We Got Another One!

This is an old, old story to you now, but, for your records...

An 18-year-old recently arrested on terrorism charges in Arizona has the mental capacity of a child and had been in regular contact with the FBI for years before his arrest, according to family members, former teachers, and medical documents reviewed by The Intercept. Mahin Khan was arrested July 1 on charges of plotting to support the Taliban as well as the militant group the Islamic State and commit acts of terrorism in the local community.

People close to Khan say that he suffered from serious mental and emotional illnesses and that the FBI was aware of this, having met with him regularly since he was a young teenager.According to medical records and statements from family members, he was first referred to the FBI after sending a threatening email to one of his teachers at the age of 15. After an initial meeting with the FBI, he spent 45 days at an inpatient psychiatric facility for evaluation. His family says this stay at the facility was coordinated with FBI officials. Agents reportedly continued to meet with Khan regularly after he returned home and continued to do so up until the time of his arrest.

[...]

During these visits, which occurred every few months, no lawyer was present, as Khan’s family assumed the FBI had been meeting to “help him.”

[...]

At an initial hearing, a Joint Terrorism Task Force agent reportedly confirmed that authorities had provided Khan with a prepaid cellphone so that he could communicate with a government informant. In the course of his conversations with that informant, Khan is alleged to have indicated his willingness to kill hundreds of people, while also musing about attacking a local motor vehicle registration office or a Jewish community center.

[...]

“Mahin is 18, but mentally he is like a child,” his father, Atif Khan, said. “He doesn’t even have a driver’s license because he can’t pass his test, he can’t even tie his shoes or take care of himself in the most basic ways. We didn’t let him have a phone because we didn’t trust him with one, but now we have found out that he had been using a phone given to him by the FBI.”

[...]

A community activist told The Intercept that after Khan’s initial contact with the FBI, he began regularly meeting with the teenager in an attempt to mentor him. He said that during these meetings, Khan had exhibited obvious signs of mental illness. “He was unable to even tie his shoelaces and his mother would have to do it for him.

[...]

His statement echoed those made by a former tutor of Khan’s in an interview with local Arizona media, in which the tutor said Khan had “the mentality of a 6-year-old” and he had told Khan’s mother that there was no point in having him tutored as he was “unable to learn anything.”

[...]

Medical documents reviewed by The Intercept seem to confirm that Khan suffered from cognitive impairments. A developmental evaluation conducted by psychologists last year found that Khan “requires considerable support from parents to complete day-to-day skills.”

[...]

Court documents indicate the formal investigation began as early as February of this year. On June 18, Khan turned 18 and was arrested shortly afterward. “They waited until two weeks after his 18th birthday to arrest him, but even now he doesn’t understand the gravity of the things going on around him,” his father said.

  The Intercept

There ought to be a law.

And, for future reference, in case anyone needs to be told:  never, never, never trust the FBI.

Our Myopic World View

It is now confirmed that the would-be bomber of the civilian jet was, in fact, a double agent working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence. So just as virtually every “domestic Terror plot” is one conceived, directed, funded and controlled by the FBI, this new Al Qaeda plot from Yemen was directed by some combination of the CIA and its Saudi partners. So this wasn’t merely a failed, nascent plot which is causing this fear-mongering media orgy: it was one controlled at all times by the U.S. and Saudi Governments.

[...]

Indeed, on the very same day that CNN and the other cable news networks devoted so much coverage to a failed, un-serious attempt to bring violence to the U.S. — one that never moved beyond the early planning stages and “never posed a threat to public safety” — it was revealed that the U.S. just killed multiple civilians, including a family of 5 children, in Afghanistan. But that got no mention. That event simply does not exist in the world of CNN and its viewers .

[...]

This is the message sent over and over by the U.S. media: we are the victims of heinous, frightening violence; our government must do more, must bomb more, must surveil more, to Keep Us Safe; we do nothing similar to this kind of violence because we are Good and Civilized. This is how our Objective, Viewpoint-Free journalistic outlets continuously propagandize: by fixating on the violence done by others while justifying — or, more often, ignoring — the more far-reaching and substantial violence perpetrated by the U.S.

  Glenn Greenwald

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Saved from Another Terrorist Plot!

Let's have a look at this one.

A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.

[...]

Citing US and Yemeni officials, Associated Press reported that the unnamed informant was working under cover for the Saudis and the CIA when he was given the bomb, which was of a new non-metallic type aimed at getting past airport security.

[...]

US officials have said the plot was detected in its early stages and that no American airliner was ever at risk.

  UK Guardian

I perhaps am a bad American for admitting this, but I truly do not know what to make of the now-almost-weekly announcements by one law-enforcement organization or another that they've foiled another terrorist plot. Last week, we had the FBI sting of the saps in Ohio who the FBI accuses of wanting to blow up a bridge. And on Monday evening, the CIA announced that it had thwarted what news reports called, with the straightest of faces, a new and more sophisticated underwear bomb.

[...]

I've always had my doubts about these FBI sting operations, where some G-man sets up a hapless malcontent and fills him full of arrant bullshit about rocket-launchers and bringing down the infidel, and the guy says, "Yeah, let's do it!" and ends up in Pelican Bay for the rest of his life. Is it the FBI's job to go around and find everyone in the country who can be convinced by a hot meal and new shoes that he can be a world revolutionary hero? What happens, I ask again, if one of these FBI-sponsored plots goes off the rails and actually comes to fruition?

  Charlie Pierce

Fast and Furious.

And by the way, since body scanners are not going to work for these “new and sophisticated” bombs, what next at the airport? Not that the fact that they don't work if you strap your bomb to your side stopped the Fatherland from purchasing the invasive and mostly useless machinery.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another Terror Plot Foiled by the FBI

By the FBI who set up the dumb bastard in the first place.

A man who thought he had explosives for an attack has been arrested near the US Capitol as part of anti-terrorism investigation, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said in a statement on Friday that the arrest was "in connection with a terrorism investigation". It said: "Explosives the suspect allegedly sought to use in connection with the plot had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement and posed no threat to the public."

[...]

Fox News reported that the suspect was of Moroccan descent and had expressed interest in an attack on the Capitol to undercover FBI agents.

The agents posing as al-Qaeda members had provided him with fake explosives that they claim he intended to set off at the Capitol.

  alJazeera

This is how they roll. Set 'em up and knock 'em down. We'll never know how many attempts there might actually be if the FBI weren't out there enticing and entrapping.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.