Posted on 02/07/2003 11:02:35 PM PST by Let's Roll
He admitted considering suicide-bomb attack
02/08/2003
By TODD BENSMAN / The Dallas Morning News
In a rare glimpse at the government's domestic war on terror, a Jordanian student from Arlington admitted in court Friday that he had considered becoming a suicide bomber if the United States invaded Iraq.
Tahir Ibrihim Aletwei, a 30-year-old software engineering graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, spoke freely about his inclinations toward terrorism and divulged details of his interviews with federal agents during his deportation hearing.
"I was looking at America as my enemy," he said. "If someone would have approached me and asked me to do something against the country, I was willing to do it."
Mr. Aletwei said he had since had a change of heart and was confessing to help U.S. authorities better guard against people like him. He said he had not been approached by terrorists seeking to enlist him and had no target.
But when U.S. Immigration Judge D. Anthony Rogers referred to an FBI report quoting Mr. Aletwei as saying he still harbored thoughts of killing Americans, Mr. Aletwei conceded that the prospects of a U.S. invasion of Iraq had him again contemplating an attack.
Judge Rogers ordered that Mr. Aletwei be deported within five days, rejecting several pleas by the detainee to be released long enough to finish the last three months of his master's degree.
"I abhor the thought processes that you acknowledge," Judge Rogers said. "The issue we have in this nation since 9-11 is we want to act on the side of caution, and it will be necessary to send you home. That's my final ruling."
At one point, Mr. Aletwei proposed that he be allowed to stay in exchange for cooperating further with authorities, who had interviewed him extensively. The judge deferred to INS prosecutor Heidi Graham, the government's representative in the proceeding.
She declined the offer: "Had we known about what he calls his misguided thinking, we would never have issued him a visa."
Dallas FBI and INS officials declined to say what led agents to Mr. Aletwei or to comment on his case, citing confidentiality rules related to terrorism investigations.
Former FBI Associate Deputy Director Oliver "Buck" Revell said authorities probably had no alternative other than deportation, especially if the suspect seemed mentally unbalanced and unpredictable.
'A peculiar case'
"He's a peculiar case, I have to admit. I haven't heard of one like that, and I've been in the business for 35 years," Mr. Revell said.
Mr. Aletwei said that when agents asked him whether he was involved in terrorism, he said yes.
He said he proceeded to explain to agents that his desire to become a martyr was cultivated by his home country's hatred of the neighboring state of Israel and its most powerful ally, America.
Mr. Aletwei said in court Friday that he came to the United States as part of a Jordanian-sponsored student exchange program in August 2001. He said he came to earn an advanced degree in computer software engineering but secretly hoped for an opportunity to carry out a suicide bombing using explosives strapped to his body.
He said that though he had no formal training to carry out a suicide attack, he was mentally prepared.
"In my mind, I was doing a noble thing," Mr. Aletwei told Judge Rogers.
Mr. Aletwei said he told agents about his feelings and unformed plans as a gesture of good will to a country that had softened him with kindness since his arrival about 20 months earlier.
"I wanted to help. It's my duty to help," he said. "I want people to understand just how we think because if they understand how we think, they can prevent accidents like 9-11. I don't believe war or violence can solve anything."
Mr. Aletwei was arrested Jan. 31 on charges of violating provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which subjects violators to deportation. He could not be criminally charged because he has done nothing illegal.
Professor surprised
News of Mr. Aletwei's testimony astonished his faculty adviser at UTA. Mr. Aletwei had complained in recent months of government harassment and the revocation of his student visa by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, said Dr. Arthur Reyes, an assistant professor of computer science at UTA.
Dr. Reyes, who taught Mr. Aletwei for a year, said his student rarely spoke of politics and struck all who knew him as well-balanced and as a genuinely good person. Dr. Reyes said he wrote a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Jordan at Mr. Aletwei's request to get his visa reinstated.
"There's nothing in his character that would indicate any truth to that at all," Dr. Reyes said. "That doesn't sound like the Tahir that we know."
E-mail tbensman@dallasnews.com
Seems this professor needs deported/incarcerated too...
No wonder these guys are crazy, they live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance. They can call the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon accidents and not believe in violence while contemplating becoming a homicidal bomber. That would be too much for me to handle. There are too many of this brand of vermin running loose within our borders. Kudos to the judge.
Anyhow,the wise old King is dead now, so I suppose anything goes.
That's what bothers me about our "foreign aid" program. Egypt, who I think gets the most moola from us than any other country except Israel -- thanks to the Peacemaker Jimmah Carter and Pee Wee Klintoon -- have state-sponsored madrasas where anti-American hatred is drummed into the heads of the future homicide-bombers. Yet the American greenbacks just keep rolling in.
It's madness and someone has to stop all this looky-loo cacca. We bribe Arab governments to look the other way when we need to step on toes...and all the time they're replenishing the ranks of those who'll do us harm!
I just don't get it! Of course, I ain't as smart as Jimmah and Pee Wee. I was always taught to show compassion and understanding...but when someone dotted your eye anyway you were supposed to protect yourself with all the fury in your being.
Arab despots are gonna hate us regardless of which way we turn. I'm tired of being the slappee. You just watch, when the American military bitch-slaps Saddam, these despots are gonna suddenly acquire some manners. I suspect even the Chinese, North Koreans, Russians, French, and Germans might learn a bit.
9-11 seriously, seriously, affected GW...thank God. He knows we have targets on our backs because we're the only 800# gorilla still standing. I suspect he doesn't like being slapped either.
We call it the teenie-weenie complex in Texas -- blaming others for your shortcomings.
The upside, all those living close to the mosque are probably in a safe-zone...LOL
We know how you SOB's think. Shoot him.
We don't need to shoot him. His own people (maybe even his own mother and father) probably will when they find out he admitted to the Great Satanists that he was too "chicken" to follow through with it. Even worse, he admitted that he didn't find Americans evil, but was met with kindness. An honor killing, you know.
Actually, I do feel sort of sorry for the guy, but I don't want him or his kind here on our soil. All it takes is one of his camel jockey pals to walk into a McDonalds packed full of innocent men, women and children and then blow it up to prove their Islamic manhood, get their 72 virgins, pay-offs from Uncle Saddamn & Uncle Arafat for their family and a nice memorial to themselves for blowing up infidels in the name of allah and as a (get this) "protest of war against Iraq."
Most of the people where this guy came from use such twisted, ignorant, barbaric "logic." They are brainwashed and full of hate. I doubt if they can be redeemed anytime soon because their priorities and values are rooted in hatred, violence, bigotry and a perverted religion that glorifies the murdering of infidels as the ultimate act of faith.
As for him warning us about such thinking--many of us already know that there are evil Muslims here ready and waiting for an excuse to receive their reward in paradise. God--not the perverted, violence-loving moongod allah--help us all...
Real sharp judge.
Taxpayers train a skilled technician and when he's ready to apply his skills the judge returns him to the enemy so he can use those skills to effect our demise.
Between the courts and the INS we haven't got a prayer.
They are like our indigenous LIBERALS here. They hate this country the same as the LIBS do. The LIBS won't leave and the terrorists come here because their homelands don't have schools near as good as ours. They are leaches, jealous leaches and they hate us too. Their homelands are sewer pits, civilazation-wise. They're still in the 12th century. The LIBS want us to be back in the 12th century too. It doesn't make sense to you or me...
This has "future software hacker attack" written all over it.
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.