalia area. They used it to rip the atm machines out of the various branches of banks and savings and loan. They would back right up to the atm attach chains and rip it out and drive off to any alley, lower it and take it apart and steal the money.
They got caught when a guy who retired from the company I worked for, got a part time job of restocking the money for ATMs. He would do this early in the morning before the regular morning rush on ATM's by the customers.
He had filled up an ATM and drove about a block away to do his paper work. He heard a noise and looked in his rear view mirror and saw a tow truck back up to the ATM and somehow rig chains to the machine. They pulled it out of the wall and then drove by him with the ATM dangling from the tow hook.
It was about 4:30 am, and he used the cell phone that was provided by the ATM company for security. He called the police as he followed the truck. About 6 blocks away the truck turned down an alley and the robbers got out to shred the machine for the cash.
He was on the phone with the dispatch gal and she sent two squad cars up the alley from opposite directions. They pulled up and ordered the bad guys to hit the pavement. Then they arrested them.
But, yet, that underclass is here, now as illegal aliens.
I predict that within 5 years we too will have some type of guest worker program.
I am on watch at the grocery store, the mall, driving down the highway, sitting at red lights. I think what terrorists we do have here in country, that have a clue about how America operates, have gone so far underground out of fear of being discovered. We know their faces, security is beefed up all over the place at power plants, chemical plants, oil refineries, etc.
We have almost instant communication at our disposal with cell phones, it will not be so easy for them to pull something off anymore.
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.