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Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

US jihad suicide bomber’s travels in U.S., Middle East went unmonitored

Oct 12, 2014 9:45 pm By Robert Spencer

Abusalha“It is extremely difficult for the FBI to identify individuals in the U.S. who have this kind of goal” — especially since they’re forbidden as a matter of policy to study or understand the ideology to which these people adhere.

“American suicide bomber’s travels in U.S., Middle East went unmonitored,” by Adam Goldman and Greg Miller, Washington Post, October 11, 2014:

VERO BEACH, Fla. — There were no U.S. air marshals watching the newly clean-shaven passenger on the transatlantic­ flight, no FBI agents waiting for him as he landed in Newark in May 2013 after returning from Syria’s civil war.

As the 22-year-old Florida native made his way through a U.S. border inspection, officers pulled him aside for additional screening and searched his belongings. They called his mother in Vero Beach to check on his claim that he had merely been visiting relatives in the Middle East. But when she vouched for him, U.S. officials said, Moner Mohammad Abusalha was waved through without any further scrutiny or perceived need to notify the FBI that he was back in the United States.

Earlier this year, after returning to Syria, Abusalha became the first American to carry out a suicide attack in that country, blowing up a restaurant frequented by Syrian soldiers on behalf of an al-Qaeda affiliate. His death May 25 was accompanied by the release of a menacing video. “You think you are safe where you are in America,” he said, threatening his own country and a half-dozen others. “You are not safe.”

It was a warning from someone who had been in position to deliver on that threat. By then, Abusalha­ had made two trips to a conflict zone seen as the largest incubator of Islamist radicalism since Afghanistan in the 1980s. Between those visits he wandered inside the United States for more than six months, U.S. officials said, attracting no attention from authorities after their brief telephone conversation with his mother.

His movements went unmonitored despite a major push by U.S. security and intelligence agencies over the past two years to track the flow of foreign fighters into and out of Syria. At the center of that effort is a task force established by the FBI at a classified complex in Virginia that also involves the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center.

Despite that expanding surveillance net and more than a dozen prosecutions in the United States, the outcome for Abusalha depended more on the priorities of his al-Qaeda handlers than U.S. defenses. FBI officials involved in the case said it exposed vulnerabilities that can be reduced but not eliminated.

“It is extremely difficult for the FBI to identify individuals in the U.S. who have this kind of goal,” said George Piro, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami field office, which led the Abusalha investigation. “It requires a loved one or really close friend to note the changes. . . . The family has to intervene.”…

Or maybe the mosque, once they’re through with their Hamas-linked CAIR “Don’t talk to the FBI” meetings.

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Filed Under: FBI, United States Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. terry says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 12:03 am

    Over 13 years ago, before 9/11, there was a senior police officer, here in Canada , who was commenting on then a recent case of a Jihad terrorist.

    Part of what he said:” We don’t investigate a religion we investigate individuals”.

    My immediate reaction was ” what a stupid and ignorant way of thinking”. I still remember that incident vividly, having known a lot about that religion and its belief system since a long time.

    It is not only the FBI; probably all of national security agencies in western countries have that mentality.

    The Greek philosopher was right when he said over 200 years ago that”Might is right”!

    • terry says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 12:08 am

      In my previous comment, in the last line, I meant over 2000 not 200 years ago.

      • DKH says

        Oct 13, 2014 at 2:14 am

        You are so right!

      • Tradewinds says

        Oct 13, 2014 at 8:24 am

        You’re referring to Thrasymachus whom Socrates demolishes in the first chapter of Plato’s “Republic?” I think you should re-read it.

        • terry says

          Oct 13, 2014 at 11:17 am

          “Might is right”, no body, in the present system of things on this planet , is or will ever be able to demolish the preciseness of this phrase in regard to the behaviour of at least a majority of human beings, including many governments and their leaders.

          Unless these later return to their full consciousness, state of awareness, and master the dual power of “pain and pleasure”, that phrase will continue to be a good predictor of their behaviour.

        • Tradewinds says

          Oct 13, 2014 at 2:09 pm

          As I said, you should re-read the first chapter of Plato’s “Republic.”

  2. Salah says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 1:15 am

    ” They (the FBI) are forbidden as a matter of policy to study or understand the ideology to which these people adhere.”

    Some are hoping that elections will fix this mess.
    Others, and I’m one of them, are hoping that a peaceful popular uprising could still fix this mess.
    Others think it’s already too late.

    The U.S. Is Over, Get Used To It
    http://www.creativeminorityreport.com/2014/10/the-us-is-over-get-used-to-it.html

    • DKH says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 2:12 am

      Go read the prophetic pamphlet ‘George Washington’s vision’ It will set you straight Duffy.

    • Charlie Griffith says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 8:57 am

      The U.S. isn’t “over” by a long shot, but we do have to get rid of this dangerous, amateurish Obama “administration”. That’s not easy, given our testicle-free Republican controlled House and too many Democrats in the Senate [right now].
      Not being a psychiatrist, will say here anyway that the very introductory movement in the House to Impeach Obama and bring charges against that curious Attorney General he appointed would be so traumatic to the “administration’s” psyche that the effect nationally would be very healthy.

      We’re faced here with a vendictive Democrat party attitude of “Yes! I! Can!” and “Stick it to th’ Man”, meaning the White Man. Yes, indeed this is “racist”, but it is “racism!” coming from the Democrats.

      Read History. The irony here is tragicomic. It was formerly the Republicans during our Reconstruction” period after our Civil War ended who were the champions of the just emancipated Blacks.

      But nobody reads History today. “History” is so “Yesterday”, literally.

      So, here we are, it’s a helluva mess.

      • John says

        Oct 13, 2014 at 9:06 am

        Maybe it isn’t “over”, but I wouldn’t lay any heavy money on that proposition. When a country is capable of putting someone as juvenile and ill-educated (his academic record is, well, academic purely) as Barack Hussein Obama in high office twice, the jigs pretty much up. The teaparty crowd used to say this four-flushing sleaze bag was a Mohammedan. That’s a debatable assertion — personally I doubt he believes in anything at all beyond himself — but what is not debatable is that he is the best friend the followers of the Great Desert Pervert ever had in any level of the American government.

        • Charlie Griffith says

          Oct 13, 2014 at 10:53 am

          Ha Ha…..hopefully we’ve learned a painful lesson there the chameleon named Hussein Obama and with the concurrent “political correctness”.

          But, remember also that we survived both Jimmeh Cahtah and Lyndon Johnson.

          Cheer up, we’ll be OK.

        • Judi says

          Oct 13, 2014 at 11:32 am

          Charlie – Jimmy Carter and LBJ didn’t have to deal with Islam in the 60’s and 70’s, that’s the difference.

        • Oliver says

          Oct 13, 2014 at 12:41 pm

          LBJ AT LEAST LOVED THE U.S.

          Jimmy Carter ( and his brother Billy–father of the current Demorat candidate for governor-who is–in my view- as weird as his father and uncle) was a highly intelligent man who lacked basic common sense. he was also incompetent.

          LBJ-perhaps a bit of a crook, but loyal to this country.

          It (again, my view) when the McGovern wing took over the Demorats that the party turned to (almost) pure socialism and Hate America. (About a year ro so ago, Newsmax took a list -from Congressional records-the wealthiest Senators–7 or 8 of the top 10 were Democrats; all inherited or married into the money). Socialists mantra- ‘ what is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine”.

    • Honeybee says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 2:09 pm

      I think we [USA] are to have to become use to it.

      • Charlie Griffith says

        Oct 13, 2014 at 3:44 pm

        Attn ‘Oliver’ just above here a bit….[no reply button] Re: the Socialists’ mantra,

        Don’t forget Margaret Thatcher’s marvelous quip about, “Other peoples’ money.” If that doesn’t sum up Socialism, I don’t know what will. Deserves a Pulitzer just by itself. The context was asking that wonderfully loaded question of what happens – when – not if, we run out of others’ money?

        Review 1989 and the collapse from within of the Soviet Union.
        Once that large ball gathered momentum there was no stopping it. Picture Sisyphus losing his footing.

        • Oliver says

          Oct 14, 2014 at 1:36 pm

          I remember Margaret Thatcher, as, along with Ronald Reagan, one of the best leaders ever–or, at least in my lifetime.

          I also remember the bizarros “celebrating” when she passed one.

          Typical weirdos- the pictures (admittedly Yahoo news/AP-so probably cleaned up a bit) –piercings throughout the bodies; one i recall looked like a caricature of African savages with a bone through his nose (although the weirdo’ thing in his nose wost more likely plastic.

          Yes, I also recall the quote. Thanks for reminding me.

  3. Kerry Heseltine says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 2:07 am

    The cat lover is just as you said a pussy! But he also is a coward! One who will not ace man to man in a brawl! I spoke to a Jewish man a few years ago asking how does the Jewish people fight with a muslim? He said hit them harder. Really a stroke of genius.

    • ke says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 2:09 am

      One will not face his enemy man to man is what my intention was.

    • Tradewinds says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 8:27 am

      The poor cat has nothing to do with this. I wish I had the cat and not the barbaric Islamic creep.

  4. duh_swami says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 6:33 am

    Never trust anyone who believes Allah is God….These jihadists returning should be arrested. It’s insanity to let those who participate in mass gruesome murder back in…

  5. Ayatrollah says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 9:06 am

    You have to ask yourself why did they not use this guy to do terrorism in the states rather than “waste” him in darl Islam. .?

    Allah knows best.

    • Oliver says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 12:47 pm

      Aya, perhaps they (his Al queia handlers) felt that he lacked the ability to figure out who were the good ( bad for a human, good for those murderous creeps) and bad ( good for normal people) here in the states; but in Syria-it was easier.

      Besides, even if he could figure out the good from bad, they ( his handlers) might have felt that he would chicken out, if a friend (or former friend) or relative (or a relative of a former friend, etc ad infinitum) might be amongst the victims. In Syria, no such worry.

  6. Charlie Griffith says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 9:52 am

    OUR politicians, eh? OURS?

    You certainly touched a nerve with that.

    This octogenarian objects now, after all of the years of our active foreign entanglement [those words go back to our 18th Cent. Founders who urged the new Nation to avoid just such] since 1917, any intimation that the onus is on the United States , yet again, to take care of this ‘islamoid threat’.

    Granted the U.N. is a giant Third World controlled bureaucratic mess financed largely by the U.S. Dollar. Granted that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [think about those words], and the World Bank, USAID here and there, everywhere, were created largely with United States backing because we survived the Second World War stronger than anyone else. Then there was the Marshall Plan. The Cold War umbrella our politicians provided. Then there was Japan’s Recovery. The collapse of European Colonialism all over the place.

    Now, coming down here more to our most immediate miasmas, the Sykes-Picot hand drawn frontiers are meaningless. We have a Muslim led guerrilla war expanding wherever a weakness is exposed.

    We’re faced now with a Muslim geographic area from Morocco to Sinkiang [old spelling] to and including all of the area in between and including the southern Philippines and Indonesia, which is mostly Muslim controlled.

    Our politicians have serious problems here at home. The most serious that I can remember living through, even the Great Depression which of course I can’t recall from childhood.

    We need lots of tangible, material help, not words and exhortations to take over.

    Recall……how short a time it was before we heard, “Yanks Go Home!” Saw the graffiti, “Yanks Go Home!”

  7. Cora Nott says

    Oct 13, 2014 at 10:55 am

    If the FBI, the CIA, and the Secret Service want to be successful, they will have to ignore all directives from President Obama. He is too attracted to Muslims and their Koranic beliefs to be effective in this regard.

    • Tradewinds says

      Oct 13, 2014 at 2:13 pm

      You’re right, Cora. Hussein’s father and African relatives are Muslims. So, what can you expect?

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