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California: Snipers open fire on electrical substation, “most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred”

Feb 5, 2014 6:38 pm By Robert Spencer

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It happened last April, but we are only hearing about it now. Why is that? There have been no arrests and there are apparently no suspects, but it does appear to have been a carefully planned and coordinated attack. Said Mark Johnson, a former PG&E executive: “This wasn’t an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation. This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.” Were they jihadis? Possibly. Possibly not. Johnson also said: “My personal view is that this was a dress rehearsal.” If anyone was taking notes on how well the dress rehearsal went, it was Islamic jihadists.

“Sniper Attack On Calif. Power Station Raises Terrorism Fears,” by Mark Memmott for NPR, February 5:

Was an attack last April on an electric power station near San Jose, Calif., the work of vandals or something far more dangerous — domestic terrorism or a trial run by an individual or organization bent on damaging the nation’s electric grid?

The Wall Street Journal, picking up from an earlier report by Foreign Policy magazine, explores that question Wednesday in a long account about what happened at PG&E Corp.’s Metcalf transmission substation — an event that has received relatively little attention until now.

The top of the Journal‘s story grabs your attention:

“The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

“Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

“To avoid a blackout, electric-grid officials rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But it took utility workers 27 days to make repairs and bring the substation back to life.”

According to Foreign Policy, which was less definitive about whether the attack was the work of more than one person, at least 100 rounds were fired from at least one high-powered rifle.

No one has been arrested in connection with the attack.

An FBI spokesman, without going into details, tells the Journal that the agency does not believe a terrorist organization was responsible.

But, as Foreign Policy reported, a former PG&E vice president for transmission operations said at a conference last November that “these were not amateurs taking potshots.”

“My personal view is that this was a dress rehearsal” for future attacks, added Mark Johnson, the former PG&E executive, according to Foreign Policy.

The Journal quotes Jon Wellinghoff — chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time of the attack — as saying it was “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred” in the U.S.…

Meanwhile, there’s another mysterious detail to report. According to the San Jose Mercury News, about 3 a.m. one morning a month after the attack, “a man dressed in all black was spotted … in a field next to the property, setting off a large search by the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. … Sheriff’s deputies searched the area but did not locate the man.”…

The attack “seems to have been the work of people who knew what they were doing,” the Journal‘s Rebecca Smith just told NPR’s Audie Cornish. The evidence, Smith said, indicates that the sniper or snipers “methodically” shot at equipment that would disable the substation if damaged — but also would not explode. Then, “one minute before police arrived, they faded into the night.”

Regarding the FBI’s view about who’s responsible, “we don’t know why the FBI feels it was not a terrorist attack,” she added….

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Comments

  1. mortimer says

    Feb 5, 2014 at 7:08 pm

    ‘A dress rehearsal’ by Iran maybe. So why are we sending them cash?

    Let’s hold off on it. Can the West afford to have Muslims living among them, if these sorts of threats keep recurring?

    • Sovereign Man says

      Feb 5, 2014 at 9:59 pm

      Don’t be so prejudiced. Why single out Iran? After all, the US government supports diversity.

      They fund Al Qaeda through deals with Saudis, the Taliban via the Pakistani ISI and Haqqani Network, the Muslim Brotherhood in Eqypt, the LIFG and various other groups in Libya, Hamas in Gaza, and so on. Very equal opportunity.

  2. Islam_Macht_Frei says

    Feb 5, 2014 at 10:02 pm

    This was reported at least a month ago. Why the claim that it is “just now?”

    http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/12/31/was-mysterious-power-grid-attack-dress-rehearsal-for-larger-assault/

    • Defcon 4 says

      Feb 6, 2014 at 2:57 am

      Because the enemedia never bothered to report it. I’m sure if it had been right-wing Christians or tea-partiers it would’ve been front page news.

  3. Thomas Wells says

    Feb 5, 2014 at 10:25 pm

    This cluster-glock is like if the French in the beginning of WW II, thought that all those Fokkers and Panzers coming out of The Third Reich were tourists. Certainly some of the blind fools at homeland security could at least smell a dead rat. Get in your car and go for a ride. You will see critical electrical prime targets “protected ” by” : no trespassing “signs-and nobody else. Stroll around them,nobody will bother you.

    With so many Americans out of work and money, there is a vast pool of people that it would make sense to put to work as guards. Unless some nefarious schemers in various government agencies and private groups are helping outside forces to bring darkness to America. Don’t forget to buy extra batteries.

  4. Christian Beltram says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 12:50 am

    This case makes me ask one question. How many other unreported terrorist attacks or dress rehearsals for future terrorist attacks have happened since 9/11. I assume that the government is reluctant to let us know because revealing such information would make it look weak and incompetent in the eyes of the American people.

    • Defcon 4 says

      Feb 6, 2014 at 3:02 am

      I’ve often wondered if the rash of train de-railings over the course of the last two years was really accidental at all.

    • Geordie says

      Feb 6, 2014 at 8:52 am

      In most cases discovering a dress rehearsal for a terrorist attack is best kept quiet. It assists intelligence gathering and the eventual arrest of the criminals before they can carry out their plan.

      Attacking a single power “station” this way is very strange.

    • Lance Harris says

      Feb 8, 2014 at 1:54 pm

      The government ALREADY looks weak and incompetent. What’s another reminder going to hurt?

  5. fair_dinkum says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 3:37 am

    this is a sounding out of a theory.. certainly a “dress rehearsal”.
    i’m sure there must be similar unreported incidents ..

    “The attack “seems to have been the work of people who knew what they were doing,”

    you bet. they were probably grid workers.
    i hope it was for some motivation like extra shifts, but its a little extreme, getting OT like this.

    its a commando style raid. a marines/sas/spec forces. etc.
    i know.

    very well planned, timed and executed.

  6. DrPepper says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 1:19 pm

    Regarding the FBI’s view about who’s responsible, “we don’t know why the FBI feels it was not a terrorist attack,” she added….

    I know why, it’s because of the retard in the white house. The basturd doesn’t want any finger pointing at muslims.

    • Truth says

      Feb 6, 2014 at 5:35 pm

      Excellent post. Repubs must take control of the US Senate this november, and keep the US House.

  7. Ice Star says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 1:27 pm

    “An FBI spokesman, without going into details, tells the Journal that the agency does not believe a terrorist organization was responsible.”

    Really??

    How do they kn ow this with no suspects and no arrests?

    Oh and FBI…

    If not terrorists then who?

    A senior prank from the local High School?

    Is the FBI really that stupid, or is it just our great leaders thinking WE the American public are stupid?

    This makes my blood boil.

  8. pongidae rex says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 1:41 pm

    A city without electricity during a major heat wave would be a massive death trap. That Is what they are waiting for. And still we let them Immigrate here by the hundreds of thousands…

  9. Rose B says

    Feb 6, 2014 at 3:53 pm

    It is time for Jihad Response! Carefully observe the Muslims among you AND IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING! To the police, to the FBI, to the CIA! The time has come to respond.

  10. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 12:09 am

    This is where groups like ACT for America matter. They have a project aimed specifically at increasing jihad awareness among front-line law enforcement personnel – “the thin blue line”. Support it! (And in Australia and the UK and Canada and elsewhere, similar projects are badly needed).

    Educate the cops.
    Educate the returned soldiers.

    And every Islamosavvy citizen in every western country should be *particularly* alert and aware if they live in the vicinity of key installations such as powerlines, power stations, reservoirs, water treatment plants…

    Don’t assume that someone else is keeping a lookout. Do it yourself, to the best of your ability, as you go about your daily business. If you’re a retiree, and have the time, then your daily dog-walking route or your drive to the shops should involve a cruise past whatever thing you’re keeping an eye on. And if you do see anything…*odd**…notify the authorities.

    Same deal if you work in or live right next to a hospital or shopping centre or school (= soft target). Or if you work on public transport, driving a train or a bus; or if you *take* a train or a bus every day, *don’t* stumble on board and promptly zone out…instead, sit up and take notice, especially if your train or bus goes through an Islamised area and / or regularly has visibly Muslim passengers.

    Frankly, what’s needed right now are *Islamosavvy* non-Muslim CLEANERS and JANITORS, because they’re everywhere, they see everything, and they get into all the odd little corners where nobody else is supposed to go. If you’re the groundsman at the local school – great! You can be on the alert all day long.

    Right at the moment, when so very many people are still asleep at the wheel – especially those in charge – it means that every one of us who *is* aware has to be on the lookout.

    And wherever you see Muslims…*watch* them.
    If you live in or near a partially-Islamised neighbourhood…learn the patterns so that you can spot…deviations from the pattern, blips that may mean something. *Especially* if you live near a mosque or madrasa/ Islamic “school”…but watch the halal restaurants and butchers and bookshops and coffee shops, too. Watch, watch, watch.

    Then, as the slogan says, if you see something, say something (and you might have to say it several times, louder and louder, and get others to say it with you).

  11. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 7, 2014 at 12:14 am

    Time to repost a classic from the archives.

    http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/03/i-am-john-doe.html

    I am John Doe

  12. dumbledoresarmy says

    Feb 8, 2014 at 1:34 am

    To inspire the speech that one day, someday …sooner rather than later, please God! – a leader of a free non-Muslim country, *somewhere*, is going to give:

    The piece I am now linking was written by an Islamosavvy German citizen.

    It’s a beauty.

    http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2011/10/fireside-chat-with-ummah.html#more

    Saturday, October 08, 2011
    A Fireside Chat With the Ummah, or “An Open Letter to Muslims”.

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