Almost Bojinka?

In 1996 super-terrorist Ramzi Yousef was in court in Manhattan, on trial for plotting to blow up ten twelve Boeing 747s on transpacific flights to the USA. The plot was loosely refered to as "Operation Bojinka". A test bomb had already been planted on a 747 in the Far East but had failed to bring down the plane.

During the trial a Boeing 747 exploded off Long Island, NY, killing hundreds, but after years of ruminations between FBI, CIA and the NTSB it was ruled an accident. However, to this very day nothing has been done to mitigate the 'problem' thought to have caused a perfectly airworthy airplane to self-explode, the first such in-flight incidence of a commercial jet in the modern age.

Or maybe it has.

HARD TO STARBOARD, CAP'N 8/10/06

Bush: Failed terror plot a reminder that everybody should stop complaining about how bad I screwed up Iraq.
-- Josh Marshall

“Five years after 9-11, it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win,” Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts said.
--Ted Kennedy

Is there anything more disgusting than the rank politicization of a thwarted terror attack by a slobbish hack who probably got away with manslaughter?

I'm tempted to ramble on about how much gasoline his party poured on the fire when they had the reigns, but it's rather pointless, isn't it? After all, these guys couldn't care less.

TIES? 8/10/06

Instapundit linked to Brendan Loy, who wondered whether the attacks could have been timed for August 22, the date Ahmadinejad has cackled about regarding the 12th Imam or somesuch. Not ruling it out, but if what we're hearing about a Pakistani connection is correct it seems doubtful. That area is predominately Sunni, and as we saw today, the two really don't get along.


I'm interested in which part of Pakistan these folks traveled about, if they did. Perhaps it was Waziristan or Balochistan, both pecks of trouble.

In the mean time, is there any relevence to Zawahiri's two recent messages, the last which talked of a merger between an Egyptian terrorist outfit and AQ at the same time America was looking for eleven disappearing Egyptian students?

DATES AND SUCH 8/11/06

United Airlines tickets found on one of the suspects suggests that August 16th was their D-Day. Perhaps they were trying to one-up Ahmadinejad.

Presumably apart from the goings-on in England we have two odd stories in America regarding Islamic men purchasing large numbers of cell phones. In this one, men of Pakistani descent were questioned after visiting several rural Wal-Marts and purchasing hundreds of Tracfones:

They also told officers they get stopped frequently and say they buy the phones for $20 and sell them elsewhere for $38. They sell them without the packaging or charger.

Same thing in this one.

It's human nature that anytime terrorism hits the news the suspicion level rises, sometimes to an absurd level. But perhaps there is no such level anymore. When taken together these events sound rather fishy. Why would someone buy a Tracfone for 38 dollars if they could get one at Wally World for 20? The only thing that makes sense is selling them to overseas buyers, such as in Iraq where the demand is high, or selling them to sleeper cells here trying not to leave any tracks.