Today has to go down as a real landmark in what passes for journalism these days.
It started out when someone involved in the investigation blabbed to CNN that the feds had a photo of someone with the kind of large backpack used to carry and camouflage the 6 liter pressure cooker bombs and that they were seeking what was described as 'a dark skinned man.'
So rather than act with the responsibility you might credit a 12 -year-old with and think about the possibility that they might be alerting a fugitive he was on the fed's radar, of course they broadcasted that information publicly, via CNN talking head John King and claimed an arrest had been made.
Of course, no actual arrest had been made, and CNN was reprimanded by the feds,but the damage of course was already done.Meanwhile, in a desperate lunge back to political correctness King walked back the 'dark skinned' remark:
I want to be very careful about this because people get very sensitive when you say these things. I was told by one of these sources, who is a law enforcement official, that this was a dark-skinned male. The official used some other words, I’m not going to repeat them until we get more information because of the sensitivities. There are some people that will take offense even at saying that.
Nevertheless, now that the clowns are offstage, there are some interesting new developments.
The Lord and Taylor security video cam apparently caught images of two men toting back packs of exactly the kind used to transport and camouflage the bombs, as well as an image of what appears to be a man leaving a backpack near the finish line.It shows him
placing it outside the railing, and there's another shot of the man running away from the scene while the rest of the crowd is caught up in the blast and scrambles for cover scrambles for cover.
There's also another image of a man dialing a number on a cell phone moments before the blast. Cell phones are very popular ways of remotely detonating a bomb of this kind, but the feds are able to check cell records to see who used a phone at that exact place and time. Of course, if the caller was part of the team who set off the bombs and he was the least bit professional, there are obvious ways to use a cell phone as a detonator in this fashion and leave no record which I'd just as soon not mention, because there's always the chance someone could be reading this whom shouldn't. But there's always the chance that if this person was part of team, he screwed up, so it's worth the feds checking out.
Now we get to go in a different direction and look at some other pictures.
These are three Arab males at the Marathon before the bombing,one of whom appears to toting a back pack of the kind used for the bombs.
One of them has a striking resemblance to Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi, the Saudi national who was apprehended leaving the scene of the bombing with his clothes smelling of gunpowder and made several curious statements, declaring “I thought there would be a second bomb” and “Did anyone die?”
We were told he was not a suspect but was still being held as a witness, 'a person of interest'. But more on that later.
As I mentioned in the above link, Alharbi hails from the Asir province near Yemen, a part of the Kingdom where Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)is not exactly unpopular.So do his two roommates that lived with him in an apartment in Revere, a Boston suburb. One of those roommates my sources tell me is still being sought by the FBI and another is in custody over what are described as 'visa problems'.
You'll remember that after Alharbi was detained by the FBI, his apartment was searched and a number of bags of evidence removed.
But wait, there's more.
Alharbi has quite an interesting family background. As former terrorist Walid Shoebat reveals, our friend Alharbi has no less than six family members openly affiliated with al-Qaeda, plus another 5 who have served time at Guantamano. And in fact his entire clan has a significant jihadist orientation. That doesn't mean Alharbi is part of al-Qaeda, but it opens up another question.
By this time, your jaw is probably dropping and you're wondering 'how did someone with this background get a visa to come to America'? Walk with me awhile.
While Alharbi was in custody and was declared a suspect, our Secretary of State had a routine press conference and photo op scheduled with the Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. Usually these sort of things are public. But in this case, Secretary Kerry and Prince Saud al-Faisal abruptly canceled the presser and held a secret, behind closed doors meeting.
Shortly afterwards, it was announced that Alharbi was no longer a suspect and was simply a person of interest..in less than 24 hours since he was picked up.
And today, Alharbi, who supposedly had nothing to do with the bombing is going to be speedily deported as - wait for it - 'a national security risk'.
They're getting him out of the country and cleaning this up.
Today, no less than President Obama had a meeting with Prince Saud-al-Feisal that was not on his schedule. According to the White House, the meeting concerned Syria, but that's the sort of thing that would have been handled by Kerry in the earlier meeting.This was almost certainly something different.
Another clue was that a major press conference on the status of the investigation of the bombings scheduled for 5 PM EST today was abruptly postponed after the president's meeting with al-Feisal occurred. My gut tells me they have a pretty good idea of who was responsible by now but are waiting on instructions from Washington before going public.
If Saudis were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing, it's a rather nasty mutual problem.
Three months ago, the Obama administration ended post-9/11 restrictions on Saudis entering the US and put them on the 'trusted traveler list', which is how Alharbi and a lot of other Saudis with questionable backgrounds got in - not that there was ever all that much of a restriction on visas from young men from the Kingdom or other Arab countries anyway.
So if a Saudi national or nationals were to be linked with the Boston Bombing, it would point yet another finger at President Obama and his team's less than stellar performance when it comes to foreign policy and national security. One can only live off someone else's ordering the assassination of Osama bin-Laden so for so long, especially with the rest of the Middle East unraveling.
In addition, there's a multi-billion dollar arms deal with the House of Saud in the works, not to mention this president's fondness for Islam and Islamists, all that oil, and continued Saudi access to America, all of which might be looked at by Americans rather badly if the carnage in Boston was the result of people the Obama Administration changed U.S. law to let into the country.
So if this was jihad, it's in the mutual interest of both the president and the Saudis to handle this carefully. If Saudis were involved, my guess is that the Obama Regime will employ one of these scenarios in this order of preference:
Either they'll somehow find a Great White Tea Party Terrorist to pin the Boston Bombing on, simply let the whole thing fade away while pledging to 'bring the people responsible to justice' ( how I hate that phrase) or if necessary, pin it on unnamed al-Qaeda elements and launch a few drones while the Saudis responsible slip quietly out of the country. It's happened before.
As a last resort, if Saudis were involved and there's no way to get around it, they might be forced to imprison the bombers, while telling Americans what a religion of peace Islam is and that the bombers were only caught 'thanks to the help we got from our Saudi allies'.
To President Obama, this isn't really terrorism, in spite of what he finally admitted. It's a political problem to be handled .
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4 comments:
Today has to go down as a real landmark in what passes for journalism these days.
That's rich coming from the guy who wrote 'Jihad Strikes Boston' right after the bombing.
Alharbi
Just out of curiosity, if this guy had family connected to terrorists, why was he let in to begin with??
Really!!! The bag was OUTSIDE the fence. We all can agree on that. Now when something goes BOOM it pushes stuff around in away from the blast. With me so far, take a good look at the fence....it is blown OUT toward the street. So the bomb had to be BEHIND the fence...besides it is the wrong color. Think people!!!
You've obviously never worked with ordnance or explosives, 'wildknives'.
I have. In fact, you could say that was a primary job of mine for around three years before my discharge.
Explosives of this type were pretty common in Iraq. With a mortar or something like the 120 mm from an Abrams tank, the shell has velocity built up as it exits the barrel so when it hits, the main thrust and force of the explosion is mostly directional, although some shrapnel will fly in different directions, particularly with a mortar..
With an IED, which is essentially what was used in Boston, the explosion and the force is a lot more omnidirectional, because it's deliberately designed to be an anti-personnel weapon and the fragments, shrapnel and pieces fly in all directions and the main thrust of the explosion is outward in all directions, including upwards. One of the pressure cooker lids was found on top of an office building a number of stories up.
With that kind of force going in all directions, you might have some force pushing a light object like a fence away, but you would almost certainly have some torque and force capable of lifting it up and over the detonation point, or TOWARDS the blast point.
I don't know if this was the back pack in question, and it looks like maybe the FBI doesn't either, or at least they aren't saying. but I do know you're mistaken about an explosion automatically 'moving stuff in away from the blast'.
Max
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