Friday, May 7, 2010

Idiot Terrorists, Part 2

The bumbling nature of some freedom-haters was detailed in a prior post, Idiot Terrorists, Part 1. Al Qaeda's 1993 bombing on the World Trade Center is another example.

Mohammed Salameh was the guy who famously got arrested when he returned to a Ryder outlet -- twice -- to try to get the deposit back on the truck they'd blown up. But that's not all:

  • Salameh was used as the driver for the materials in the bomb, and possibly for the bomb itself, despite having failed his driving test four times, and getting into three accidents in the prior few months.

  • The second accident, a month before the bombing, involved his car jumping the curb, tearing the undercarriage, and landing him and another conspirator, Ramzi Yousef, in the hospital. He checked out the next day, but Yousef was laid up for 5 days.
  • Yousef ordered some of the chemicals used in the bomb from his hospital room.

  • Since Salameh's car was unusable, another conspirator, Nidal Ayyad, used his corporate account with his employer to rent another for him -- which Salameh then crashed two weeks later in the third accident.

  • Ayyad also used his position and company letterhead to order other chemicals used in the bomb, and he used a computer at work to write the letter claiming responsibility for the bomb.

  • Salameh called Ayyad at his office number several times from the storage facility where they had the chemicals used for the bomb -- and where they still had all a lot of leftover materials when the FBI raided it.

  • The fourth guy involved, Ahmad Ajaj, was arrested at an airport trying to get into the country, when he was found to have four passports in different names and military manuals for making bombs. He was still in prison when it went off.

If it had been a suicide mission, they'd have reason to not care about the trail they left -- but it wasn't! They may have at least planned to flee the country afterward -- but good old Salameh stayed and kept trying to get his deposit back. With rocket scientists like this, who needs waterboarding?

Next installment: Idiot Terrorists, Part 3
Prior installment: Idiot Terrorists, Part 1