http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/08/022340print.htmlNew York: Egyptian national with Sudanese passport builds unmanned drone
designed to carry 600 pounds of explosives -- FBI says no terrorismJust a random Egyptian national with a Sudanese passport in Calverton, Long
Island building a random unmanned drone that carries random explosives. Heck,
have a little sense of perspective! If you think this has anything to do with
terrorism, next thing you know you'll be locking up Methodist grandmothers in
Kansas when they build /their/ unmanned explosive-carrying drones! Just a little
backyard fun here, folks. Move along.
"Unmanned Drone On L.I. Sparks Terror Investigation," by Jonathan Dienst for
WNBC.com <http://www.wnbc.com/news/17266645/detail.html>, August 22 (thanks to
all who sent this in):
NEW YORK -- An unmanned drone being built by an engineer on Long Island
sparked a large counter-terrorism investigation across the New York area,
officials tell WNBC.com. Police said they had stumbled upon overnight
testing of the drone at a little-used airstrip in Calverton, Long Island.
The investigation began in February of last year, when investigators first
learned testing of the drone was underway. Officials said *
the drone was
being designed to carry more than 600 pounds of explosives.*
"It could be in the air for 8-10 hours and there's potential harm if it is
carrying a large amount of toxic material," NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly
said in explaining why his department's counterterrorism officials were
concerned.
Police surveillance video obtained by News 4 New York shows a white van
rolling onto the tarmac, a small group of men jumping out and ground testing
the unmanned flight vehicle.
Kelly said the engineer building the drone never reported his work to any
agency including the Federal Aviation Administration or local authorities.
Investigators said concern increased for a time when they learned *the man
behind the project was an Egyptian national who had entered the U.S. on a
Sudanese passport*. [...] "It was such a bizarre set of circumstances," said New York State Homeland
Security Director Michael Balboni. "Of course we watched it as closely as we
did anything that was on our radar screen."
*NYPD officials worked with Suffolk County police and the FBI to determine
there were no ties to terror.* Under questioning, the engineer said he was
an inventor hoping to sell this drone model to the U.S. military. NYPD
Lieutenant William McGroarty said during the investigation they had other
questions....
In this case, police said there is no evidence any laws were broken as the
drone was tested on the ground. Officials said if it had gone into the air
without prior FAA approval, it could have been considered a crime....
Andy McCarthy
<http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTVhYTkzMDBmY2EzZTY2YmNhN2YzODc3YmZiNjIyM2I=>
explains what's fishy about this:
First, as we might recall from other investigations over the past several
years, it is the practice especially of the FBI to find "no ties to terror"
in any case involving Muslims where there is no known evidence of a
relationship between the subjects of the investigation and any established
terrorist organization (such as al Qaeda or Hezbollah). Because of concerns
about "profiling" — despite the fact that we are under siege by Muslim
terrorists — the fact that investigative subjects happen to be Muslims is
deemed irrelevant (as if, in a Mafia investigation, you would have to ignore
whether a subject was Italian or not for fear of being accused of
Italophobia.) There is no concession in the report that the subjects of this
investigation are Muslims. I'm gonna go out on a limb, though, and guess
there's an itsy-bitsy chance given that the engineer in question is an
Egyptian national with a Sudanese passport. The happenstance that the
subjects may be Muslims would not of itself make them guilty of anything —
but it's not irrelevant.
Second, as I recount in /Willful Blindness
<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594032130/103-8684594-2238265?ie=UTF8&tag=robertspencer-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=1594032130>/,
the first known activities of the jihadist cell that eventually killed Meir
Kahane in 1990, plotted to kill Hosni Mubarak in 1992, bombed the World
Trade Center in 1993, and was stopped a few months later in the midst of
plotting to bomb other New York City landmarks, was the FBI's investigation
of paramilitary training over several weekends in July 1989. The Muslim men
in question — who at the time were not known to have ties to any established
terrorist organizatoin but went on to carry out the aforementioned plots —
piled into vans at a radical mosque in Brooklyn and traveled to a shooting
range where they conducted shooting practice with a variety of weapons,
including AK-47s. The FBI closed the investigation when the men discovered
they were under surveillance and complained that they were being harrassed.
The shooting range they chose for the training was in Calverton, Long Island.
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