Terror Tactics Hit Home

Today's Sun Times:

Two Chicago area cousins were charged Wednesday with scheming to "kill, kidnap or maim" Americans overseas, including troops in Iraq.

Zubair Ahmed, 27, of North Chicago and his cousin, Khaleel Ahmed, 26, of Chicago, had traveled to a convention in Cleveland and discussed sniper tactics with a trainer and "their desire to receive training in firearms and counter surveillance techniques," according to the indictment.

A little recruitment in Chicagoland.

Underlining the meaning of the words---we need to fight them over there so we don't have to fight them at home.

As you may recall, recently in the UK a "bookshop" owner, released from Gitmo, was arrested before he was able to kidnap and behead a Muslim British soldier who had arrived home after serving in Iraq.

Meanwhile, over there, for now, the latest terror tactic is using chlorine gas dirty bombs against civilians. NY Times:

It was at least the third truck bomb in a month to employ chlorine, a greenish gas also used in World War I, which burns the skin and can be fatal after only a few concentrated breaths. The bomb killed at least two people and injured 32 others, police and medical officials said.

Oh yes, of course there was no WMD in Iraq. Nope. Never. Not a trace. Not a drop. Saddam just had an inordinate appetite for chlorine, enough to fill the entire country with swimming pools and clean them several times over.

Previous posts: Your Liberty, My Liberty, The Invisible Jihad

UPDATE: More here from the Tribune. They are expected to go on trial in Cleveland this spring and are also accused of " planning to send money and computers to the Middle East". And this bit of info:

Two of those who were recruited were the Ahmeds, according to court documents. They were allegedly brought into the conspiracy by El-Hindi, who has Chicago ties. The Tribune has reported that El-Hindi, who used to live in the suburbs, ran a travel agency in the Loop near the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse that opened in the late 1990s and closed a few years ago.

UPDATE: Guess Saddam just stockpiled that chlorine by the palace pools. Providing a little R&R for Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Recently the US launched an airstrike on the village of Damadola in Pakistan. Predictable protests were lodged. We may not have gotten Zawahiri, but we got this guy, Abu Khabab. A little background on Al Qaeda's mad scientist, by Dan Darling, The Weekly Standard:

The unit was to be headed by Khabab; a large sum amounting to several thousand dollars was approved as its start-up budget. As of May 26, 1999, another computer file noted that Khabab had made "significant progress" with his work, a comment made all the more ominous by the discovery of al Qaeda videotapes aired on CNN in 2002, which showed Khabab and several assistants killing three dogs in crude chemical weapons experiments using what is believed to have been hydrogen cyanide, the same agent used by the in gas chambers in Nazi death camps.

How far Khabab got with al Zabadi before the war in Afghanistan is unknown, but according to the Robb-Silberman commission on weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence had assessed prior to the invasion that al Qaeda "had small quantities of toxic chemicals and pesticides, and had produced small amounts of World War I-era agents such as hydrogen cyanide, chlorine, and phosgene . . . Training manuals . . . indicated that group members were familiar with the production and deployment of common chemical agents" and that unconfirmed reports "indicated that al-Qa'ida operatives had sought to acquire more modern and sophisticated chemical agents." [snip]

Since the failed European plots, Khabab's location and activities have been unknown

to the general public with the exception of a January 2004 report in the New York Post claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies were mounting a worldwide manhunt for him based on new intelligence that he had resumed his activities and may have been involved in the construction of a "dirty bomb" or other devices for use in terrorist attacks in the United States. [snip]

Those wishing to view his legacy need look no further than the extremely crude but deadly chemical and biological experiments set up under the auspices of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion.